Tournament Rules or League Rules?

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Phox532
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Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Phox532 »

Has anyone found any good reads on how to set up a tournament or League for AoS. I was watching one vlogger and he was saying that AoS is impossible to play competitively and that 8thE would always be the go to for this style of play. While I'm new to the game, I think that there can be tournament play and it could be very interesting if you balance right. I have some ideas let me know what you think.

1)You base your rounds on scenarios The every round would play the same one with the winner advancing, each player flipping for what role they have to play. this leads to a Championship Scenario at the end.
2) You can choose one army to bring. What I mean is that the model you use in round one have to be the same as in round two an so on. So you have to pick an army that is balanced that you think play all the way through to the final round.
3) You are aloud a two unit side bar, some small changes can be made, but you have to sub out one unit for another. Named/specials/heroes can not be side barred.
4)Only allowed 80-100 wounds
5) No model number cap due to setting Sudden death conditions.
6)Only one "Named" Hero and two other heroes-
7)If Lost Named heroes can't be replaced. this should help people try to protect their heroes and also allow for a deeper strategy down the line.
8) Only up to 4 monster and war machine war scrolls per army. 1M-3WM, 2M-2WM, 3M-1WM, 0M-4WM, 4M-0WM
9) Finally 6-7 different war scrolls. (The two units can share a war scroll.) This should create some balance in the number of different units bought. It also should promote balance armies.

This is just some idea and would love some feed back so we can create some type of tourney or league rules. For league rules I had I idea that was similar, where every week was the same scenario each week and you keep a tab on how the game was won. Total Victory 4 points, Major 3, Minor 2. Something like that. But open to ideas. I hope this is something that we build on here and create a working Tournament Sheet that others can use.
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Daeron
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Daeron »

"Impossible" is such a strange word to use. Technically, There is no reason why the game can not be played competitively.

There are a few tournaments that played AoS. I think one of the popular comp packs is the Azyr Comp. It's available for download here:
http://louisvillewargaming.com/Resources.aspx
I'm not sure if that's the original creator of the comp though... I can check that next week (since I'll be gone for a few days ;))
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Amboadine »

As Daeron states it is not impossible. I would however say it is extremely hard to play it straight out of the box competitively.

There are a number of comp packs out there that have had a lot of time and effort put into them to try and make it work.
Wounds as a measure are not a great way to comp, as there is absolutely no reason not to always take the best elite troops over what was our core. Both are equal in the view of the game.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Daeron »

I honestly don't know if uncomped could ever work. If there is a balance in the game, it is implicit in a way I haven't seen it yet. Not that I mind for my casual games.
But a tournament could easily take a built and ready comp pack. As was so often the case in WFB.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Phox532 »

What is the deference between the current war scrolls and say 8thE or 7thE. If you are looking at say Darkshards or BleakSpears.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Daeron »

WFB came with a point system where every model had a certain cost associated to it. You'd decide the point size of the opposing armies before the battle or tournament. Then there were some additinal rules. Units were divided into categories: lords, heroes, core, special, rare. Each category had a limit in how much they could take up, ie you could have only 25% of your points invested in rare. Then there was also a choice limitation: you could take the same rare unit only twice.
Core units had the least restrictions, allowing you to take any amount, any number. These were usually your Dreadspears, Darkshards, Corsairs ...

It was more complex but a part of the fun in its own right.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Phox532 »

Yea I can see how that could be fun. But that also seems to limit usefulness of some models. Never playing before I have to ask was core just trash? Like how useful were those units really? Cause it seems that Specials, Heroes, and Rares is where people are going to drop most their points then.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by direweasel »

Phox532 wrote:Yea I can see how that could be fun. But that also seems to limit usefulness of some models. Never playing before I have to ask was core just trash? Like how useful were those units really? Cause it seems that Specials, Heroes, and Rares is where people are going to drop most their points then.


They weren't "trash", our dark riders were core, and they were some of the best light cavalry in the game. Our witch elves were core, they were some of the best light infantry in the game.

However, the game forced certain percentages of points to be spent in various tiers of troops. So at least 25% of the points in your army had to be core, no more than 50% special, no more than 25% rare, and character percentages that were changed once or twice. :)

Anyway, so in a 2000 point battle, every army had to make sure you spent at least 500 points in core troops. So that's why you saw them, even in armies where the core choices weren't as good as ours.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Phox532 »

I was reading somewhere and watching a video that said both unit have only improved in AoS, True or Flalse? What I meant was not so much was DE core not useful, but as in general was core useful or not. One youtuber, I believe MC1gamer was saying that now all core units were much in improved and with new synergies could have a greater focus in the army, not just be fodder to soak up hits.

He did an unboxing of all the warscrolls, walking through each one. And DE was too the end of that, but what I saw was his opinion changed about the balance and that he was thinking each army's internal rules were more balanced now and that lead to balance in the game. I haven't really looked into that but just his thought.

But back to on what i was thinking, how would be that best way to create some balance for an AoS Tournament. I have read the link that Daeron posted and it's alright but looking at the cost I'm not sure why a Sorceress on Coldone Is 2pts and DreadLord on ColdOne is 3pts, In fact all his female units and model prices are lower that a male counterpart. He knows more about the game more than me for sure, but outside looking in his model in confusing.

Which I why I was interested and still am in building rules for tournament and league play.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by direweasel »

I'm not really sure how you can talk about army balance without some kind of points mechanism. But I do know this...as long as I have the models, there's never any game-based reason that I would field Bleakswords, when I could field Black Guard instead.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Calisson »

In WH, you were forced to take 25% core, and core troops were usually less performing than special ones.
For armies where all core units were meh (such as High Elves), they called that "the core tax", and considered more or less that they had 75% of an army and 25% of cannon fodder.
For armies where some core units were rated above others, you would see all the time the best units and hardly ever the weaker ones.
In any case, it was extremely unusual to see any army with more than 30% core at all.

AoS conceptors got rid of the 25% system and the pts system altogether. They knew that if the units stayed the same, with too large a difference in power between units, gamers would just never take some of the units.
Cleverly, they upgraded slightly the "bad" units and toned down slightly the "good" units, plus they created some synergies inciting people to take some units which otherwise would not be very appealling.
As a result, all units may be considered useful.

Still, bleakswords are inherently not as powerful as blackguard, so any comp system for which you have to chose between either one will result in taking BG over swords. This is why AoS has been conceived not as "either or" game but "take both" game.
If your comp system breaks the spirit of AoS, no wonder that some units would get to become unuseful, just like in WH.

In AoS, I would classify the units as characters, spellcasters, monsters, infantry, cavalry/chariot, warmachines.
Basically, my feeling is:
Characters and spellcasters are needed to improve infantry and possibly cavalry, but they are vulnerable especially to warmachines and flying monsters.
Monsters are tough but fall to large blocks of infantry with the help of warmachines.
Fast movers are the bane of warmachines.
And similar rock/paper/scissors situations.

This makes an army composed of a single category very vulnerable to the unfavorable match.
I would rate high an army with a balance of everything except for a tilt towards one or another category: that would give it a strength to build on, and all the tools to deal with anything.

-=-=-

Back to your question,
in AoS, the balance is the sheer pressure from regular players, and scenarios.
If the game is so unbalanced as to spoil the pleasure of both auto-winner and auto-loser, they are to agree reasonably to change their respective armies.
The alternative is to set up some scenario with unbalanced conditions for win/lose, which will compensate for the lack of balance of the armies. Think about the movie "300": very unbalanced armies, predictable outcome, but very unbalanced rules for winning.

As your gaming group seems to be reduced, you will meet again and again the same players.
This provides the best conditions for reaching progressively a balance.
May I suggest you always play with all your available armies, and record who win and loses?
You would balance progressively, either with comps, or with scenarios.

Comp: If someone wins big, he would be restricted to keep the same army, not a single more model, until he loses.
The loser would be entitled to grow his army as wished until he wins.
As a result, the game would automatically balance the growth of the armies.

Scenario: Make a list of "sudden death" winning conditions (such as kill one selected opponent character, or dig one pennant in the opponent's deployment's zone for a full turn...).
If someone loses big, he would be entitled to chose one of the "sudden death" scenario winning conditions, and to keep it permanently in the future until he wins twice in a row and his opponent has a chance to delete one of these conditions.
If someone wins twice in a row, his opponent withdraws one of the winner's "sudden death" permanent conditions.

Note that your gaming group could consider both suggestions.
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Re: Tournament Rules or League Rules?

Post by Phox532 »

Thanks Calisson, I like your suggestion, and I'll definitely bring it up. I feel that my group and I really need to have a sit down in the month before "league" play begins to hammer out some written rules and not flights of fancy that our league manager seems to be pulling out his ass.
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