Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

Unsurprisingly, I agree with Mark's last piece; on the other hand, I also agree with Jon that 45min for setup is silly.

HOWEVER: despite raising this several times over the years, there are _zero_ options to enforce any kind of time limits. If I decide to take 2 hours over deployment, because I'm just that slow - well, too bad for my opponent.

And I'll refer you once again to the *NICT* game where my moves and deployment took a total of maybe 45 min during the 4 hours, yet we still failed to complete bound 4 (and it may have been bound 3 - I'm erring on the cautious side given the vagaries of memory).

All of which is to say that it seems we're tied into short games; can we at least have some enforcement of a reasonable play speed? Now, I *don't* know how to do this with a single ump, and I'm damn sure that Scott doesn't want to listen to the whines of 'but he's taking so loooooong.' But the problem needs some solution.

Finally: Jon, from a business point of view I can see that FHE wants to recruit new folk. Couple of things there. First, you risk losing the complexity and finesse that attract Warrior players. Second, you run the risk of having a lot of inconclusive games, which I expect are not what new recruits want to see ("Look, I shook a LI unit. Well, no, we didn't actually get to fight the main battle - not enough time. Sorry. Try DBM."). Third you (clearly!) run the risk of losing your existing player base. And lastly, while expansion to new folks may be a goal for FHE, the tournaments are run for the benefit of _existing_ Warrior players, and not by FHE.

Argh. OK, I will stop ranting, and go actually play, and see what happens. I have even changed my army to try as best I can to have a force that actually has a hope of doing something in 2.5 hours (!). We'll see.

[Dave Markowitz]

Scott:

In the mini, does each general get four terrain picks? In past minis, it has been 3, but I thought that was due to the smaller board size used is those formats.

Thanks. Dave.

[Mark Stone]

If we are going to give 3 1/2 hours a serious try, then I'm with Ewan: you have to do something to constrain how much time players spend on setup, and you probably have to do something to penalize slow setup.

Option 1: Get a chess clock, allocate 15 minutes to each player for setup, and the first player to run out of time before completing setup awards 2 points to the opposing player (capping maximum points per game at 5).

Option 2: Allocate half an hour for setup, announce when half an hour has passed, and allow players to appeal to the umpire if (a) both sides haven't finished setup and (b) one player feels the other has taken way more time with setup. If the appeal is upheld by the umpire, the appealing player is awarded 2 points (capping maximum points per game at 5).

Option 3: Allocate half an hour for setup, announce when half an hour has passed, and deduct one point from score for each player on any table where setup has not been completed (this requires the umpire to do an inspection of tables to see who has finished and who has not).

This are all imperfect ideas off the top of my head. But here's what I do believe: create an enforcable mechanism for limiting setup to half an hour, and then 3 1/2 hours should as effective as our current 4 hours in achieving decisive results without skewing army balance/army choice.


-Mark Stone

[scott holder]

Dave: 4 picks since you're playing on a "normal" sized board.

Mark/Ewan: Believe me, I've thought, rethought and thought again about guidelines and mechanisms for exactly the things you discuss. *Lots* of time.

Everybody, don't forget that the Mini's deployment zone is deepened. That will help although I'm not sure we need a deeper deployment zone in 25mm. 15mm, yes. 25mm, I'm still uncertain.

Chess clocks are impractical at one level but more importantly, send the wrong message to observers. You won't see me pushing chess clocks for Warrior.

Here's a draft of what I have to date in terms of game setup and the steps involved and the time that should be allocated to it:

1) Deciding what terrain you want. Each player gets no more than 1 minute to do this. It happens simultaeneously.

2) Rolling and placing terrain. Shouldn't need a time limit on this.

3) Organizing army and deployment orders. Each player gets 3 minutes. It happens simultaeneously.

4) Deploying Commands. Each player has 10 minutes to deploy. Players will time each other. If you take less time to deploy a command, that just means you have more time for another. If you do not finish in time, any units not placed are simply not used. They don't count toward anything (demoralization, tourney points for being off table, etc). It's as if they didn't exist.

Additional Procedural Details:

1) You can't select a terrain piece unless you have it in your possession. No wandering around looking for that extra hill you suddenly feel you need.

2) Terrain must be a fairly accurate representation of the piece being dumped (we're not bad about this now but could be a lot better). So if you want woods, you damn better have some trees to go along with it.

That's it. Everything accomplished in 30 minutes or less. The big penalty (instead of appealing to the ump) is how deployment is timed and how you lose units if you're not done in time. Talk about motivation.

scott

[Ewan McNay]

Scott - one the one hand, good thoughts (and not surprised you've been thinking about it). On the other hand two Qs: (i) how do you plan to break these new restrictions to those of us not as a/n/a/l/ present on the boards? and, (ii) honestly, isn't the need for all of this going to be a *lot* more off-putting to J. Random Newbie when Evil E. Tournamentplayer says "10 mins and one sec, I'm sorry, your Sassanid SHC are all out of this battle"?

I know, I'm now arguing as the devil's advocate. I'm also, honestly, a little stressed about the fact that generally-fast players are now being penalised (in terms of time to think about deployment etc., which is not often needed but sometimes *is*).

Nonetheless, as I said above, I'll now go taste this new concoction before rating the result .

[Terry Dix]

[scott holder]

Ewan: I'll have handouts at the show. This is always an issue on *anything* we do that deviates from the "norm", thus, it's no different this time around.

I expect Cold Wars to be a bit rough as a result but that in no way will dictate how Hcon goes in general terms (although tinkering with procedures and such are to be expected). These things typically take a full "season" to evaluate.


scott

[Tim Grimmett]

I have two thoughts on this debate:

Go to preset terrain; with the side with the most scouting points picking which end of the table he wants.

Limiting the number of units available. I have 9-11 units in a Japanese Army; I had one game go to 4 hours.

Have at it.

[Todd Kaeser]

Preset terrain has its good and bad aspects. Good is that it aids in setup time spent - this is what we're all discussing. Bad is that it takes a fair amount of preparation in order to do well. In a small tournament this isn't too bad - I've done this myself at times. However, in a tournament as large as CW or Historicon it is darn near impossible. That's a lot of terrain to be used and specific tables would have to be designated and mapped out prior to. Instead of sending us off to a rough area we would be relegated to a specific table allotment. Plus you have to acquire a lot of terrain from other players that is aesthetically represented.

Preset terrain could be a logistical nightmare - as if Scott doesn't have enough to do.

Todd K

[Ewan McNay]

The big downside of preset terrain, for me, is that it's a step which removes nuance, tactical ability, and also variation between battles. Doesn't really change luck - instead of missing terrain picks, now you get to fight on the one table with a minor water feature and four swamps. As such, removing reward for careful and skillful play cannot be a good thing, I would suggest.

[joncleaves]

Again, this is mostly just one guy's opinion.

I'm not sure about the loss of existing player base. You guys seem pretty resilient...lol

Before I am a member of FHE, I am a player of the game. I am personally not into seeing the same 30 faces every year - if that is the way it just has to be, I'd move on. So far I am not convinced it has to be that way, but I am convinced most of those 30 people are not the answer to bringing in new players. I am not into bringing new players into Warrior primarily from a business perspective. All we need at FHE is to stay in the black - beyond that we have decided its a hobby. If I wanted to make money in gaming, Warrior is not the answer. Warrior is a labor of love.

I look at other games being played and I see games that finish in 2.5 hours, played with simply superb looking figures on excellent terrain. While Warrior is certainly improved to a large extent in the figure area - although those crappy cobbled loaner armies from the early 80's still find their way onto our tables - the terrain is shite.
Added to this is the pace and length of the 1600/4 hour game.

Now, the one thing that is not changeable about Warrior is its complexity and depth. Its what attracts me to it, and I know others are as well. But that does not excuse slow play or the insane amount of time people can take just to set up.

Personally, I'd fix this with pre-set terrain. Scouting could be used to influence who chose what table side. We certainly have more labor and $ available than any of the clubs putting on events with more tables than we use and beautiful terrain on every table. That is a minor problem - one that I and others have solved 1000's of times. This would simultaneously fix the set up issue to a large degree and give our tables the look they should have.

Scott takes a poll every year of the qualifiers from the previous year on the format of the NICT. The results are predictable.

Given that the eventual participation in the NICT is one of Warrior's selling points (and NASAMW's only selling point...) the NICT format impacts play out in the hinterland.

We need to look at different deployment zones, pre-set terrain and shorter round times. My fellow NICTers need to rethink their answers to these unless they like playing the same folks year after year.

J

[Mark Stone]

[joncleaves]

Mark and all
I will respond on a new thread under the Fifth Horseman topic.

Jon

[scott holder]

Preset Terrain:

The logistics of this are not impossible. Of the non-DBA tourneys at Hcon 06, the three largest in terms of attendance were Warrior, FoW and WAB. All three had participation in the 40-50 player range.

FoW and WAB have preset terrain. It ranges in quality but as Jon has indicated, it's still light years ahead of what we do. And that's cuz we require people to bring their own terrain and transportation is a huge factor in this.

So, if FoW and WAB have people storing the terrain and schlepping it to Lancaster, theoretically there's no reason why we can't either. Also, assume for a minute that money for purchasing said terrain isn't an issue. Then assume we have somebody willing to store and haul it. This would also include ground cloths.

We then take one of two approaches. We go with preset terrain. It speeds up deployment and presumably the game. The downside is that there's a tendency to put little terrain on the table so that games don't bog down. The second downside is what Ewan highlights, it removes another important decision point in the flow of the game. I've historically resisted pre-set terrain at our big shows precisely for that reason.

But, I'm also not wed to the idea that preset terrain isn't *a* way to move ahead on the issue.

The second approach is that all the terrain is provided, or at least a good representative chunk of terrain. Players then pull from the pool and place it as they normally would. If we advertise in advance what will be available, then if you want something we don't have, you bring it. With the caveat that said piece of terrain meets our minimum (wtf they are) standards for acceptability. If you don't have that approved ahead of time and bring a piece of felt for a major water feature, whoever is running the tourney (most likely me) will tell you "tough, it ain't allowed". This way also means you might not get the hill the exact, oh-so-precise size you want. Again, tough. If you feel you need a hill that's exactly 376.5x398.879p in size, you bring it but also realize it needs to meet visual standards.

Just musing off the top of my head. Last year, people who saw the Saturday Warrior tourneys came away absolutely in awe of much of the painting quality. Our next step is to improve terrain, somehow, so that our games become much more eye candy.

scott

[joncleaves]

First, I will admit a bias - I watch someone fold over a piece of felt because the one he has isn't the perfect size for the millimeters he wants to get away with and that is about the most heinous thing on many levels to me.

Second, I would be happy to create a guide for tourney directors on what would make sense for a set of tables in terms of pre-set terrain that is legal within the 14.3 framework, but is also representative of the terrain ancients battles were fought over.