Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

I'd like to continue part of the discussion that's been going on in the Cold Wars Minis thread, but since we are now post-Cold Wars, this seems like it should be its own topic. So here we go:

There are strongly divided opinions about whether games should or should not be 4 hours. Both veterans and relatively new players (thanks Noel!) have weighed in on both sides. I believe Jon and Scott when they say that the majority of players polled want less than 4 hour games; I'm less convinced that this is a decision well served by simple majority vote. However, I'd prefer to focus the discussion on the part everyone can agree on:

Setup takes too long!

When Scott announced his intention to shorten setup times during Cold Wars, I took the following steps:

* Committed to a command structure for all games regardless of opponent; since we were running 6 generals, this was not a trivial decision;
* Printed out copies of Alex's and my army lists by command structure ahead of time;
* Arrived early enough at the gaming area on Saturday morning to take out all my figures and organize them in an accessible and portable manner by command. Let me emphasize that point: When it was time to set up a particular command, all of our figures were already together in one place for each command.

Here's what I observed from our opponents: Scott's strictures about timelines for setup were universally ignored. We had one opponent who was rumaging through unsorted boxes of figures to find their commands. We had one opponent who said "We kind of have a standard setup, so we're just going to set up; why don't you go ahead and do the same?" (this was fine by me, by the way). We had one opponent who took over an hour to set up (and this from a team with a veteran player), including bath room breaks, time to go get coffee/soda, whatever.

The length of time two of our opponents took for setup was excessive, but more importantly the complete lack of respect for announced and printed guidelines about setup was really distressing. We can cut game length to two hours, but if players don't respect the game we aren't going to get new recruits.

So I'm all in favor of faster setup. I think there are some basic things in terms of rules governing setup and tournament format we can do that would help speed up this part of the game. But if we don't have buy-in from the players, none of this is going to matter.

The same issue applies to the ugliness of our terrain, but that's a topic for another post.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

One thing to clear up - Scott does not poll the entire Warrior playership. He polls the qualifiers from the previous year about the next year's format. The majority of those folks like things the way they have always been. And *that* is the single most troubling thing facing Warrior, IMO.


Our potential recruits come from game systems where much of what Mark discusses above is completely unacceptable.

Heck, it makes *me* not want to play Warrior. If it is going to continue to be ok to:
- take a piss break or leave the table during their own set up or movement
- play with crap lead
- ignore event instructions, to include showing up with white rulebooks or 7th books or play aids.
- take 45+ minutes to set up
- take 20+ minutes for an approach phase

Then I will probably end up leaving game play at major events. I love Warrior, but none of the above listed things is Warrior.

Now, I am not one to discuss a problem without recommending solutions. Here's what I would do.

1. Require painted figures.
2. Play with pre-set terrain.
3. Play shorter rounds, but allow a longer time in the first round. And/or split rounds into set up and play.

J

[scott holder]

Mark:

I should have been called over.

This really pisses me off. I don't do this stuff simply to be ignored.

Again, I realize that calling over the ump for something like this can set a negative tone for the game. But the opponent ignoring tournament instructions already sets a negative tone for the game.

Let me reiterate, this isn't simply an FHE thing, it's what NASAMW has asked me to do for the year, ie., getting games setup and played faster.

Argh. Sorry Mark, I'm not beating on you, just a general rant. Thanks for bringing this up. Since this occurred during the Doubles events, I'm not terribly surprised. If it had occurred during the Mini where adherence to the time strictures was required, I'd be doubly pissed off.

The setup rules catered to the lowest common demoninator and clearly that still exists. Man am I steamed. I could get exceedingly draconian and simply start deducting points from an opponent's score.

Did I say I was steamed?

As for slow play, let me reiterate, if you have an opponent who plays moronically slow, call me over.

White rule books: I saw one this weekend and gave the player an earful. I won't be that forgiving at Hcon. If I see a white rule book or TOG book, I will immediately toss you from the tourney. Old playing aids are okay if they are more comfortable for you to use.

Unpainted figures: We don't allow them and to my knowledge, haven't seen them in close to 15 years if not longer. Crappy painted figures, I'm okay with. Well, I'm not okay with em but that's not an area we can dictate. We can dicate basic painted figures. They don't hafta be great but they do hafta have more than 2 colors on em.

scott

[Mark Stone]

[Ewan McNay]

I had a better experience than Mark, but there are a number of points of commonality.

First, biggest: My opponent would have to be doing something truly heinous for me to call you in as a time-keeper. Said opponent is likely to be the kind of player who will then avoid getting any result to the game just to 'get back' at me, is my guess. [I *hasten* to add that I haven't played anyone like this in a long time]

Second: yeah, no-one paid attention to the dictates, although I think most people did try to move fast - but then that's normally true; I just don't think that anyone paid any attention to the details or enforcement that were being introduced. I actually did make one comment on timing to one opponent, after making a casual measure of his deployment time (and no, it wasn't Dimitri!); the response was '"come on, that's not serious". I'm not surprised: mandates that are not enforced are routinely ignored (think speed limits).

Solution? I like Jevon's idea. Each table has a simple number pad showing what bound you're on, starting at 0 during setup. Scott wanders. If a table is behind on setup, or behind the norm on play peed, it's obvious with no player action needed. I might just put this in place for the H'Con theme. Other ideas? Well, bridge directors announce round timings and 'you have five minutes remaining for this round' or whatever. For Scott to come around at 30 min and check that everyone is deployed and playing would really help sort *that* out.

All of this requires 'activist judges' - i.e. umpires. That's totally fine with me - sorry, Scott. I think that is just the way that it has to be.

Other than the one comment, above, I had no play-speed issues: 4 of 6 games ended way before their time limits, and the other two were just complex battles that took time. Both of *those*, though, show the downside to any attempt to shorten games. One was in the mini: an extra 30 min would have allowed a decisive conclusion. Remember that we already have two LC forces who have hence been in combat from bound 1. The second, in the teams, would have been a 1-0 30 min earlier (and that was a game with *two* fast teams - at least 7 bounds, even with 2000 points, and ending with foot having been able to move *through brush* to the opposing baseline on both flanks).

I guess my points are that (i) even with both sides being competent and speedy, it can take 4h or more to come to a point of sensible conclusion; (ii) that 2.5h even in a mini, can be too short, and (iii) that shortening game length penalises fast players and rewards slow ones, really, by enabling them to avoid defeat - I've never seen a winning player play slow. A much *better* idea might be to offer both sides a bonus VP for speedy finishing, which could be used to break ties or added on only in the 'adjusted' rather than 'raw' score phase (to avoid being too important - could be a 0.5 VP or something instead). That way fast play is encouraged but the times when time is needed, it's still there.

More on CW AAR in a separate post. Got back to find the entire yard, including car, under a foot of ice. We live on a small hill, and couldn't get to any door for lack of friction!

[Ewan McNay]

p.s. Talked with Frank briefly about chess clocks. I see that Bill Chriss has made the same point online thatwe got to, which was that clocks/time limits for the movement portions of the game (which I agree are the most troubling, and also the easiest to monitor) might be plausible.

I do have sympathy for the detractions from image. A better solution probably requires more umpire activism, though; or honestly, just a simple timer that can be set to whatever - 5 min? - at the start of an approach phase and when it goes off, no more movement.

[Timers came up one other time, talking about preset terrain over many beers Sat night. The concept was to have tables set up, then roll off for order of choice of table. Scott thought we might end up with someone taking 25 min to choose. Other than the public humiliation that would then ensue , a 1-min timer would solve that, too. This as many other several ideas courtesy of Jevon.]

[scott holder]

Mark: Because I'd only worked on this for the Mini, I didn't want to be too draconian on the Doubles. The Setup Procedures were in full force for the Mini, only voluntary for Doubles. Your weather nightmare meant you didn't catch that.

From my vantage point, I was surprised during the Mini to see soooooooo many armies heavily engaged very early on. I'm sure there were exceptions to that but I was seriously struck by what I saw. Thus, I think that most people, conciously or unconciously, in the Mini, worked in good faith with the speeded up Setup.

Perhaps my mistake was not also dictating it for Doubles.

I guarantee you, it'll be dictated for all the events at Hcon.

Ewan: if you want to trial run other things along these lines, particularly Jevon's "here's what game turn it is" idea for the Theme, more power to you. We can coordinate in advance and I'll gladly be a player guniea pig for it. You'll need to think of penalties or something should you find a table that's lagging, particularly at the beginning. I guess the first question in all of this should be: "In a 1600 point game without preset terrain, after 1 hour, on what bound should the game be?" I'd say at the minimum, bound 2, ie, after 60 minutes of time, the game should be starting bound 2 if not beyond. But now I'm just talking off the top of my head.

scott

[joncleaves]

I like Jevon's bound marker idea. Can't test it here though because we don't play slow!

Ewan's observations on activist umpires is right on. When I retire from playing, I will take this up...

I am in disagreement with Scott on old 7th play aids being ok, but will speak to him off line.

[scott holder]

I should have also said I certainly don't have any problems being an activist umpire, in fact, I look forward to prowling around . I mean I do that anyway to look at figures and camps. I'm trying to juggle too many post-Cold Wars things today so a few of these good points are slipping by in my responses.

So, if I need to wander around while looking at the clock and looking at some visual display of what bound each game is on, I'll be more than glad to do that.

I look forward to any ideas about how to then handle games that aren't where they're supposed to be. That's what my intent was on the Speedy Setup Procedures. If you didn't finish in time, no more troops on the table. That seems pretty good incentive to me. I guess it comes down to enforcement. Thus, how would we balance that incentive with Jevon's idea on bound status? If I wander over "too late" and both sides are deployed but one went over the time limit, well, there's precious little I can do about it.

But if meshing these two concepts means being really vigilant for the first 30 minutes of the round, again, no problem.

This online conversation is really good and follows a lot of good brainstorming at Cold Wars.

scott

PS: And lest anyone think that some type of preset terrain mechanism (with possible slight deviations) means this discussion is moot, that's not the case. As Mark's pointed out, deployment of one's army is typically *the* nastiest example of the lowest common denominator. And much of what we're talking about here relates directly to that. Preset terrain only cuts off X amount of time in deployment and doesn't solve the overall gripe everybody has with slooooow setup. Preset terrain is really geared more toward solving the visual problems in Warrior tourneys.

[wargame692000]

Another alternative to speed up play is remove setup from the time limit for games. Allow 3 hours (ish, depending on table size and point value) for play AFTER terrain and deployment. This removes all incentive to deploy slowly.

Just a thought.
Paul Collins.

[Bill Chriss]

I, too, like Jevon's idea about bound status cards on each table. Here is another simple thing we could require that is similar to what some of us do already (see Mark's practice posted above): each player not only gets (and turns in to the umpire) one list per event, but that list is pre-organized into commands, listed in order of march. This, in practical terms, is unlikely to significantly alter tactical choices during deployment, since i think people don't vary their command structure very significantly from round to round. But it will require advance thought and preparation, just as basic list writing does already. Thus, by simply requiring greater advance specificity in list writing, setup time can be reduced. This, together with Jevon's idea might well obviate the need for the more onerous solution of chess-clocks. I'm sure if we all keep brainstorming, a satisfactory set of practices will develop and be quickly accepted.

[Ewan McNay]

[Todd Schneider]

I posted this on the otherthread, but it fits better here:

... from my POV, there is a simple fix to the problems stated, and one that fits the Warrior format quite well.

Dock the person points.

You get "X" amount of minutes to setup. Exceed that, lose 100 points. Show up without your own terrain, lose "50" points. Using an old set of WRG charts? Lose "50" points. And so on.

Todd