It's a Knockout

I wouldn't be looking to break into club funds for this one, if we want prizes then there is an entry fee to provide it, which of course means that it won't be too big a prize - or I doubt people will want to take part. £2 sounds about the highest we could go for an entry fee I think. Depending on how many people we sign up for it £10 for winner £5 for runner up sounds a reasonable target, anything spare can go into the club kitty. I hadn't been planning on running a game for third place, though if the two beaten semi finalists wish to challenge each other to see who would have got third they are more than welcome to.

shall we give the tournament a name so I can put it on the trophy?

The floor is open for suggestions, the best I could come up with is already the title for this thread  

ok we'll go with that then "It's A Knockout 2013" 

Now I'm surprised no one has asked this yet, but don't worry I have considered ways to figure out what to do in the event of a drawn game in this knockout competition...

there are a few options for you to consider.

1. If it isn't turn 7, play an extra turn and see if someone can sneak the win.
2. Record score at the end of turn 5, 6 and 7. If the game is tied at the end of whichever turn rolls as being the last turn, add in your scores from the previous turns to see if you can get a winner.
3. Who was nearer to claiming the win - if you extended the range of the objectives to 6" would this give someone a win?
4. Classic victory points - who has killed more of the opponents army?
5 Or for the really masochistic - a dice based penalty shootout...

Now games will be decided the same way throughout the contest, i'm just throwing up some options to see what people prefer. We could potentially do a combination of some of the above (step 1, still no winner, step 3, still no winner, try step 4... etc) All of this will be decided before we begin. But which of the above appeal to you? Which do you hate the idea of? And why?

well I don't like 4. because if you have a small amount of units your going to be at an advantage over someone with a lot of units because the opponent will have more points to lose! i.e what happened to me on Monday, wasn't all down to that but his units were small in number but very hard with them all having 2 wounds each. what about warlord vs warlord in close combat, winner takes the game, think that would be fun. 1. would be a good idea, not sure what you mean by 2., think 3. would cause some fall outs, 5. we're English and don't like penalty shoot outs! I personally would go with 1. and if still a draw then warlord vs warlord.

Paul you misunderstand me on point 4, I'm talking OLD victory points, as in how many points each unit that is dead was bought for... which means if you kill a ten man paladin squad you are doing better than your opponent who killed two rhinos. Hell, if we used kill points as the tie-breaker, how would it tie-break the situation if it was a kill point mission?  

Warlord vs Warlord in combat... good for those who run Logan Grimnar or Abaddon... not so good for the Tau ethereal.

Number 1 is the simplest solution, but only fixes the situation if a) it didn't get to turn 7 of it's own accord anyway and b) turn 7 doesn't remain a draw.

2 is how a tournament I once attended was scored. There was a potential 10 points per turn, or 30 points per game available. That way a close game that swings from one person to the other they pretty much share the points, whereas the person who dominated their opponent all game from start to finish gained more points and climbed higher in the tournament ranking. It was quite a cool idea, and while I wouldn't want it to be the deciding factor for a game it could be useful as a tie breaker. If it's a turn 7 tie, but in turn 6 player A was winning six points to four, however turn 5 player B was winning seven points to three, then overall you would call player B the winner eleven points to nine. Of course it can also still end in a tie, so there'd need to be a fallback plan after this one...

3 - yes, deciding part way through a game to have the decider be that would cause fallouts, but if people know that the tiebreaker is this and play to it I believe it should be ok. Think about it - have you ever had those games where your late dash for the objective failed because of a poor difficult terrain or run or consolidate roll. Your units are poised but just can't get there. Or those games where it's a draw because your opponent is contesting your objective with his last surviving model? Happened to me last month. If there'd been a turn 6 or turn 7 I would clearly have won, anyone looking over the game could see that. Of course I'm not going to ask someone to poke their head over the tied game and guess who would win... now that WOULD cause fall outs. But if expanding the range of the objectives means that a couple of captured objectives become contested, it could alter the scoreline in favour of one team or the other - presumably the team that was best poised to snatch a victory. Not a perfect system by any means but was an idea...

5 - option 5 may end up being back there as a worst case scenario all other options exhausted fallback position. We could include ALL of the options I have listed and still have a tied game - one of those games that has been tied all game, at the end of turn 5, 6 and 7. That is kill points so no objectives to expand, or expanding the objectives still results in a tie. It'd be damn unlikely there'd be a tie in a victory point count up, but it is still *potentially* possible. Somewhere at the bottom of the list will lurk something that will be entirely down to luck, just in case...

However, I can tell you now that a warlord scrap will NOT be a decider. Quite apart from the fact that it screws over Guard, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and basically anyone who isn't in terminator armour with an awesome invulnerable save, even if you DID get two characters that were fairly evenly matched in points cost and ability... who gets to charge? Could be crucial. Yet if one person is deemed to have enough of an advantage to deserve to charge, then whatever determined that advantage should already have decided them the game winner regardless.  

well as you know i'm new so that cleared up what you meant cause they weren't what I thought. the warlord vs warlord was just an idea cause we did something similar in the apoc game to see who went first but that was with the two cheapest hq units, but I would have said they were both locked in combat from the start so no one charged and I would have said they both went at same time regardless of initiative, but I don't know all the warlords so don't know how good they are. I know abaddon is hard and the grey knight guy is but don't know the rest. so maybe not a good idea as after the fliers debate they'd prob be some debate about that:) i'm happy to go with what ever as I've never done any of those before so will just see what I think once I've tried and tested them as "you don't know till you've tried it". I will trust your wisdom o'wise one, man of many battles who baths in the glory of past victories.  

I always play the "points lost" idea in my games (or how many points left on the board as its easier sometimes).

Think this is a lot fairer and it gives a clear winner. Only downside is it takes a bit longer to work out  

So that would be my vote for all tournement games where its a draw and I would also recommend a "third person" does the counting. This stops any arguments and also prevents the whole "oh, forgot I upgraded that guy, so I now win by 1 point!!!"

got list sorted and will be bringing it tomorrow.

I think old school VPS purely for simplicity and if your list is written out properly then there should be no cases of I forgot I upgraded that guy or those kind of shenanigans. The flip side of this is there dont seem to be as many draws as there used to be with the addition of secondary objectives. In the 1 objective each mission which is usually the draw one why not jus make the enemies objective worth double so you are encouraged to go for the win rather than sit on your ass and wait it out

sounds good. I've written out wargear and special rules for all my units so there will be no mistake plus points so hopefully mine will be ok.

Well I've written the rules for the tournament now and signed up 13 people for it based on those rules, so I'm not planning to change it. HOWEVER, if both opponents agree before their game starts that in the event of a draw they will just go for classic victory points, then that is fine with me. Just let me know before you begin so no one suddenly "forgets" when victory seemed but a turn 6 away...

The scoring at the end of each turn was an interesting thing I saw at a tourney once, I thought I'd give it a go as a tie-breaker, I like to test these things out and see whether you guys like them or not, it may be useful in future. If we do run a league ranked tourney in the future we are probably going to be stuck to a one day event, which means probably three games max, which will inevitably mean that straight three points for a win one for a draw zero for a loss will not give enough separation between competitors. Remember the fantasy tournament where we had a winner and wooden spoon but everyone else had to play off again for second and third? I don't want a repeat of that. A scoring system that has more variance in it would be more useful in those circumstances.

I'm happy to look over your list on Monday Paul, like I said I can accept some lists next week at a push (for instance Rob cannot attend therefore he shall have to submit his list next week) but the more I can get in this week the better.

Ok, here's the draw.

Heat 1. 29th July.

Dale vs Scott
Rob P vs Ginge
Rich H vs Matt
Rich F vs Jason

Heat 2. 5th August

Neil vs Paul
Tim vs Jamie
Ron vs Ben
Rich A vs wildcard*

*wildcard being, unless someone enters in the next 7 days, 1 lucky loser from heat 1 who will be randomly drawn and given a second bite of the cherry. Yes, this gives an unfair advantage to those in heat 1 (and technically Rich A as he's playing someone who can't be THAT good, or they'd be through already) but it was all drawn randomly, everyone had the same chance as anyone else to be heat 1 or wildcarded. I didn't want to use the wildcard as a buy, as I want everyone to get to play.

Remember guys I need all lists and admission fees (£2) next week, the 29th. Thanks.