Tournament environment - D6G interview

[Shawn Kehoe]

During the recent interview with Eric Johns by the D6 Generation, Eric mentioned that Wyrd is working on a tournament format wherein each player will choose a faction during registration, but assemble a new crew each round based on the opposing faction and the strategies. This sounds like a neat idea, and it takes advantage of Malifaux's low model count and easy army list accounting.

That having been said, letting Guild crews stack the appropriate anti-faction units in each round sounds very imposing. It would be key for Non-guild players to come up with lists that capitalise on their models' strengths without relying on the staples that the Guild specialists prey upon.

[Justin]

In the sense of the guild stacking the deck, it's no different than a normal game.

You generally always know your opponent's faction, and a guild player can always specialize. I haven't really found them broken.

[notmikehill]

It would be awesome if they did it based on faction. Even though has decent denial abilities it isn't too powerful. More often than not I use zoraida and tear apart the crew from the inside.

[Norken]

That isn't really much of a change from how it is now. It is just moving faction selection from step 5 to step 1. Having faction selection in step 5 didn't make sense as written since there are faction only schemes in step 4.

[Rathnard]

Speaking as someone who pretty much has the entire neverborn faction...I think tournaments would be better off if you had a limited list of models to choose from (eg. 40SS worth, plus one master), or even a couple of preset lists (25SS Zoraida, and 25SS Pandora). Otherwise you run the risk of it becoming a money-driven game, where the players who spend loads of cash on an entire faction have the edge over players who just have their one crew.

[Ropetus]

I think tournaments would be better off if you had a limited list of models to choose from (eg. 40SS worth, plus one master)

This.

For tournament play, sideboards work very well for other gaming systems and I don't see why it would not work for Malifaux. The "pick your Crew after seeing scenario + opponent" is a good idea but I doubt it will work too well in a tournament environment.

Picking a new Crew every game will give a bit too much of an advantage to a player who has spent his cash to buy an entire faction. Also, it will cost a lot of precious time if you have to wait for everyone to build a Crew before every game. Adding 15-30 minutes before every game for Crew building will lengthen an event by ~2 hours, which is big. If you have, say one Master and 40 or 45 SS worth of models and pick 30 or 35 for each game, it will take like half a minute to swap a couple of models needed for this scenario. Also, every Master will be able to fit in all the tools they need in 40 SS.

For this to work, the scenarios played must be balanced and possible to complete with every Master. This pretty much forces the organizer to come up with their own set of scenarios. While the Strategy/Scheme system is a fine idea, in practice they are horribly unbalanced and some are almost impossible in certain matchups (Treasure Hunt Lilith vs. Ramos). They have the potential to turn the games to be more about luck during Strategy Draw (LOL I won cause I drew Reconnoiter thrice and Treasure Hunt once with my Lilith, I am teh bestest!).

Malifaux is a great game and I love the rules. However, IMO the rules present are ill suited for competent tournament play. Random scenarios and free for all Crew building are not good rules for such an environment.

My 2c.

-Ropetus

[Norken]

I suspect it is a pretty important and key aspect of how their game system deals with needing to mitigate 'bad match-ups'.

If a master or model is generally fine, except that they are just at an absurdly unfair disadvantage against another master or model that is generally fine, that is a HUGE problem if it isn't dealt with. Even though it isn't a problem most of the time.

GW handles it by not dealing with it and blaming the players for playing wrong.

Privateer Press handles it with their "bring two lists, show them to each other before the game, and pick your list that won't be hosed by either possible list you could be facing" system.

Wyrd appears to deal with it by allowing list construction after you know what faction and objectives you are up against.

This frees Wyrd up from worrying about masters or models being maligned as categorically "useless" because they suffer from being very weak in some situations. The informed list creation allows for the avoidance of those possible situations. There are a lot of "generally fine except for a bad match-up", or "perfectly serviceable in a corner case" models in other miniature games that simply do not get played, that would get played in an informed list creation system.

I frankly don't see it being a problem unless there are models that are too good at a particular scheme or against a particular faction, to the point that they clearly outshine all other options for the task. Developing models with an eye towards preventing them from being too good at one thing is going to be a heck of a lot easier than worrying about making models that are not "too bad" at anything.

The game is a low model count game anyways. It is going to be years and years before the total number of models in a faction is greater than the number of models needed to even play a game of another miniatures game.

If I bought every single Guild model, and doubled up on the non-uniques, I'd have 23 models. That is what? Two units in any other wargame? So even in the extreme case where you literally needed every model to have a chance... It still really isn't that extreme.

[macgowan]

Rathnard & Ropetus -

I couldn't disagree more. Malifaux basic rules state you build your army to fit the scenario, period. To do otherwise in this game would be silly. Adding fixed lists, even with sideboards, seems like you're trying to turn this game into a different one.

Here's my attempt to refute your arguments:

Money = WIN: People who want to play competitively (what I think a tournament format is referring to) need to spend more money, it's just that simple. If you just bring a Perdita box to a tournament, expect to get hosed. Does that mean you can't play the game? Nope. It just means you have to spend more than $35 to play and expect to win prizes. Why should Wyrd reward people for not buying their product?

Too much time: This argument is ridiculous. If someone takes "15-30 minutes" to add to 35 or whatever, they should play a different game. Know your faction, know which models you own, and be ready to adapt.

Scenario Imbalance: Wyrd is clearly coming up with new rules for tournament play. You expect crew construction to be the only changes? I wouldn't worry about the sky falling until we see ALL the new components of tournament play.

[Ropetus]

It's not owning one Crew box versus owning an entire Faction + all the Mercenaries (+all Ht1 models in the game for Hamelin's ability). It's owning part of a Faction (like Tina and Ramos and all Minions in their themes) versus owning all the above.

I find it sad if competitive play would come up to who has the most cash to buy most models to be able to tool up for every single scenario and opponent as opposed to skill in carefully selecting which models you need to be able to adapt. It's one aspect of gaming skill I personally really enjoy in games, fitting everything you need in a limited budget.

And it will take that long if you allow people to have unlimited models to choose from (borrow some you don't have yourself from friends). After all, you need to take into account your Faction, your opponent's Faction, your Strategy, their Strategy and terrain.

A more limited model selection will make events a bit more casual I think. If you have to own a whole model range to be competitive, it will drive some people away from events, at least I feel more positive if I know there is a chance to win even if I haven't bought all the models I don't like.

Can you give me an example of where you cannot fit everything you need to adapt in say, 45 SS?

-Ropetus

[nilus]

For tournament play, sideboards work very well for other gaming systems and I don't see why it would not work for Malifaux. The "pick your Crew after seeing scenario + opponent" is a good idea but I doubt it will work too well in a tournament environment.

We have ran about 5 or 6 tourneys in the Chicagoland area using the Pick a crew each round rules and they have all ran very well.

Some people stick to one master and crew and do very well, others mix it up each round. It hasn't seemed to skew any numbers towards one particular faction and I prefer it much better to the "side board" approach.

[Lucidicide]

Keep in mind that there are big changes in pre-game set up in Book 2 as well as changes to the base scenarios and schemes. Honestly, I think that using the Book 2 game set-up will help mitigate many of the potential issues. I love the new stuff -- I couldn't go back to Book 1 set-up.

[nilus]

A more limited model selection will make events a bit more casual I think. If you have to own a whole model range to be competitive, it will drive some people away from events, at least I feel more positive if I know there is a chance to win even if I haven't bought all the models I don't like.

But no one is saying you have to own every model. Just that you can use all the models you have. If you feel you can't be competitive unless you buy a model you do not like then you won't be competitive whether they allow full faction drafts or just a side board.

Like I said from all the official Malifaux Tourneys I have seen do this(which has been at least 5, each with at least 10 players). No one has felt like they had to own everything. In fact in several tourneys people placed with just running the same crew list each round.

[Q'iq'el]

Yeah, let's not exaggerate. Masters are very different, but their utility overlaps somewhat. Then if you take into consideration "basic" models, like Terror Tots or Arachnid Swarms or Silurid, they have synergy with some masters, but not all of them. By settling with 1~2 masters from your faction and getting all the models you need to have a crew for every scenario you can prepare for any tournament without over-the-top spending other games require.

As long as they make crew selection truly secret (as it is in current ruleset, even though people don't play that way), there's not much danger of tailored lists and objectives will still have supremacy over simply countering your opponent. In such environment not owning all the models and all the masters wouldn't be much of a drawback.

A master-locked list of 40SS of models to choose may sound like great idea now, but soon it will mean people take only the most effective models with them... that is the beginning of the meta-game and netlists the competition tournaments are plagued with. Secret lists with entire faction to potentially choose from each game means, IMHO, you really can't optimize your own selection that precisely... and in the end nobody knows what models you may have or not have.

Granted, they may go different direction - current rules are hardly an indicator of what a dedicated tournament system may be.

[pancake ss]

The tourney i'm going to in november here

http://events.maelstromgames.co.uk/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=318

Is asking for you to name your master, and 15 points a week before. Then you make the rest up on the day. So when you find who your next crew will be upagainst you can tinker abit. Nobody wants to end up playing 4to5 games and end up playing the same faction with similar crews. That you have no answer to, plus it helps for Encounters, srategy,shemes.

[macgowan]

I'd allow only 5-10 minutes to construct crews and have all models ready to deploy. Can't add fast enough? Fine, make some lists ahead of time based on particular strategies. Nobody said you can't. Allowing more time will only piss off the other players waiting to start the round.

I HIGHLY recommend everyone just breathe for the next couple hours until we find out what's in Book 2. Many of the new strats & schemes we playtested were ridiculously cool and characterful, and the format is much more balanced and conducive to tournament play. I would say more, but I'm not at GC and don't know what made the cut and what didn't.

Suffice it to say, you thought the game was cool before...

[Lucidicide]

I'd allow only 5-10 minutes to construct crews and have all models ready to deploy. Can't add fast enough? Fine, make some lists ahead of time based on particular strategies. Nobody said you can't. Allowing more time will only piss off the other players waiting to start the round.

I HIGHLY recommend everyone just breathe for the next couple hours until we find out what's in Book 2. Many of the new strats & schemes we playtested were ridiculously cool and characterful, and the format is much more balanced and conducive to tournament play. I would say more, but I'm not at GC and don't know what made the cut and what didn't.

Suffice it to say, you thought the game was cool before...

Agreed. The way things are going to be functioning will definitely help.

[jmp_mydog]

Agreed. The way things are going to be functioning will definitely help.

It's a solid way to play also helps mitigate the whole, "My crew sucks at this strategy" syndrome.

I like to be able to use all the models available to me.

[Lucidicide]

It's a solid way to play also helps mitigate the whole, "My crew sucks at this strategy" syndrome.

I like to be able to use all the models available to me.

Indeed. And now I think it's even more feasible to win on schemes if you play your cards right. And by cards, I mean models.

[deadboy]

I am definitely keen on seeing the possibilities for tournament/campaign play in the new book.

[Vanor]

A more limited model selection will make events a bit more casual I think.

Tournaments are not casual events however. They're intended to be the place you go to for truly competitive games that push you the hardest.

People looking at the tourny style game should expect to have to spend a bit extra to stay competitive, because pretty much everyone else will be. This is simply the nature of tournaments in general.