game opinion

[Stubbdog]

What would your opinion be if you were given the following options:

 

player A brings 1500 point army

Player B brings four 500 point armies.

 

Each round would last say 1 hour.

 

Player B would get to bring on the next wave of 500 points each round, meaning that if he happened to have any survivors still on the table after the first hour, they would remain in the battle. and so on with each round.

 

Player A would get his initial 1500 points and that is all.

 

So, the question is, would that be an overall fair fight? Would you play in it, and which side would you give the odds to?

[Gus Landt]

If Player B only got to start with 500 points, and had to play a full hour against 1500 points, I can't imagine Player B would ever have a single model left at the end of any given round.

You don't specify, but I'm assuming you mean for Player B to only start with a single 500 point army in the first round?

 

Since I can't imaging Player B ever killing 500 points of Player A's models in any round, I would put the odds on Player A sweeping.

I would be glad to help you playtest this, and I would take either side.

[Stubbdog]

yes. it would be four 500 point games for Player B. So in total, player B would get 2000 points against the 1500 of Player A, its just that Player A would get all of his at the same time while Player B would get his 500 at a time, unless he was lucky enough to have some survive an hour.

 

Granted the first hour I would not see any surviving, but maybe after the second hour or third hour some might. Never know. Depends on how slow, or fast players play.

 

Of course, I understand that you would run into the issue of Player B playing slow on purpose. That is a risk that would have to be taken, but overall, this event would be played with the idea that you had two honest players playing. And they would give it their earnest attempts to play without that tom foolery.

[shakhak]

I think if you based it on Rounds, say Player B gets to bring their reinforcements every other round, then it would be more fair. It's also easier to remember when a round is up, because you have to shuffle, than when a time limit is up.

 

Other than that, this sounds like a perfectly fair scenerio to me, and if I'm not wrong something very similar is described in the Reven faction book. Great idea, let us know how it turns out when you play through it a few times!

[Dragon Snack]

Of course, I understand that you would run into the issue of Player B playing slow on purpose. That is a risk that would have to be taken, but overall, this event would be played with the idea that you had two honest players playing. And they would give it their earnest attempts to play without that tom foolery.

I would call that playing smart, not tom foolery...

[wildbill]

Of course, I understand that you would run into the issue of Player B playing slow on purpose. That is a risk that would have to be taken, but overall, this event would be played with the idea that you had two honest players playing. And they would give it their earnest attempts to play without that tom foolery.

I would call that playing smart, not tom foolery...

 

You say playing smart, I say cheating.

 

But, enough with that talk!!! Let's talk about Stubbdog's nifty new scenario idea.

 

I don't think that it'll work practically in a tournament setting. It would be very difficult to control. However, for fun, I like it!!

 

In order cut down on the tomfoolery, or playing smart, or cheating, or whatever else anyone wants to call it, I agree with Gus that a one hour round is way too long. I'll run my guys across the board, smash the 500 points opposing me, and then place everyone to where it's to my best advantage to wail on the enemy as soon as they come on to the table!!!

 

I propose dropping the time to 30 minutes. It's still plenty long that a lot of butt whoopin' can occur and it'll allow the person playing 500 points to feel like there is a chance that part of that force will still remain after the next round starts. Maybe not the first round, but I guarantee that by the end of the second round and definitely the third troops will be sticking around!!

 

As far as the forces go, I think that at the start of each new timed round, the new forces appear at the table edge of the deployment zone. However, army composition for the four 500 point armies now comes into play. Are they supposed to be independent armies? Does that mean that theorectically I could take the same army 4 times and thus have like 4 unique mages on the board at the same time?

 

You can't make it a 2,000 point army cut into fourths because that would eliminate armies like the Dwarves. The king and his retinue are going to be between 600 and 700 points!! In my opinion, it would need to be four separate armies, with no duplicate uniques, unless the army list states that the unique model could become non-unique. Example, in an all Dwarf army Thorvald becomes non-unique. So, you could field a bunch of him but only one Freya. Make sense?

 

Wild Bill

[smokingwreckage]

The wave-player can deploy from any table edge on the second and all subsequent waves. I think the points difference is not high enough; 1500:2000 sounds more like if the wave player got to introduce new troops every game turn. I'd go with 1000:2000 maybe, but I'm more accustomed to scifi than fantasy skirmish.

[Storminator]

As a concept, it's certainly worth trying. Sure you might want to tweak the numbers a bit, but that's what playtesting is for.

 

You could come up with all kinds of variants. Like each wave can come from any table edge, but no table edge can be used twice.

 

Or, the next wave come on when the "wave-player" achieves an objective (kills a specified model, takes a specified piece of terrain, etc).

 

Play it and tell us how it turns out.

 

PS

[vutpakdi]

I'd say that unless Player B plays really slowly (and Player A does as well and is really dumb or unlucky), there's a really good chance that Player A is going to essentially get defeated in detail. Player A is going to be able to concentrate his fire against each group in turn, either eliminating it or seriously damaging it before the others come into play.

 

And, if Player A is playing Crusaders, it just gets worse.

 

Ron

[wildbill]

That was also the basis for my suggestion of 30 minutes between each wave. Most likely, yes, the first wave will get wiped out. Maybe even the second wave. BUT...the 1,500 point army will also be taking it's licks as well. I'm willing to bet that by the time the fourth wave hits, the third wave will still be around and the 1,500 point army will starting to suck in air.

 

If I was playing the wave army, I'd go Dwarves and would take at least one decked out Thorvald in every 500 points, if not two. And I would probably save my piercers for the last wave. Why? Because by the time those RAV 3 babies show up theorectically most of my opponent's big guys should have at least one wound on them, thus making them easier for me to shoot up and kill!

 

I'm liking the wave army side of things. In my opinion the more difficult position to play would be the 1,500 point army. Your opponent is getting reinforcements. You are not. Every loss REALLY hurts.

 

Wild Bill

[vutpakdi]

I'm liking the wave army side of things. In my opinion the more difficult position to play would be the 1,500 point army. Your opponent is getting reinforcements. You are not. Every loss REALLY hurts.

 

Against dwarves at every 30 minutes, probably. But against another army, if I have a Tomukh list, my leaders will be warcrying at every opportunity. If I have Crusaders and Mother Kristiana or Healers, they'll be healing. If I have a Crypt Legion with Aysa, she is bringing in Spectral Minions. If I have Vampires, they'll be feeding. Not so bad.

 

Ron

[Stubbdog]

Well, I am just glad to make for interesting discussion.

 

I actually drew up a tourney type of set up that I think I like even more than this idea. I will bring it up in a new thread for discussion as well.

[Saint Vierzehn]

I like the idea, but I think it would be difficult to playbalance.

 

As the wave player, I would be trying to disengage/delay as much as possilbe until hour 3, when my second batch of reinforcements showed up. Not that I would play slow, but I would have my troops running for the corners of the tables and avoiding combat. My first few units would probably consist of inexpensive sergeants and a horde of inexpensive foot troops, which should discourage aggression.

 

As the 1500 point player, I would be looking to engage as quickly as possilbe. I would select fast troops and/or shooters, and back it up with a few healers.

 

-St.V.

[jdripley]

Awesome idea! I like the idea of having reinforcements come in after certain objectives are met. These could be simple tokens on the field that you need to loot, or perform a search action on, or whatever. Kill a certain enemy model.. eh, alright, I wouldn't make it the primary means of getting reinforcements or the enemy will just hang that model back and use thier overwhelming numbers to hack the wave player apart.

 

Objectives would help to keep the game aggressive... preventing the wave player from hanging back and delaying much. It's to his benefit to play aggressively to nail those objectives in order to bring more troops into play. It's to the standing force player's benefit to fight tooth and nail to keep the wave player off of the objectives. Then all you'd need to do was figure out how to make the objectives difficult enough to hold that the standing force player can't just swarm them and make raspberries at the wave player as he dies an undignified death.

[Gus Landt]

I know this might not work as well in a timed tourney, but if time isn't critical, I think the whole thing would play out MUCH better by basing it off # of turns than by time.

Say you start off with 1500 VS 500, and after every 3-4 complete turns, the next 500 points comes on the board. I think this would better represent what's going on: A big horde of dudes trying to quickly wipe out a defender before the defender can get his full force, and the defender trying to stall until his backup can arrive.

That would encourage the 1500 point player to play quickly, and mitigate Player B from playing slowly, because no matter how slow he plays, he has to survive X number of turns before the next 500 points show up.