Changes

I've got a lot of changes to make for next year. Some people have been kind enough to write with some great feedback, and we've been having some good conversations that I'm pulling a lot of information from.

A small handful of the scenarios need a closer look at - in particular the ones that reduce a particular units attribute to much. It isn't fun, it isn't tactical, it's just being mean. However, there will still be some scenarios that penalize a particular phase of the game - the goal is to encourage a balanced army that can perform well in every phase. A couple scenarios took much longer than others, so I'll be looking at adjusting them so they play a bit faster. A couple scenarios gave a few more points than others, so again, I'll be adjusting those.

A few interesting numbers:

• Round 1, the average game time was 2 hours and 21 minutes, with only 2 people going over 2:30. We can gain 15 minutes back!
• Round 3, the average game time was 2 hours and 34 minutes. However, this was only because 2 people ended at 2 hours. Most games went to 2:40 or beyond, so we'll leave the later game at 2 hours, 45 minutes.
• The Favourite Opponent votes are my favourite part of the spreadsheet - out of 26 participants, 17 people got at least 1 vote and 1 person got all 3 votes. That's stunning.
• Best Overall had 63 points in Visuals and 36 in Gaming. I'm going to adjust this balance towards Gaming next year, such that Patrick doesn't just walk away with the trophy every year, but I'm not going to adjust it all the way. Work on some great conversions and paint jobs for next year!

If you have any feedback, now is a great time to write - I'm in the mode of writing and organizing it all into "things to deal with now" and "things to deal with next December", and it's best to write while it's still fresh in all our minds. :)

Photos!

Nathan took a hell of a lot more photos than I did, but here are a few to tide you over. Second game I was busy talking with Chris Jones for most of it, and the third game I was talking with THE Mr. Chris Powell. Good times. :)

Iain and Matt

Patrick and Vern

Jamie's flying circus and Shayne

Andy and Andy

Duke, the ringer, and Dave. I think Dave is teaching.

Nathan was photographing and video taping the event, so I'll see if he got any good shots. :)

Finale!

Iron Brush is over! I had a great weekend, with only a few fuck-ups, and a good number of lessons learned!

The biggest problem -- Facebook! There is a "known issue" whereby events after Daylight Savings were off by an hour. Jind had checked the time there, and had gone by that time, which is why he and Simon were late. Super shitty that this happened to them, and hopefully it never happens again! I gave them a few extra raffle tickets to help make up for it.

A few thanks, again, before we get to the spreadsheet:

• Strategies Games -- I approached Darren first because I knew they'd help out, and they didn't disappoint. A bunch of gift cards and 20% off prizes -- which is where most of your tournament entry went to!
• Imperial Hobbies -- a bunch of gift cards and the Battlefield in a Box and Watchtower!
• Secret Weapon -- a gift card and the 10% off coupons that were in the tournament packs!
• Dale, Patrick and Peter for being my comp guys! I certainly couldn't have done it...
• Duke for being my day-of gopher, bringing me lunch, and doing over half of the paint judging!
• Me! :P Seriously, I had a ton of fun organizing this, and so long as the feedback I get doesn't read "You suck!" I'll probably do it again in the future. :)

A few things about the spreadsheet:

• "Donation" is an amount that we'll be donating to an Eagle's Club charity. They let us use that space free of charge, based solely on you guys eating and drinking there, but we want to show that we're helping the club as well.
• "Profit" is money that will go to the CHOP club. We buy terrain and promote our club, so that you can show up and have lots of people to play!
• We did tie-breaks on the final winners, such that when Lil' Pat won Overall, and Dale won Painting, they were disqualified from winning a bunch of the other prizes. However, I feel that when the players vote for something, their votes should go directly to those players - so Best Army and Best Single model were awarded as you guys voted.

Here's the spreadsheet. If you have any questions, please read around this site for the answer first, there is a decent bet that I've written about it already. If you don't see the answer, feel free to write me.

This blog will die-down in a bit, but I'll have some photos to post "soon", and I'll likely post changes to my tournament system as I write them down. If you're interested in being part of the conversation, keep on reading. :)

Lastly, if you have any feedback about the tournament I'd love to hear from you -- ironbrushvancouver@gmail.com. I've got a lot of ideas of what to change for next year already!

Prizes!

We now have a ton of cool stuff thanks to our sponsors -- Strategies Games, Imperial Hobbies and Secret Weapon.

I'll be giving away gift cards as prizes to the winners of the categories outlined already.

I'll then be raffling off everything else! Everyone will receive a number of raffle tickets in the tournament pack to put towards whatever item you like best. We'll then be selling off further tickets, if you want to increase your chances of winning a particular item, with the proceeds from that going to the CHOP club.

See everyone tomorrow morning, bright and early! Remember that the first game is at 9:30am, which means you need to be there earlier to register! Doors open at 8:30am!

Daylight Savings?

Apparently this weekend is Daylight Savings. Or the reversal of it. Which ever one it is, it's bad news for us.

Remember to set your clocks forward by an hour on Saturday night at 2am.

The first game is at 9:30am, and the doors will be open at 8:30am. If you arrive at 8:30, you'll be put to work setting up a table. :)

I'm very sorry for the loss of an hour. I've written it down as something to pay attention to in the future. I really didn't want to wake up at "6am" to get this tournament going either. >.<

Scenarios

I was trying to get the scenarios more sorted out before I posted them, but since we're 3 days until the tournament I think this is as sorted as they're going to get.

We're doing 2,999 points because I asked my friends "How many points should we play?" and Jamie got this manic gleam in his eye and demanded we play 2,999.

We're playing scenario per table, for exactly the same reason. Because a friend gave me some advice - that I'm running this tournament, so I should run the kind of Warhammer that I'd want to play!

Some of the scenarios are minor variations on the rulebook scenarios. Some of them have a little more to them! My hope is that none of them are so complicated to demand your constant attention, nor are they "every turn, random craziness happens! woojweiojwerwe!!", but instead that in general they evoke interesting strategic and tactical decisions.

Here's the link. Go ahead and read, and if you see something onerous, or broken or not fun, let me know. But remember - hobby tournament - epic fun - a little different - and you'll be well on your way towards winning!

Most Lists

We're done with "public voting", but since I posted some of the lists I have to post all of them.

There are 3 people who still haven't provided their lists. 1 of them I don't know about, 1 is running behind and I suspect the third is using this as a strategic advantage. You know who you are, you gamey c%@*. :P

I have a shared Google Drive folder where I'm keeping all of the lists, without their owners names. I'll add to this folder as I get the last few lists in.

Feel free to look around and see what you're up against this Sunday!

Lizardmen army up for grabs!

I've got my personal Lizardmen army available for use in the tournament next weekend! If you don't quite have enough points, or want to try something new, let me know and I'd be glad to lend it out!

And if Duke thinks (since I probably shouldn't judge my own army...) your army is best painted amongst those borrowed or purchased, you could win the Wooden Spoon award! (which comes with a prize!)

List Discrepancies

I'm going over the lists and trying to do a "quick" check for miscalculations, and I've come across two that aren't right.

If I find that your list is wrong tonight, I'll ask you to resubmit and if you get it in tomorrow I won't dock the 2 points.

If I find that your list is wrong on Monday...I'll ask you to resubmit and dock the 2 points.

I won't be able to check them all tonight. Some of you should recheck your lists!

Match-making

The public voting experiment is a failure, unfortunately. Not enough people taking part, and one of the comp guys thinks it's a little useless anyway since with most of the lists coming in, people are actually taking the "hobby tournament" label seriously! Most of these lists have some wild and awesome stuff in it, and there's very little "optimizing for a tactical advantage". So huge props to all of you guys for that!

Since I was hoping to have you all do the match-making for me with the public voting, I'm constructing a new plan. I'm leaning towards the OFCC plan, whereby lists were chosen by the comp guys to be "softer" or "harder", and you'll fight within your category where possible.

As a hobbyist tournament goer, who still enjoys a solid challenge, the goal of my match-making is to ensure that everyone has the appropriate challenge for their skill level. This is a hard task to take on, and to be done perfectly, it requires a good knowledge of the generals skill and of the entire range of models and synergies.

It won't be done perfectly, but I wanted readers to know the goal.

I'm still going to be putting the lists online, because it's an open-list environment, but don't worry about voting unless you want to let me know your opinion. :)

List deadlines

Deadlines for lists are this Friday! More than half of the participants haven't given me a list yet, and you'll lose 2 points (out of 150) for not handing it in before Friday, midnight!


Also, just put up a Daemon list, and changed the old "Daemon" to read "Warriors", since it wasn't actually a Daemon list at all. :)

Iron Brush Trophies!

Just got both of the trophies for IRON BRUSH today and I'm pretty stoked about both of them!

The stein going to Best Overall and the spoon...goes to the army with the most painting points that wasn't painted by the owner!

So if you want the spoon, find a friend and borrow their army! Otherwise Pete is gonna win himself a spoon, because his army is pretty gorgeous. :P

Another three lists up for public voting!

We've got a High Elf, another Ogre and a Daemon list up.

I've noticed that some people are clicking "Send Data!" right away - those folks should use the tabs on that page to view the PDF rosters and then use the sliders above the rosters to pick a number for their comp vote.

If you've got any issues, please let me know! It's all a big experiment, so I'd love to know if something wasn't clear to you!

http://geeksong.com/Comp

[Edit: This was edited...I forgot a list. :)]

Two more lists posted for Iron Brush!

I've posted another two lists up for public voting - an Ogre list and a Dwarf list.

http://geeksong.com/Comp

Important: If you've already voted, the system will re-send votes for lists you've already ranked. If you leave these numbers at 10, I'll ignore them. If you want to change your vote to 10 send me an e-mail. :)

First amy lists up for public voting!

The grand experiment in public comp will now begin!

http://geeksong.com/Comp

On this page, you'll see a number of tabs (currently 2) for each army. Click on each tab, and select a composition score from the slider, for each army list as you see it. If you don't know, leave it at 10 or click Don't Score.

When you're done, enter your name and e-mail address and then click Send data!

 

I'll total and average and analyze the final data and do tournament match-making on the results.

• I can't prevent you from sending anonymous entries, but they will be taken much less seriously than people who put their name and e-mail.
• If you want to submit multiple times, only your last submission will be accepted. Click Don't Score for entries you want to skip.
• Your e-mail address won't be shared with anyone but the tournament organizers.
• 1 is "this list is brutally hard, and I would spit on the person who wrote it if I could.
• 20 is "this list is so easy that I'll be amazed if the owner doesn't get tabled every game." Your answer should lie somewhere in between.

This does not count for any tournament score.

Thanks for participating!

Loan-a-monster beginning

The Loan-a-monster program is off to a great start with two fantastic individuals offering up some of their own models to help those who need a few extra points to hit 2999!

Andrew Meermed has a giant, a Fateweaver model and a few daemon princes.
Jind Singh has a lot of models! (we knew this). Here's a list:

• 3 giants
• 3 wyverns
• 2 griffons
• lamasu
• cockatrice
• chimera
• magma dragon (But this will only be loaned out under the understanding YOU WILL LOOK AFTER IT!)
• giant spiders (a lot)
• gigantic spider
• trolls (6 river, 10 stone or common)

If you need a hand, either talk to these two gentlemen, or contact me and I'll put you in contact with them!

If the points value is all that is holding you back from IRON BRUSH, don't let it! You can play with unpainted models (but be sure to read the scoring so you don't get any surprises), and you can borrow models from your friends. Come and play Warhammerz with us! :)

SoM/MA clarification

A question came to me about how many points and how to take monsters from the SoM/MA books. I wrote the following on Facebook:

You can have up to 750 points in your army from either the SoM book or the MA book. Any selection from either of these books will be counted as one of your Rare choices. You may not take a Mythic Artefact or a Pact.

 I'll add this to the Q&A section.

Only a month left AND Loan-a-monster Program

Less than a month left until the IRON BRUSH tournament. Be sure to sign up and start getting me those army lists for an extra point!

In addition, I'd like to facilitate a Loan-a-monster Program. If you have a spare monster that you'd be willing to loan out for the event, let me know. If all that is stopping you from signing up is a few hundred points of monster, let me know. I'll try to connect people to help me this happen!

Imperial Hobbies sponsors Iron Brush Tournament!

Another sponsorship with prize support for the tournament!

Imperial Hobbies, as I'm sure you all know since they've been around for ages, is a dangerous store to walk into. I was in there a month ago wandering and waiting for a friend to meet up. I had just decided that I didn't need anything when my friend walked in and mentioned that he wanted to grab a rulebook for a new roleplaying game we had planned. Instantly, my resolve broke and I give them money for books. I hadn't bought a book in months (I've been Kindling), and it felt soooo good to buy a new book, with shiny new rules and new fluff to consume and...

I'll just be over here. >.>

Big thanks to Imperial Hobbies!

Secret Weapon Miniatures sponsors Iron Brush Tournament!

Super stoked to announce that Secret Weapon Miniatures has given us a couple prizes for the tournament!

http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/

I first heard about these guys while taking the Masterclass Painting that Doc organized for last year. The Astronomi-con guys told me to weather my damned tanks so I could get higher painting scores. I went to the SWM site and hummed and hawwed over the different weathering pigments before deciding to buy every single one they offered.

I don't regret it. I has all the colours. Now my damned tanks are weathered, Mike!

I've read that they started selling washes too.

Anyway. Prizes!

Some more on comp

TL;DR:  "No comp" is bring your awesome shiz. "No comp" is not bring your filthy shiz.


It's a topic we're talking about on the Facebook event page. I knew it would be, since I've written so much for every other scoring system, but nothing for comp. I don't have a comp score, and I don't want one. Which means I'll be discussing a lot of lists over the next few months. :)

I think that when you see a comp system, you see something to break. It's a mini-game, where some try to bring the hardest list that scores well, and others use it as a checklist "I've got Game Breaking Monster #45, but not #12, and he only banned #45, so I'm good." We have to assume that I've built the perfect comp system, which I can't do and which I don't believe exists.

So instead, I give you an idea - "beer and pretzel", "hobby tournament" - and then get myself a few goons to enforce the pearly gates around my beer and pretzels and then I hope that it works out.

I don't like telling people "no", and I'll bet you don't like hearing it either.  But I've made myself the administrator around the beer, and damnit, the folks inside are going to enjoy it! :P

Awesome. Not filth.

(And if you truly can't tell the difference - ask, and I'll tell you what, after conferring with my goons :))

Comp

Some good advice on comp from Patrick, of the comp council --

Ultimately, I think the goal of the comp council isn't necessarily to nerf lists, I think it is to make sure no one list spoils the event. For example, an all ethereal VC army could be built to a theme, could be really cool if well done, and will probably never win the event, but paired against a non-optimized orc army with very few magical attacks will absolutely ruin the orc player's day. Same for an army with 5 cannons and little magic, probably won't win the event, but pair it up against someone with a big monster and you've made it a non event for that player.

My comp goal, is to ensure that everyone has a good time. You can bring an awesome list that you're super proud of and super excited about! But if we think it's going to ruin a day, we'll ask you to change it.

Changes to "Theme Scoring"

Steve Hoffman pointed out an inconsistency in my Theme Scoring. I had shoe-horned "Display Tray" into the category, without comparing it to the effort required for other parts of that category.

I changed Theme such that your display tray is just a part of any non-army stuff you bring and want judged, and that effort is judged separately.

Strategies games sponsors Iron Brush Tournament!

HUGE thanks to Strategies Games for sponsoring the tournament! They've provided some great prizes for the event!

Since "my" GW closed down, I haven't really had a store that I call my own. But Strategies would be the closest, I think. They're pretty centrally located, and they have all of my obsessions in one nice little package. Whenever I go in, I'm guaranteed to find something I want, and often something I didn't even know existed. That's their power - they've got what you want, that you didn't even know was there. :P

www.strategiesgames.ca

We are a go!

All of my ducks have lined up, and I'm ready to start answering questions, signing people up, and all that good stuff.

Sunday, March 10th, 2013 @ the Eagles Club. Starting at 9:30am, this will be a full day of 2999-point Warhammer, great friends, beer, and great looking models!


There's a PayPal link on the right you can use to purchase a tournament ticket, and $10 from your $32 entry is going to a Fraternal Order of Eagle's charity (the exact one, to be determined). The rest of the monies will head into the CHOP fun to pay Jamie back for the terrain he bought and we'll be playing on. :P

Looking forward to hosting this event!