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BLACKOUT - Results, Feedback & Lists


Chris Tomlin

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Hey guys,

I'm going to keep this super brief now and will add more detail tomorrow. Just a massive massive thanks to all of the players, you made the event run so smoothly, which is a godsend for any TO.

I would like you all to provide your feedback for both the event in general (ie stuff I could improve), but also in regards to AoS in general and the way the realm rules etc worked for your Tournament games. I will collate all this information and feed it back to GW direct. 

Winners:
1st - Ben Johnson (Nighthaunt)
2nd - Simon Froley (Daughters of Khaine)
3rd - Ady McWalter (Chaos)

Best in Alliance (Kill Points):
Destruction - Ian Spink (Bonesplitterz)
Chaos - Kane Holloway (Khorne)
Death - Ben Johnson (Nighthaunt)
Order - Tony Moore (Daughters of Khaine)

The James Hayday "Only way is up" Award (Last Place):
Paul Buckler (Spiderfang Grots)

Best Opponent:
Brook MacRae (Ironjawz) - won dice roll off vs Chris Mills (Nighthaunt) as both had 4/5 votes and 20TP)

Best Army:
Judges Choice - Aaron Bailey (Legion of Night)
1st - Aaron Bailey (Legion of Night)
2nd - Paul Buckler (Spiderfang Grots)
3rd - Tim Fisher (Daughters of Khaine)

You can check the @ProPainted feed on Twitter for pics of all the nominations.

The full results spreadsheet can be found here:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/theblacksun/BLACKOUT18_results.jpg

Here is the basic list of placings though.

Once again, thanks all.
Much love, 

Chris x
results1.jpg.3f575ea04f3fb1587ecdcfa85c38bc74.jpgresults2.jpg.ddbb14e5ce414dde6cd844ca888e0a53.jpgresults3.jpg.db93e03437f071bd8b8dad133db604cb.jpg

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My feedback is as follows and is based only on the army I took, not on the armies I faced:

The ethereal amulet combined with vampire Lord on zombie dragon is too good - with mystic shield, healing and deathless minions, it's such a no brainer. I think all the vlozds I saw took it!  (including me). Maybe the amulet should be only for models with 7 or less wounds? 

The mirrorpool spell from ghyran is too good--the caster should not be able to move afterwards. 

Geminids are still too good for their points compared to most other predatory spells (maybe the rule should be if a unit is hit by both, it cancels any effect out at all, and including damage - this would make placement of them a bit trickier) 

Also I do think that skeletons should not decrease in points if you take them in units of 40 because they are better the more of them there are (plus healing and command point recycling units also becomes much better). 

Are most predatory spells over costed? Spells with massive bases like purple sun or gnashing Jaws are a very difficult to use and didn't see much play 

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Had a great time, as per usual at Chris' events. Absolutely no criticisms from that point of view - also wanted to note how the extra 20 mins for each game worked really well, to give time dealing with new rules etc.

I liked realm rules and spells. They had some small impacts, here and there in my games. But it was never one that caused either me or my opponent to rant about them and how they shouldn't be there. Having said that, I think a few need a little tinkering with in some way, whether by TO comp, or a GW errata/FAQ. Board wide Hand of Dust doesn't seem particularly good, and any spell or ability that moves you across the board should count as your move.

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6 hours ago, Luke1705 said:

Will the full lists be released?

5 hours ago, LLV said:

Would love to see army lists 

Hey,

As @Donal mentioned, I will be collating a PDF of all 94 lists (in order of placing) either tonight or, more likely, tomorrow. I'll share the link here when complete.

Thanks for the feedback so far, @Carnelian - that kind of breakdown is perfect.

Cheers,
Chris

 

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Had a great time in Cardiff, such a brilliant venue, always a fab weekend away.

Feedback from the event - Still a bit shocked with my painting trophy, massive thank you to all who voted, totally unexpected.  Coming last, given my warm up games I knew any victories were going to be rare, and facing 2 Nurgle armies with 60 plaguebearers was really tough.  Got some KP from my other games, and match 5 I could have won if the priority had gone my way.  Coming last is actually hard work!

Round times - Echo Lauries comments, the small extra few minutes really helped.

(more to pass on to firestorm than for you Chris) - def need to get some more AOS terrain on the boards if possible, was good but room for improvement.

Realm rules, I never had any issues, but the teleport then move is one I heard mentioned.  I would however add to any future packs that a cheat sheet of realm spells is such a massive time saver and reccomend it to anyone playing.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cheers for an amazing event @Chris Tomlin!  Currently writing up my review (it's long - sorry ;)).

18 minutes ago, Paul Buckler said:

Feedback from the event - Still a bit shocked with my painting trophy

It's a lovely army!  Also, thanks for guiding my brother through the game he had with you, I think he's picked up more of the rules of his army from that game than any other so far :)

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1 minute ago, RuneBrush said:

Cheers for an amazing event @Chris Tomlin!  Currently writing up my review (it's long - sorry ;)).

It's a lovely army!  Also, thanks for guiding my brother through the game he had with you, I think he's picked up more of the rules of his army from that game than any other so far :)

Niceto meet you guys, was a fun game.  Hopefully catch you both another event soon

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Well I'm back in work following Blackout 2018 and brain is still buzzing from the weekend.  Here's my musings and mutterings from the event :)

I think this is something like my 6th tournament event that I've attended, with half of them being one day events.  Blackout18 is the most and least prepared that I've been for an event - I'd spent a bit of time sorting out quick reference cards for each of the realms, making sure I had tokens for all of my spells (and realm spells) and all my paperwork was 100% up together* this worked great in my games and really helped keeping things on track.  Conversely, I managed to forget to pack numerous things, including a unit of 6 Spirit Hosts*2.

I came away with two resounding memories of the event - firstly was the atmosphere, which was the friendliest I think I've ever experienced, speaking to people who you've never met before*3 talking during and between games, the whole event was fantastic.  The second memory is the atmospherics - it was insanely hot indoors, by the end of the first game everybody was struggling and it only got worse as the event continued, however it did allow us to all have a healthy British moan about the weather xD

I managed to achieve 2 wins out of 5, (the same as last year) and I think more Kill Points achieved during the event, which I view as a success and hitting 66 in the rankings.  I'll do a game breakdown over in the Death forum over the next couple of days, but very happy with how my army worked - I've only played a few games with it so far and around 800 points of it has never even been on a table.  It certainly feels like an army that I'm going to stick with so more practice and I'm hoping I can improve the areas I know I'm not that great on.

As with most things related to the gaming side of the hobby, the games you play are largely luck of the draw and I do feel I was a little unlucky in my game four going up against Chippy Rick with his lovely Nagash/Vohdri list*4 - I learnt a massive amount despite being beaten into the ground and I'm pretty positive he could have wiped me off the table by the end of turn 2 if he'd put his mind to it, so hats off to him that he was able to give me an entertaining game (and very much wanting to pick up a Nagash as a painting project).  This game is very much one that I'm going to hold up as a perfect example of how to play a game where the two opponents aren't equally matched in armies and/or skill.

The weekend was brilliant, I know that @Chris Tomlin only sees himself as a cat herder and the players make the event, but when out of 100 booked players only 6 didn't come, I think it really does highlight the (deserved) reputation Black Sun events have.

Coming home I was really lucky and @TheAdequateWargamer kindly gave my brother and I a lift back to my brothers flat, so was able to have a bit of a debrief on the journey back and during the evening.  It's one part of the hobby that I actually quite enjoy as you get to hear how other people did, any gripes and such like.  They were running different armies too, so you get quite a broad perspective.

Looking at the new edition in a tournament environment I can see the way Tournament Points are calculated may need to be revised at some point.  Quite rightly any summoned units destroyed were worth their points cost, allowing people to achieve more than 2000 Kill Points during a game.  Equally I was only running 1850 points - so unless I brought units back, my army wouldn't have that full 2000 points on offer.  There is also a question mark that some units are pointed based on their ability to be brought back (so you could gain that summoning tax twice).  My first and last games were also super close - only one victory point between us at the end, so for one person to go away with a major win and the other an outright loss doesn't "feel" right (if that makes sense).

Personally I'd love to see secondary objectives added into games and a comparative scale for each battleplan to increase the likelihood of minor wins/loses.  This would add in more granularity at the Tournament Point level, with perhaps the second sort being secondary objective points and finally the kill-points.  Although this could add in a little more complexity at the end of the game, I feel it would be less than the Realm Rules have added.

Which does lead me neatly into the next point - the Realm Rules in a Matched Play Tournament.  I'd prepared myself a warscroll sized quick reference sheet for each Realm that contained the realmscape feature and all 7 available spells - that’s the 1 from the core book and 6 from Malign Sorcery*5.  By having easy access quite a few realm spells were cast (or at least attempted) during each game - and they really added to the overall game, but at no point unbalancing things.  Without a quick reference sheet though, I honestly cannot see any of the Realm bits being used.  Having to constantly flip through the Malign Sorcery book every round would have been a complete faff*6.  I'm also not entirely sure about the Realmscape Features suitability for matched play tournaments, the ones that were picked felt really balanced and didn't penalise one army/list or overly buff one - but not all of the features are like that.  What I could see is being created by the community is a Matched Play sub-set of Realmscape Features.  One criticism I also have is that these rules are spread between the Core Book and Malign Sorcery.  I'd far rather have a "Realm Rules" supplement that contained everything - or even more preferably a set of wascroll cards that contain everything and make game run more smoothly.

 

* I'm not on my own in thinking AoS is becoming a logistical nightmare to keep on track of everything

*2Yup, that's 1/8th of an army

*3And out for a burger and few pints too

*4From the sound of it, it was pure luck of the draw in my opponents earlier draws that saw him this low on the tables

*5This got popped onto the side for both me and my opponent to use

*6Games have barely enough room to leave your warscroll cards out, let alone an open book

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28 minutes ago, Paul Buckler said:

Niceto meet you guys, was a fun game.  Hopefully catch you both another event soon

Likewise!  Certainly caught the "event bug", just need to better plan the events than this year! #needmoremoney #needmoreholiday xD

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My feedback from attending what was my first major AoS event!

  • There was (somewhere between "some" and "a lot") of angle-shooting going on at the top tables. This is in no way Blackout specific, but as the scene grows and more people and personalities get involved it's only going to happen more, as it has with many other games. As a community (and led by TOs) we need to do something about this because it can not only get toxic fast, but also does drive a wedge that can hamper the development of the scene. I'm not saying I have the answer or what the answer should be, and this is an uncomfortable topic for some, but it needs a resolution. For example, I'm talking about stuff like this:
    • Player 1: "I'm going to put this here within 6" of the objective, do you agree?" (model on slightly angled or wobbly terrain, etc)
    • Player 2: "Yes, that's fine"
    • Player 1:  (finishes turn and counts up score)
    • Player 2: "That's out of 6 inches"
    • Player 1: "But we agreed it was fine"
    • Player 2: "But it's not within 6 inches"
  • What happens when a game ends needs to be clearly defined. People who are currently winning but about to lose when time is called want to dice down. Do we play to the end of the turn? Do we play to the end of the round, so that players have had equal turns? Do we make a call on who would have won the game had we finished it? It would be great if this was defined beforehand with a clear set of rules as to how games should be wrapped when time is called.
  • It's been brought up elsewhere, but tiebreakers need to drastically change. I dont agree with sports votes/soft scores being used as a tiebreaker but that's personal preference so forgetting that, I'm talking about kill points here. Summoning, endless spells, command point buys, etc just throw the whole system out of whack and it was never a good system to begin with; playing vs turtle armies can mean you get bad tiebreakers, and it should be ok to play a defensive-based army without wrecking your tiebreakers, etc. Personally I think that the absolute best tiebreaker is Strength of Schedule. Whatever system of tiebreakers you use like killpoints, victory points differential, etc, you shouldn't get boosted up the rankings for smashing a newbie and you shouldn't be penalised for a hard fought 15-14 vs a great opponent, so ranking players by the difficulty of their games using SoS is the most fair system imho.
  • The food ticket system was great and the food was decent quality!
  • The venue did everything they could reasonably do about the heat, no problems with that personally
  • Round times, round timings, schedule, breaks between games, all great
  • An official social on the Saturday night would be awesome. Even if it was just like, space for 100 people at the local Weatherspoons. Would have loved to have met up with more people outside of the venue.

All in all the event was brilliant @Chris Tomlin, thank you for running it.

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For me this tournament was absolutely amazing! Only my second one and managed to get 18th which I was super shocked about and extremely happy with! Me and brook (his first tournament) couldn’t stop talking about how well run it was and how much we enjoyed the event, even the games we got smashed in we still enjoyed! The food was amazing and the venue was awesome! Really enjoyed using the realm rules as it added that extra tactical thinking into the games which won or lost me games, really think they should be used in all tournaments as it adds something extra that is really good to have and doesn’t influence the game hugely but can still change the outcome 

 

I definitely think me and brook will be back next year!! 

 

Thanks for a great event ?

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So this was my first blackout and I really enjoyed the event so thank you @Chris Tomlin !

ill echo a lot of what was said above :

1. Realm command abilities are good and add a lot to the game. The ulgu one needs to be errated to say you can’t move after the teleport.

2. Realm spells are fun - but agree they were only manageable because of the cheat sheet. Possibly you could limit it to only the realmsphere magic from core rule book and not malign sorcery if you want to make it more accessible to more players. But there was no problem in actually playing them - more options on the table whilst playing rather than just in the list design is good for the game. Mirrorpool ghyran spell needs to change to say can’t move after cast.

3. Battleplans. It was great that it was rolled from all 18 as you had to design a all comers list rather than a magic heavy list as new handbook might dictate. I have some concerns that minor wins seem to have disappeared from the game after this weekend and bobo. If anyone can confirm how many minor wins happened in the almost 250 games I’d be interested to know because I think this is going to make it very hard to sort players going forwards.

4. Kill points. You shouldn’t get kill points for summoned units. Or at least you shouldn’t with for example tzeentch  where their points were clearly increased to factor this in.

5. Venue - the venue is brilliant, tables are good and the extra space between them to put models on etc was really helpful. The venue could do with some more aos scenery but that’s a minor niggle given shooting no longer exists and scenery is expensive. Staff were friendly and shop well stocked. 

6. Food. Food was really good and fast - available when you went up - really helpful if your game finished at dice down. The bar was also great. 

7. People and atmosphere - I’d come down with about 10 guys from London so I might be biased but everyone I met was really friendly and the atmosphere was great. 

Hi to everyone I met!

simon 

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6 hours ago, Carnelian said:

Snip

Just looking back on my feedback I should say as well that I had a great time and it was a fantastic venue with fantastic armies and fantastic people. I I already mentioned that in another thread but thought I should probably reiterate it in this thread too! I thanks a bunch chris

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4 hours ago, Morglum StormBasha said:

Kill points. You shouldn’t get kill points for summoned units. Or at least you shouldn’t with for example tzeentch  where their points were clearly increased to factor this in

Using Summoned units is entirely up to the player making the choice to use a unit.

They chose to take the unit, instead of an alternative, and gave their opponent the opportunity to win those points in kills.

Using more expensive units in Army creation is also a player choice.

For Tzeentch and Horrors, the player choosing to summon them could choose, instead,  to make them explode for a potential mortal wound.

It is possible to build armies around other mechanisms than to use summoning. (Even for Tzeentch.)

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1 hour ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Using Summoned units is entirely up to the player making the choice to use a unit.

They chose to take the unit, instead of an alternative, and gave their opponent the opportunity to win those points in kills.

Using more expensive units in Army creation is also a player choice.

For Tzeentch and Horrors, the player choosing to summon them could choose, instead,  to make them explode for a potential mortal wound.

It is possible to build armies around other mechanisms than to use summoning. (Even for Tzeentch.)

I might be wrong about this, but I don't think the issue is the one you are describing. If you play a summoning army, part of the drawback is that you give your opponent access to more kill points. That's totally fine. The problem is that in the context of a tournament that uses kill points for awards and/or tiebreakers, getting matched up against a summoning army is a HUGE advantage compared to getting matched up against a non summoning army. 

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13 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

I might be wrong about this, but I don't think the issue is the one you are describing. If you play a summoning army, part of the drawback is that you give your opponent access to more kill points. That's totally fine. The problem is that in the context of a tournament that uses kill points for awards and/or tiebreakers, getting matched up against a summoning army is a HUGE advantage compared to getting matched up against a non summoning army. 

This. And likewise being matched up against a  defensivearmy like Death or Nurgle sucks, where you can beat them and end up with very little.

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7 hours ago, ianob said:

My feedback from attending what was my first major AoS event!

  •  angle-shooting
  • What happens when a game ends needs to be clearly defined.

 

These two things are both pretty big deals. I think to a great extent the wargaming community has been relatively insulated from concerns about angle-shooting, and it may be possible that existing mechanisms like sports scores and community policing will maintain the status quo.

That said, AoS as it currently exists is ripe for exploitation by subtly unscrupulous players. IMO, the absolute biggest area of concern is stalling/intentional slow play. There are certain armies that can pretty consistently set up a solid defensive position on the objectives on turn 1 and will be able to take the first turn against the vast majority of opponents (a 1 drop Sylvaneth army, for example). It would be pretty easy for such a player to just play at a very slow pace. Think a lot, be very careful with measurements, measure out multiple possible moves as often as possible, etc. Furthermore, such a player could actually be able to get a lot of sportsmanship cred against unwary opponents by being friendly, engaging in a lot of banter and conversation, making sure to clarify and check rules whenever there is the slightest uncertainty etc. I have no doubt that a person could consistently ensure that games end on turn 2 or 3 due to running out of time without actually being all that suspicious, which is of course a HUGE advantage for an army that can expect to take an early lead on VP. 

@ianob without having been at the event or seen a lot of the lists, my initial impression is that the metagame was not nearly so alpha-strike heavy as BOBO. Has this event made you feel any better about the state of the game?

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