Anti-Cheese/ New Players event Tourney design

[knight_797]

Hi all.    I am considering the design for a balanced new player friendly tournament by including a cheese restricted list.   Encourage both new army types as well as more balanced game.     Let's be honest - not all factions have been born equal....

This is not designed to be the winge list on every OP thing in the game (side note: I am a ruthless FEC player when I go full competitive).    The way to think about it more as if thus is a newbie friendly tournament to grow the game, not a super serious competitive players tourney - what is the stuff you wouldn't want a new player to run into in their first event?

The below is the list of stuff I'm thinking of tweaking.   As GW itself has discussed, a good sign of OP/cheese is something is 'autotake' in the list of options.  Keen for anything else or debate/disagreement.

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1. Ban Gruesome Bite

2. Ban Feast Day

4. Ban Hagg Narr

5. Ban Warp lightning vortex

6. Restricted: 20 Hearthgaurd max unit size

7. Tweaked: Changehost = 300 points for the battlation cost

8. Tweaked:  Slannesh = all summons cost 50pct more.

9. Tweaked: Slaneesh = -1 to Locus of Diversion rolls

9. Tweaked: Brettonia = all units 10pct cheaper 

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I think I'm missing something else to nerf Skaven a bit but not quite sure what exactly would be the lightest weight change.  Also not quite sure about how to tone Slaneesh in the lightest touch way, the above may not be quite right.

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Thanks guys, hope everyone takes this in the spirit intended, not as a winge list.

 

 

 

[Slayerofmen]

I like the idea as a one off but how do you make a free unit cost more for slannesh would you not just errata their depravity cost

[AthlorianStoners]

Lowering Brettonia probably isn’t conducive to helping new players 

[soak314]

To be perfectly honest, if I were new and coming into the tourney scene, and someone told me they'd prepared a curated tournament environment for me where the most problematic elements of the scene are curbed in favour of a less negative gaming experience, I'd just drop AoS then and there. It tells me the game isn't balanced at all and wasn't made with competitive play in mind.

Consider running meeting engagements instead of standard maybe?

ME de-bloats the game in a lot of ways by removing stacked horde buffs, limiting what you can wombo combo for allegiance stuff, and staggering out deployment so entire armies aren't ramming into each other turn 1.

Also it's 1k points working off 2x MSU at the most. That's a hell of a lot more accessible than pretty much any of the other tryhard options, especially for new players.
 

[PensivePanther]

4 minutes ago, soak314 said:

To be perfectly honest, if I were new and coming into the tourney scene, and someone told me they'd prepared a curated tournament environment for me where the most problematic elements of the scene are curbed in favour of a less negative gaming experience, I'd just drop AoS then and there. It tells me the game isn't balanced at all and wasn't made with competitive play in mind.

Consider running meeting engagements instead of standard maybe?

ME de-bloats the game in a lot of ways by removing stacked horde buffs, limiting what you can wombo combo for allegiance stuff, and staggering out deployment so entire armies aren't ramming into each other turn 1.

Also it's 1k points working off 2x MSU at the most. That's a hell of a lot more accessible than pretty much any of the other tryhard options, especially for new players.
 

I will second this suggestion. I've had great success commanding previously underperforming armies within the confines of Meeting Engagements for the reasons soak314 mentions above.

[Stroke]

Why create boogey men for new players? You're gonna honey pot them into a game you think they won't like unless you hide all the monsters?

[Overread]

I have to agree with the others. Trying to "remove the problems to make a fair game" for beginners is likely going to make them feel that either the game is broken and not worth it; or that you're belittling them. 

A second problem is that the "boogymen" of the game is not a strictly defined concept. What you interpret as problems might not be agreed upon. For example you might have one slaanesh player who now feels that you're being unfair to them by making them pay more for their summons when its a core focus of the army. So all the "fixes" might well not all be received well; remembering that if this is for beginners most might not have even considered many of them as broken concepts. Meanwhile others might not have even considered them as viable tactics. 
Picking on Slaanesh again (because I'm familiar with the force) a beginner might only have one or two leaders so they can't abuse the depravity point generation like a 4 keeper list can. So suddenly you're penalising them whilst they aren't actually using a "powerful" list. 

 

In the end I think its not a bad idea, but its the wrong approach to encourage people into the game. It's also one that works by limiting "power lists" which should in theory not be things that new players are going to be aware of and if they are they wont' have the game skills to make them "work" as they should. 

 

 

I think a better approach is to encourage them to play and to remove the competitive aspect somewhat and make the event more focused around learning the game; enjoying the game and engaging with the social aspects of gaming. Make it a super fun experience that doesn't hinge on them winning so that they want to keep coming back and expand their armies. 

There are loads of ways to do this, eg:

a) Growth event. Tie the tournament into a growth campaign that runs at the local club. So a series of inter-linked games where every so often the point value rises. Designed to encourage them to build up an army and can be a great help to getting people motivated and in pacing out their collection and building. A good growth campaign for beginners might also be paired with a few building and painting evenings (placed more near the beginning where players are in the most need of help with both). These can spread out the format and also aid them directly in getting models built and painted and developing good methods and learning new skills. 

It becomes far less about the "win" and far more about the journey of them growing their army. 

b) Narrative based. Organise the battles more around story than around who wins and loses. This removes the competitive event aspect entirely. It means a winner might fight a loser from the previous battle. The idea here is that you're not competing the players agianst each other; but giving them a rough script around a series of fights and battles. Engaging with a bit of the lore of the setting and building up some sense of history to the game and to their armies. 

c) Do funky things too. Have a 3 person each side game; have a 200 point Free-For-All brawl; have a 1 Vs 2 siege etc.... Basically present some novel and creative ideas for battles which are, agian, focusing away from the purely competitive angle. 

 

 

I'm presenting the idea of removing competition because of two elements

1) Competition is easy to understand as a format structure and its dead easy to get wrapped up in it. Meanwhile narrative, open and more casual play and other formats often don't present as quickly and simply. So presenting them up front reinforces them in the gamers expectations and mind. Esp since these might be formats they play far more often week to week whilst a tornament might appear once in a while only. 

2) Skill spread. Some are going to learn fast and some slower; some might be pure beginners who've never played a wargame before; others might be "old world" players who have returned; pros from other games; people who started AoS 5 years ago and are starting again etc... Ergo you can get a huge skill spread so even if you impose all your "anti cheese" measures; the competition might still have a few who are far and away superior to the others. 

 

 

There are loads of ways to engage and encourage players into the game that I think are better than trying to curtail how the game works. It adds a bit of drama and social debate into the game that beginners don't need and will only lead to resentment and confusion.

[InSaint]

Just host Meeting Engagement, it addresses a lot of cheese in Matched Play.

OR

Host 2v2s and force the experience players to pair up with a newbie.

[XReN]

Running meeting engagement is your best bet. There is no need to sugarcoat competetive gaming, if you want to hook those newbies up - organise a begginers day with seasoned players teaching new ones whille they clash against each other. Or do a narrative event. 

But cutting of what usually goes into competetive lists on a competetive event is a bad idea - how long you think you can do that to old players? How will it help a new player when they will go to a real-deal tournament and get rekt in every single game by proper lists?

[Melcavuk]

I’d say if the tournament is made to grow the game don’t cut swathes out of established battle tomes and nerf units away from how they’re designed. Introduce them to the game as it is not how you feel it should be 

[swarmofseals]

I gotta agree with the prevalent sentiment here: trying to come up with a nerf list is a fool's errand. If you really wanted to tamp down all of the power strategies, then this list is not nearly complete. To make matters worse, as you remove some "broken" things, other things tend to emerge.

Even if you do somehow manage to cull down everything that is imbalanced you will still get some people who will complain about whatever they lose to regardless.

I think the suggestions provided by others are good -- meeting engagements, slow grow leagues etc. are all solid options. I'd also consider scrapping the idea of a tournament altogether and instead marketing it as a "Play Day" or something similar. Structure it like a tournament (random pairings, a certain number of rounds with set battleplans etc.) but eliminate all results reporting, standings etc. If you have enough people you can even split players off into casual and competitive groups to try to ensure that a higher percentage get good games in (although a fair warning that this can be difficult to pull off).

[JPjr]

just to repeat what literally everyone else is saying, I wouldn't bother with all that though respect to any person who has just started AoS in 2019 and decided to run a Brettonian army, I'd be inclined to give them some kind of bonus as lets face it they're probably a danger to themselves in everyday life let alone when playing toy soldiers.

1000pts meeting engagements, requires much less hassle to get up and running and also just less mental stamina/tolerance for boredom if you're new to tournaments.

If I was going to monkey around with the rules at all it would be just to make it more narrative based. Could be with a very light touch just to encourage them to explore that, get more involved with their army and, hopefully, get some satisfaction just from playing the game rather than just the outcome.

Or really lean in, after all there's all these fun rules for playing games in fantastical  cities, magical realms, dark and dingy caverns and above the clouds, games which actually acknowledge and build upon all the fantastical stories and lore and where results build to something interesting over the course of a day/weekend rather than someone ticking another 5-0 off on their spreadsheet of dreams.

Introduce and normalise that, it's much more interesting for all concerned.