Episode 88: Agony of Choice
Alice and her looking glass never had to decide on how to score a 40k tournament, so I think she had it easy! Choosing how to give players the best experience is no easy thing and its easy to end up in an echo chamber ‘knowing’ you are right. We like to do our thinking out loud so you can point out things we miss and understand why we do what we do and this episode is just that!
We talk about the idea of a scoring differential in a 40k tournament situation, something we have been big advocates for in previous editions of the game – but 9th is a new beast and it always pays to look at things we know and re-evaluate them with the most recent information in mind.
Plenty of news out of Games Workshop as well with Black Libraries annual weekender, a massive Age of Sigmar preview, the new kill team box that’s incoming and we even squeezed a game of Bot War in recently you can check out on our Youtube channel.
While Western Australia is all but returned to normal, we want to make sure you are all looking after yourselves during this trying quarantine period – if you need help from more than your present support network (and are in Western Australia) you can contact Beyond Blue (1300 22 46 36), Life line (131 114) or Crisis Care (089223 1111). If you are outside of Western Australia we really encourage you checking out your local provider of mental health via your preferred search engine.
What do you think about the idea of differential scoring for 40k? Is it a needed thing or have we moved past it being essential? Is there another angle as to why we should look at it again? Which would be your choice for scoring? We would love to hear about your experiences and hear your feedback on this – we want to hear from you!
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Hi there, this is an interesting topic, to which I’m not sure what is the best answer but can only relate my experience. For some background I enjoy tournament play but more for the playing aspect against various opponents/armies than the competition of getting to the top (I am not very good and compete to get out of the bottom 1/4 of the ladder). Recent tournament Feb 2021 of 32 people I came 25th with 1 win 4 loss 2 being within 5 points. 2 guys I know and played against won 3/5 each yet finished further down the ladder, and while they where OK with it they where left questioning why, and one guy actually felt a bit deflated after doing so well in his first tournament. The tournament I’m sure used differential and also comp. Anecdotally games went to turns 3 or 4 as well which I think can make a difference. I have also experienced this sense of deflation, even though still enjoying the tournament.
Another which used only points (8th ed), there was complaints from some players that did not got full games, of slow play which affected there ability to score points and hence there overall standing. This led to a couple of players being spoken to and some being forced to use a chess clock despite them being on the end of the standings. I don’t feel that people where deliberately playing slow but some people are not as fast or less experienced. I am happy to talk through points if needed but not everyone may be happy to do this or confident enough.This does relate to another topic of yours a while back about different levels and expectations for players coming into tournaments and how that can be managed.
I agree that differential is probably not the best, but then how do you deal with incomplete games, especially in situations when you only get to turn 3, your opponent wins but you both know in the next 2 turns you would actually overtake them and win? Should he give up the win? Probably not and I would not ask them to.