The ATC – Australian and New Zealand Team Championships
The Australian and New Zealand Team Championship has been running since 2011. It is a Warhammer 40,000 event with a difference, namely it is a team event. As Brett discusses in a previous post, states put together teams of 8 to battle it out on the gaming table for recognition for their state. It isn’t about personal achievement, more about how players can work together for the overall advantage of their team.
Western Australia’s involvement in the ATC.
While Western Australia has attended all of the ATC events from its inception, as yet we had never played host to the event. Last year M put together the bid for WA to host the ATC with the intention that Objective Secured could host the event at Southern Hemisphere Open 2018. M and I were both excited to find out that he was successful in that bid.
I have spoken on many occasions about why I am excited to be creating and running an event like Southern Hemisphere Open. We hear, oh so often, that WA is too far away. Nothing ever happens in Perth. As we have been building Objective Secured we are more and more proud of the events that we run and we really are very keen to share some of that with interstate players with hopes of breaking down some of those stereotypes. Both M and I were excited to be hosting the 2018 ATC at SHO and we wanted to make a good impression so the pressure was on!
Limited Overview
My role at an event is normally much more hands on as far as the actually running of the events goes. With SHO I actually spent barely any time in the tournament area so I am unable to give a proper over view of the event and how it ran. As previously mentioned Brett has written a post around his experiences of the event in an effort to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge. Here are some points that I can cover:
What went well:
- Everyone turned up! Thanks to all the players for your commitment to the event. We had all the players at the event for all of the days. I have heard stories of events running in other states and players still being too drunk from the night before or too hung over to attend the first game of day two. That wasn’t an issue. It is a big commitment to travel for an event and we appreciate the time and money that goes into attending.
- The atmosphere in the ATC area of SHO was generally upbeat and friendly. There will always be times where games get a little bit competitive and players start to become more serious but overall I saw lots of good nature’d banter between players, teams and states. I saw great attitudes from both winners and losers and I didn’t see a single tantrum.
- As always with our events I saw good nature’d generosity! A VIC player had managed to forget to pack his flying stands and didn’t realise until game 1 was about to start. He was asking if any of the retailers had them for sale and sadly they did not. When he asked if any players had spares a WA player playing in the Warhammer 40,000 single day competitive event happily loaned him his for the event. This meant the WA player played his games without flying stands but all of his opponents were happy to make that allowance to help out an interstate gamer. Moments like that remind me what a beautiful community we have!
- One of the things I loved the most was that when it came down to the last game it was still almost anyone’s game. M and I were talking mid way through the game and we worked out that depending on who won and by what margin the win could have gone to 4 different teams. For me, going into a final and really not knowing who was going to take out the win really makes an event exciting.
- A highlight for the event is that we were able to have Josh and Adam from Down Under Network event and stream it to their Twitch channel.
What didn’t go so well:
- The venue decided that they wouldn’t open the bar which meant that players were limited to soft drink and water. This was frustrating as often part of the social aspect of gaming is having a beer with your opponent. We can only apologise, it was literally out of our hands and we were also not thrilled about it.
- We had an issue with scoring at one point. It was quickly rectified but that doesn’t help in the moment and was a source of stress at the time.
- Time was an issue. The event did not run to time and we ran over both days. Some of that was down to M being spread too thin and both of us trying to do too many things. We were doing award ceremonies etc so that delayed him starting the rounds etc. Another issue with the timing was the time it took for match ups. One of the main reasons that we ran late on the second day was that we allowed additional time for the final game. This was a decision that wasn’t made lightly but was made because the event results were so close and there were four teams that could have taken out the win. We made the decision to allow extra time for the final round due to the time that it took for final round match ups with (relatively speaking) more was riding on the outcome. This meant that we allowed time so that all games would finish and there would be no calling into question the legitimacy of the win.
The social aspect of the ATC
There are many benefits of table top gaming and one of them is the social aspect of the event. Players from all over Australia and New Zealand come together and spend a weekend together doing something they all enjoy. In an age of social media events like this are actually bringing people together! This is building social networks and that has all sorts of amazing benefits.
As well as spending the two days over a gaming table together we also saw several social activities take place outside of the event. One Saturday night the five of the six teams went out for dinner, finally shared that beer and had a meal together. It was great to meet the players and have a chat and share a laugh. I do have to say though, with the amount of beer consumed and fried Brussels sprouts consumed by the players I was VERY glad I wasn’t sharing an air B&B with them! Dinner turned into drinks at a local bar but as M and I had to be up and at the venue before 6 we sadly couldn’t stay and see what else they got up to. Sunday some players went out for dinner and on Monday M and I hijacked a dinner of the Qld team at the casino.
It really was great to see people meeting and making real life connections with players that they generally only know over the internet and via social media.
The Stats
There has been quite a bit of talk about events running where ‘majority of players aren’t even finishing turn 3’. That was not what we experienced. To state whether we had a ‘majority of players finishing games’ we would first need to define majority. The dictionary defines majority as the greater number or more than half so by that definition we had the majority of players finishing their games. I’m not sure how I personally feel about using more than half as my definition of majority.
ATC statistics:
Number of games: 120
Average number of turns: 4.71
Game length was 2 hours and 45 minutes with 15 minutes allowed for match ups and 1850 point armies however players could start their game before match ups were completed meaning that those matched first potentially got a slightly longer game and those matched last potentially got slightly less than 2hr 45min. As I already stated the final game was given an extra 30 minutes so stats are slightly skewed.
With an average number of turns for 120 games being 4.71 I can 100% say that the majority of players ARE getting more than 3 turns. I therefore feel confident refuting the statement that majority of games didn’t get more than 3 turns with this format.
These overall stats could again be slightly misleading. Firstly because there is no definition for ‘natural end’. Some players thought that if the game did not end in a tabling then it wasn’t a natural end and so mis-recorded it as DNF. Other games finished turn 5 but rolled to see if the game finished and if it didn’t then of course the game was recorded as DNF however it is not practical that events have round times allocated to allow for 7 turn rounds. The time for round three was also incorrect due to an error either in closing the round or with the way the software is written and how that relates to two day events.
Crunching numbers:
With those caveats, lets crunch some numbers. 29 games of 120 over the event were recorded as did not finish. That equates to 24% of games not finishing and 76% naturally finishing within the time limit. I feel much more comfortable saying that 75% is a majority and so I feel comfortable saying that the majority of games were completed satisfactorily in the allocated time.
With the average turns played being 4.71 for non-tabling (tabling skews the numbers). Games with a natural end had an average of 5.16 and even games that did not finish had an average of 3.93 turns. This suggests that players playing at this high level are finishing between four and five games in the two and a half-ish hour time limit.
The results:
ATC had 6 teams of 8 players. Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, New Zealand and the Mercs. All of the round information is available in Down Under pairings. As I said, going into the final round, depending on a complex analysis of which teams won or lost and by how many points any one of four teams could have take out the overall win. As it was the win went to Team Victoria.
Congratulations
Congratulations to WA for their 3rd place, the Mercs for 2nd place (my understanding is that this is the first time the Mercs have come above last place and you guys podium-ed) and of course to Victoria for taking out the event. More than that, congratulations to all of the players for representing your states so beautifully, not only on the table but off the table as well. It was a pleasure to meet you all and I look forward to seeing you again!