Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Great Article on BoLS

I don't typically read many articles on BoLS.  Mostly the stuff I read is hobby news-related stuff, and if I'm bored, I'll read a few random articles here or there.  Simply too many writers there for me to keep track of and know who writes well and who writes... um, unwell.  lol.  (plus, lots of times the articles are so short, just when I find myself getting interested, they simply end.)  Anyways,  I check there for rumors for the 'next codex', every 3 or 4 days, and today I was rewarded by finding a pretty good article.  It's not even about Grey Knights, lol


So, here's the url for it.

It really echoes how I feel about the current Battle Point tournament scene.  I don't have a whole lot to say, that the article doesn't say.  But I will say a few things.

As a guy who generally tries to win whatever event he's in, I've clubbed more than my share of seals.  My mentality has always been, why go to a tournament if you don't try to win?  I can play casual 'fun' games elsewhere- tournaments are about competition.

So, I go to tournaments, and try to win. How great would it be though, if I didn't have to just pound some guy into the ground in order to turn my 'major win' into a 'massacre'?  I hate that in big tournaments you can show absolutely no mercy, even after you've obviously won.  It's absolutely no fun, for either player.  I already beat you but hey sorry... the tournament format says I gotta hunt down your last combat squads cuz otherwise I won't get full points.  And if I don't get full points, I can't win the tournament.  And I didn't pay all this money to play and not have a chance to win.

I could go on, but that's about it.  People will have more fun with this format, and I'm stoked to play tournaments where I can actually (potentially) win all my games by a narrow margin and still be in the running to win it all.

What do you think?

3 comments:

Terminus Est said...

Using a pure W/L system removes lots of the elements you claim not to like about playing in a tourney. w//d plus soft scores can make any tourney more of a popularity contest to some degree. 0ne thing BoLS was able to successfully introduce is playing more games to produce a clear cut winner. That's a significant contribution in my opinion.

G

Xaereth said...

Heh, I do like that aspect of BoLSCON. Lots of games makes it easier to do that, yet with a huge field like we had, it still means you gotta do REALLY well to get to the top tables.

I guess my biggest gripe about it is this: I beat the guy who would eventually win the whole tournament in game 6. He was then able to turn around and beat me in game 7, because Battle Points allowed for that.

In a W/L system, he wouldn't even have still been in the running anymore.

I hear what you're saying about popularity contests, since if there are multiple undefeated players at the end of a 3-round tournament, it comes down to soft scores. I guess I should make myself a little more clear though:

I honestly don't care a whole lot about the 'local' tournament scene doing it this way or another way- I'll stay away from the tournaments I don't want to play in because of formatting, and go to the ones I want to. It really doesn't matter a whole lot. It's the big tournaments I care about doing it this way.

Other tournaments can go to this system or not- I kind of don't think its plausible to play W/L in a 3-game tourney. But the big tournaments where I pay lots of money to go to, are the ones I care about structure. And this structure seems best to me at this point. :)

That said, I'm still planning on hitting BoLSCON this summer, finances allowing.

TheKing Elessar said...

The original article is here:
http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-battlepoints-are-gimping-your.html

With some more comments that you may find interesting underneath. :)

Suffice it to say I agree. lol