Finishing in last place

[Mocaiv]

Tom Lumley had the dubious privilage of finishing in last place at the Bloodbowl, but have you noticed that he received the most valuable (monetary) prize. The Lord Of The Rings game must be £40 or £50...

[Oakinava]

yep, 40 english pounds or 60 € is the current value of the game.
next year i battle for the last place

[Fondu77]

my only victory : 6-0
was due my opponent who wanted to get the price....

Finally he didn't get anything
not bad enough.....

[Tomba]

Tom Lumley had the dubious privilage of finishing in last place at the Bloodbowl, but have you noticed that he received the most valuable (monetary) prize. The Lord Of The Rings game must be £40 or £50...

That would be me.

I've only just got round to registering here- been meaning to for a while.

Bizarrely, and seemingly unlike others, I wasn't actually playing for last place- I was playing for fun.

My team consisted of 16 goblins (yes, no big guys or anything) and all four secret weapons. If you've never tried this (I hadn't for a full game before the tournament) I can tell you that you have *no chance* of winning.

Why do I do this? For a laugh. I play for fun, and playing with a team of 16 goblins and 4 secret weapons is fun.

I hope everyone who played against me had fun, I know I had fun in every game I played, and I really couldn't care less about winning or losing. If the game I played in told a good story, I was happy.

Yes, I got a prize (which I completely wasn't expecting, by the way...) worth 40 quid (UK money) but I'll probably never have time to use it as I'm too busy. I play Blood Bowl as you don't need many models, and it took me nearly a year to paint my goblin team (OK, I'm a bit lazy as well), and though the though of 100 or so Uruk Hai appeals quite a bit, I know I'll never be able to paint that many. 10 models is a push, and whole armies for LOTR are a bit much. I did read the book, though, and thought the system was quite nice, and the models are nice. If only there are 48 hours in a day... <sigh>

Tom

PS Hello everyone!

[Darkson]

Welcome to the board.

And congrats on the (dubious) honour

Still no-one will forget you, unlike those who came mid-table (like me )

[Deathwing]

Hey..welcome!
Gotta love that attitude...kudos!

[Tomba]

yep, 40 english pounds or 60 € is the current value of the game.
next year i battle for the last place

As the recipent, I don't think it's a smart move to give such a valuable prize (or indeed, any prize) to whoever comes last, for exactly this reason- people will play for last place.

I don't know if you're joking, and I certainly don't mean to pick on you, but I can see more than a few people trying this as a tactic next year, especially if their first or second games don't go so well.

I genuinely didn't aim for last place, as I said in another post, I play for fun (I didn't realise quite how bad my team would be, though... but that's shown me how useful testing a team *before* the tournament is...) but I feel it would spoil future tournaments if people were deliberatelt throwing matches to get to last place.

Quite apart from the fact that the scoring system (as used in the 2003 tournament) would mean that to get last place you would need to field an unpainted team, be as unsportsmanlike as possible, concede games, and roll over during games.

I did none of the above, nor do I suspect anyone else at the 2003 tournament did. But by giving me such a nice prize for being rubbish, I suspect some gamers may turn up at future events with the intention of doing as much from the anove list as possible.

Perhaps an interview as to what not to do during the awards ceremony would be more appropriate, (and if handled correctly, a disincentive) but a large prize? No way.

Tom

[Tomba]

Hey..welcome!
Gotta love that attitude...kudos!

Thank you. Twice!

Just the way I am. And to be fair, most of the coaches I know play for fun primarily, then to win as a secondary concern.

I generally avoid tournaments because they (by their very nature) encourage the sort of play I find depressing, namely excessive rules-mongering, pedantic behaviour, and a focus on the rules, not the story and background.

I was pleasantly suprised to find this attitude wasn't as prevalent as I feared (though of course I could pick on some examples, but gladly they were a minority) and others who I played against and saw playing also made an effort to tell a story.

What do I mean? Here's an example:

In one game (against a skaven team-never good opponents for goblins) one of their stormvermin knocked over 'Little Timmy'. He wasn't injured, but was knocked over. What would a goblin do? Of course! He seeks revenge! So the following few turns, Timmy, along with a couple of his mates, went after the stormvermin, paying no regard to the ball, figuring that 'someone else will sort that out'. They knock the stormvermin over, fail to wound, but then of course, Timmy 'puts the boot in', and *whoops!* gets sent off for his trouble. The stormvermin is knocked out, Timmy is sent off despite pleas from the bench. If this were a league, the team now has a real grudge to bear (but they're not beardy enough to record their grudges in books ).

I find playing like this is more fun, and in our leagues, we see characters and feuds develop between players as well as teams.

Granted, if I play like this against someone who's playing to win, I will lose, but against such opponents I do this to a lesser extent (in the above example, maybe Timmy will foolishly pick a fight with the stormvermin on his own) and play with a greater focus on scoring touchdowns and injuring players.

I do not claim to track every knock-down or injury (that would be a little OTT for me) but if something strikes me as something my team would be upset with, I do something about it.

Anyway I've played with goblins a bit much now- I'm painting up some dwarves! I've got a nice big book waiting for grudge records...

Tom

[Grumbledook]

I would have rather had a free set of blood bowl :/

[Tomba]

Welcome to the board.

And congrats on the (dubious) honour

Still no-one will forget you, unlike those who came mid-table (like me )

I don't think people should remember me, but I agree that the way things went, they may.

Hey, the people I'll remember are the people I played, not the people who won.

I remember Jon Shields and his fantasticly painted and modelled Dwarf miner team (finished #133)

I remember Richard Roberts and his Orc team based on the KC Chiefs team (and their treacherous Goblin!) (finished #73)

I remember Chris White and his scary norse team (and even scarier Ogre- though we got him in the end!) (finished #163)

I remember Floriel Wabrigg (Sorry if that's not the correct spelling) and his halflings. We thought we had a chance with that one! (finished #165)

I remember Geoff Porritt (again, apologies for poor spelling) who played my mate in the first game, who turned out to be from 'up North' too!(finished #39)

I remember others, but you get the point.

I know my name is on the website etc (actually, since I'm a teacher, that's a pain, but none of the kids I teach have found this out.....yet) and as I've said I feel that's wrong, and thus it's easier for me to say this, but I mean it: I don't remember the people who won, I remember the people I met. That is what is most important to me, and that's what I'll remember most fondly.

Since I'm new to the forum business it'll take me a while to get used to people's id's, but if any of the above are here, thanks for the memories guys! Drop me a line if you want to.

Tom

[Tomba]

I would have rather had a free set of blood bowl :/

Oddly enough I went and bought a new set of Blood Bowl shortly after the tournament.

I'd assume most people at the tournament would have had their own copy (I now have 3) so maybe it wouldn't have been a good prize. I don't think there should be any prize for last place.

A better prize for everyone would be much better <stupid coin, grumble, grumble)>

Tom

[Deathwing]

I think it was pretty much a case of a 'one off donation' for last place rather than any specific policy on the part of GW. I thought I heard that Alessio chucked in the box for last place, I could be wrong though, but GW is a many tentacled beast, it's waaaay beyond the left arm not knowing what the right arm's doing!

[Thadrin]

Many tentacled beast?
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh GW R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
has a certain ring to it doesn't it?

Anyway - welcome Tom - your attitude is a very refreshing one and I would hope to play you at a future tournament if I didn't play dwarfs (insert DW making joke about my one-racedness here) myself and know how dull dwarf-dwarf games can be!

I have to say I would love to try out that 16 goblin, 4 SW roster...sounds fun. Just back from a tournament where one guy turned up with a roster of 16 halflings...he was fun, and I'm just annoyed I didn't get to play him!

[Darkson]

Hey, the people I'll remember are the people I played, not the people who won.

Exactly. It was my first full tournament experiance, and (to my wifes annonyance I've caught the bug).

Of the 6 games I played, I'd love to play 4 of them again, especially Matt Robson, whose team was shortlisted fr the painting comp (the black & white orcs). He was playing solid orc tactics to grind and score. I was pulling off outrageous plays with my Gutter Runners. In the end we were betting on how many players I'd have left on the pitch at the end (2, for the record , but I got a draw)

Of the other two, one was very "intense", but I wonder if that was because we were on table 8 (how the hell did I get there?) and he was starting to smell glory? The other one (Spanish guy) I just didn't "click" with, but that's my fault as much as anything else.

So I had a great time, I want to win the lottery so I can attend some overseas ones, and I'll be there next year, hopefully with some NBA backup.

[Thadrin]

Exactly. It was my first full tournament experiance, and (to my wifes annonyance I've caught the bug).

Of the 6 games I played, I'd love to play 4 of them again, especially Matt Robson, whose team was shortlisted fr the painting comp (the black & white orcs). He was playing solid orc tactics to grind and score. I was pulling off outrageous plays with my Gutter Runners. In the end we were betting on how many players I'd have left on the pitch at the end (2, for the record , but I got a draw)

I too have the tournament bug...and now the RP con bug after this last weekend. Lots of expenses, especially when I kept finding cool stuff to buy and people kept giving me money...

I played Matt at the Blood Bowl too, and he was indeed good fun to play. It took me until this weekend to meet someone at a tournament I'd never want to play again.