The Spiky club Open 2010, 9th/10th Ocober 2010 Reading, Uk

[Joemanji]

Chill Winston. I hadn't fully logged the Apo-less-ness before because I've used Undead the last 2 times and the other Spiky I went to in 2005 was my 2nd tournament and I didn't know what was what. But it just seems odd ... as Matt says, the Apo is part of the roster, like players, rerolls, coaching staff etc. It just seems weird.

[Valen]

I must admit I am with Joe here it is strange, but as Darkson said, if your orster depends on an Apo, take a different team, simples

[Lycos]

Just to raise a point Pippy made a page or two back - Reading has changed quite a lot the last few years for places to eat and a night out. It was terrible some years ago. But now the Oracle is up we have literally dozens of restaurants on the riverside area and some good pubs again.

http://www.theoracle.com/website/defaul ... 1c16e510d8

About 15 mins from the venue. (and there is also several hotels like Premier Inn right beside it/built in to it)

[Pipey]

Grum, I'm sure there are lots of places to eat in Reading! Me and my stupid questions eh...

I was just remarking that it's really nice when the organiser of a tournament actively arranges a social (books a meal, finds a good watering hole) so that we all get together after the tourney. At more than one previous Spiky everyone has ended up going their own separate ways at the end of the night. All in my personal experience of course.

Just a smidgeon of constructive feedback. It will be tough for me to make Spiky with it being so close to Eurobowl, but I might be more inclined to go (perhaps in future years) if the social side was a bit better.

[ace2k00]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the input,

just remember the first year we held the spiky club open the rules were written by you guys.

but the blood bowl rules have changed so much I felt it needed a overhaul.. so please all comments are welcome and I will put up a new pack each time its changed.

as for moving the event. i am looking into it tonight and chatting to the committee.

again thanks for your comments

Dave

[Pipey]

BTW just read the bit about your mum doing catering in the evening and staying on with the bar open. That would be good too. Sorry missed that!

[Joemanji]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the input...

but the blood bowl rules have changed so much I felt it needed a overhaul.. so please all comments are welcome and I will put up a new pack each time its changed.

My personal opinion is that the bonus points are slightly too generous. The points for a win can vary from 11-17, and for a draw from 5-11. Especially in what is essentially a 4 game tournament, this means that the people who get to the finals is decided by the draw. If Coach A takes Wood Elves and draws a new coach with Ogres, then 16-17 points are coming his way and he can afford to draw a game. Whereas Coach B might draw all good opponents, go 3/1/0 and not make the finals. I am wary of scoring systems that overly rewards coaches for getting a plumb draw. Getting an easy game is a massive reward in itself, I don't see the need to reward coaches again by making bonus points so valuable.

The current scoring system means (over 4 games) that a coach with 2/0/2 or 1/2/1 can finish above someone with 4/0/0.

The other thing about bonus points is that getting lots of TDs and CAS is in no way reflective of good play. In fact, quite the opposite, as the rewards of getting lucky TDs or CAS compound upon themselves. I lost a game 0-3 (0-5) at the Dungeonbowl against someone who played awfully IMO, but kept killing my players whilst his miraculously survived. Equally, winning 1-0 with no casualties is often a brilliant result, as you've had to do it the hard way with no assistance. CAS make winning a game easier after all, so rewarding coaches again for having good fortune seems odd. I know we need to separate coaches with the same record somehow, but IMO systems weighted towards bonus points are counter-intuitive.

[SillySod]

I must admit I am with Joe here it is strange, but as Darkson said, if your orster depends on an Apo, take a different team, simples

Good lord no!

Dont tell Joe to play undead. Hes already done that enough for one lifetime

[Joemanji]

If that's what the people want...

[Grumbledook]

Scoring from Joe's tournament:

140 points for a win.
70 points for a draw.
10 points for a loss.

+/- your net TDs up to a maximum of +/- 3
+/- your net CAS up to a maximum of +/- 3
+ 2 points for keeping a clean sheet


Bonus points +/- 3 per cas and touchdown...

Funny that eh Joe obviously with the huge amounts of points you get for the win/draw/loss compared to the bonus points minimises the effect of the bonus points on standings. This counters the problem of someone getting a draw with lots of bonus points and a big win having more points than someone who scraped two 1-0 wins with no casualties.

To be honest, I'd be more than happy if the whole ruleset from the Ironmanj tournament was lifted and used. Spiky was the first NAF ranked tournament which was slightly modified iirc from Ressurection and we know who was behind those rules. Since then most tournaments have followed a similar path for rules and become some what stagnant/stale because of it. Other tournaments that have experimented more with the rules based off the results and performances over a lot of NAF tournaments since the first spiky offer a greater scope of balance across all the races.

I think its time to push on and while perhaps the Ironmanj rules aren't perfect, they have only been used once and the more tournaments that use some variant of these the better we can tweak them. Just lifting the same rules for scoring and team selection will also save you a lot of work Dave ;]

pragmatic and practical, everyone's a winner!

[Joemanji]

Well that's very kind Jon. The huge points for winning/drawing makes each coaches W/D/L record the deciding factor, and bonus points just become a capped form of TD/CAS difference. I did this because sometimes net TDs gets skewed by one game against Ogres or Halflings.

I obviously prefer my rules for skills etc to the Spiky ones, which are a bit outdated now. But variety is the great thing about the UK circuit IMO, so I'm not going to advocate any changes there.

[ace2k00]

Hey Guys

Just a Quick Post to let you know that the date of the event will NOT change. the socila cub has bookings on all of the suggested dates.

[Darkson]

Yay! ARBBL trip to Spiky back on!

[ace2k00]

hi Guys I have a mk2 rules pack for you to look over...

[Joemanji]

Very interesting! For those who can't be bothered to open the file: 1.25m, upgrade your players for +20K per skill (no doubles), all Inducements except Wizards, 30 points for a win, 5 for a draw, same bonus points.

There has been some disagreement over whether "pure TV" team construction is good or not. I think it is worth trying. However, with one caveat ... limit the number of times a particular skill can be taken. Otherwise it is quite possible to build horrible teams, like a Dwarf team with a lot of Guard. E.g. 2 Blitzers, 2 Runners, 1 TS, 7 Linemen, 2RRs, Apo, 1x Leader, 9x Guard.

Here is another example with Amazons: 9 Linewomen, 4 Blitzers, Apo, 3 RRs, 4x Guard, 1x Leader, 7x Block. That is pretty much unbeatable when you consider that a lot of teams will just have a normal 1.1m team plus 6-7 skills.

I would say maximum of 2 (maybe 3) of any particular skill per team. Even then, it is still possible for certain teams to cheese out in a horrible way.