FluffyCon 2011

[Fujin]

FYI everyone - started looking at constructing the players pack for this event (February next year) so rest assured it is now in process and being discussed. I'll be in touch a couple of weeks after FoB with more details (and once we've seen a fair few armies operate in a tournament setting so any potential caps - if any!? - are feeling like more informed decisions).

Cheers,
Dave

[nik_]

Looking forward to it already!

[Fujin]

So I'm putting together a player pack for FluffyCon at the moment. Looking for some feedback from this community of players.


- I don't want to fool around with game mechanics but I still want soft and fluffy armies turning up and this is currently what I'm debating - how to ensure I get players understanding I want fluffy/soft armies and submitting an appropriate army and communicate this in the player pack.

- The players pack will almost definitely include "red flags" of what NOT to include for each army/race. Likely to include sample army lists too. Is that cool/useful to help players pitch their lists in the right direction?

- I am trying to decide on whether to go no comp and just providing enough moderation and feedback to players to guide everyone towards taking something that I feel is appropriate for the event, or a sliding scale of comp to reward the extra fluffy armies and people who have tried hard to get into the spirit of the tournament (i.e. "soft = 0", "cuddly = +3", "fluffy = +6", "ultra-bunny level softness = +10"). Those are example numbers by the way - nothing set in concrete yet.

- 2000pts? 2400pts? If I go 2400pts and people are (naturally) going lite on characters and toys, can a large numbers of players actually field an army at that level?! Hard to see many Skaven players being able to participate once they've taken out the Seer, HPA, Doomrocket, Brass Orb et al. That's a lot of models required to make up the points you would usually put into those cool choices! If I go 2000pts will the armies be big enough? I'm reading lots of arguments either way and seeing some other TOs express their desire to run their next events at 2000pts instead of a higher number to force more choices and decision-making on the players about what to take. Or should it be somewhere in the middle? What about good old 2250?

- Restrictions. I'd like to not complicate the pack with a list of things that will scare players out of attending but I won't want people misinterpretin g what kinds of lists are appropriate. The baseline lists (i.e. "soft") would probably be something labelled as soft if you took it to a "normal" tournament. That's the starting point - but how to express this? Not sure if just saying that in the pack will be a strong enough communication to all players.

- How would you feel if you were restricted to one of each type of magical toy? So, one magic weapon, one talisman, one enchanted item, one vampire power (or whatever is appropriate) etc... per army.

- How would players respond if I offered them a large degree of TO feedback on lists but kept asking them to tweak and change things? That is, not a veto, but saying "hey, please drop the Khorne mark off all those Warriors" or "how about losing the magic banner off that unit" or "take the Cannon but drop all the runes".

- I don't want to restrict Lords because that stops neat stuff like Beastlords and Generals of the Empire and Orc Warbosses, but I don't want magic or heinous one-man choppy insanity to rule the game. Should I just say "no L3 or L4 casters please" (for example)?


Cheers in advance for the feedback guys.

Dave

[omegakai]

Just of the top of my head
50% core
1800 points (no lords , casue srsly gateway/dwells/pruple sun) isnt fuffly or fun to play agiasnt.
no more then 25% speical and rare.
25% heroes

have the players rank all the lists / veto
Comp based on player feedback.

For example: over all Hardest ranked army lists get 0 / very little comp, and the reverse for the softer armies.

bing .
Game on

[warpmaster]

The Gaint Fanatic PP might be of interest to you Dave.It has some neat ideas on army limits

http://www.giantfanatic.dk/giant-fanatic/turneringer/

You want to DL the GF13_WHFB_Rest rictionsv3.pdf

[nik_]

My thoughts:

FluffyCon has always broken the game mechanics. It has had restrictions and vp changes since the start. Old players know and expect this, and new players can cope with it.

2000pts is a good idea - not too big, not too small

Red flags and sample lists are a good idea.

Needs comp. Players don't/won't/can't listen to the advice in the player pack.

Comp bonus for those who really get in the right spirit is nice. It will keep Nick B happy

One of each kind of thing is a brilliant idea.

How about instead of no lvl3 or 4 casters, just cap the bonus for casting and dispelling at +2. That way you can still take a lvl4 for more spells (the only way the WE can get lore of life!) or an expensive magic item, but you aren't able to smash through the magic defense of a lvl2 wizard.

I think TO feedback rather than vetoing is far too much work for you. It also means that a lot of armies will be absolutely borderline in terms of un-fluffiness, as they iterate and iterate to find the hardest thing that meets your guidelines. I think that kind of defeats the point.

I'll be attending in any case

[Simon]

My thoughts

1. Clear and strict hardcaps (and not some guild lines which some TOs don't/won't/can't explain clearly himself)
2. points cap on characters and magic items (like fluffcon 2010)
3. restriction on rares and specials slots as usual.
4. small bonus points for taking extra fluffy army (bonus from the opponent)
5 and please no “judges”

[nik_]

@Simon feel free to take your rage back to the FoB thread, let's keep this one happy.

[Nicholas]

I'm sure Glen would be overjoyed if you ran the tournament at 2000 points.
For lords, is it too much work to list which lords are acceptable? I can't imagine there are that many that would fit the FluffyCon spirit.
I believe FluffyCon 2010 had hard caps and bonus points depending on how fluffy your army was.

Also, taking a caster to FluffyCon? With lore of life no less? nik_, I am disappoint.

[Simon]

@Nik
its ok Nik, I am happy here in this thread thank you.

Just want to help Dave to make Fluffycon a better and more enjoyable event for other players and hopefully less disappointment and anger pre/after the tournament.

but I'm sure Dave can do a good job.

[Antony]

Make the games smaller, 1500 - 2000 points. That will cut down dramatically on the high level casters in the game, and elimate dragons and greater demons. If someone wants to take a dragon mage then good luck to them I say.

Ban a few items. For example doom rocket, book of Hoeth for example. Limit a few others, like 0-1 Hell cannon, and a max number of warmachines.

Change one rule; you can only pick a number 6 spell if you actually roll a 6 for spell selection.

Tickle up LoS, a bit like Nick did.

Make a max unit size and points limit. For example 40 models and 400 points.

[nik_]

Make the games smaller, 1500 - 2000 points. That will cut down dramatically on the high level casters in the game

Seems like you're all thinking 7th Ed. It's very possible to take a nasty lvl4 at 2000pts, and even at 1500

[Antony]

But then you are generally a low leadership army.

[Glenn Patel]

Crazy idea: ban Life, Death, and Shadows as lores. Possibly Beasts too.

Fire, Metal, Heavens, and Light are all much less "game-winny" in their impact, even with the 6th spell - but I can't say they're BAD.

(this is better than the 'must roll it' rule, given the existence of Loremasters)

Feedback is good.
Allowing Lords is fairly important, Leadership 8 is painful as a ceiling.

One of each 'type' of magic item is... eh. It encourages you to make one character of doom rather than a couple of decent characters, and just really crimps list building options (I don't think anyone submitted a list to GuardCon that would meet that guideline, for example, and those lists weren't crazy).


2000 points... I recommend, I think. 2400 makes it pretty easy to squeeze in everything you want.



...and Leadership 9 (Elves) is not that low, and they can hit that off a Lord-level Caster. (hrm... actually, maybe Lords aren't needed. BSB matters more for O&G... interesting thought that).

[PapaNasty]

remember aswell that as you go lower in points value, the impact of magic increases significantly since you still get the same number of PD

So if you want to limit the effect of magic, you could maybe (rather than restricting the armies), say that the fluffy bunnies of fluffycon provide you with extra dispell dice (e.g. channel dispell dice on 4+ or auto channel dispell dice even).  This way you're nerfing magic, but people are still rewarded for multiple wizards.

In particular, it'd encourage people to take a few low lvl wizards instead of alot of high lvl ones.

Or perhaps a -2 to all casting (+ your lvl, so a lvl 3 would get +1), but dispelling you still use your level.  


Anyway that's my 2c on how to balance magic a little for the lower points etc.

[Fujin]

Thanks for the comments so far guys - please keep them coming. A few responses:

@ Rion - definitely have thought about tweaking the percentage allowances and will be something I will playtest first before getting closer to a decision. 50% Core brings me back to the issue of players having enough models. Probably fine for WoC, Bretts, OGs and Ogres but sucks royal for... Vampires, Skaven (sheer number of models required!), Tomb Kings, Beasts etc. I'd love to see a spread of armies and not have players "encouraged away" from taking certain armies due a disadvantage built into the percentages.

@ Darren - Legend. I was trying to think of the tourney pack I'd heard much talk about recently. Thank-you very much for the link!

@ Cpt SS - I was initially a fan of a level+2 for using power dice (since Charles Black posted his thoughts on WAU) but despite the fluffiness of the tournament I'd still like it to provide the community with further insight into 8th edition and how it runs as a tournament game. I don;t think we can afford to run a tournament at the moment and not be learning about how to make 8th edition tournaments better as quickly as possible. Re: the L4s - some are a bigger issue than others and this seems to be largely due to spell/lore selection and toys (i.e. Slann, Grey Seer). I'm NOT convinced I wouldn't want to see a Frog with Lore of Fire, drop 6s power, and the Toughness Potion... and that's it. No BSB, no Cupped Hands, no extra powers. I'd be tempted to call that fluffy (assuming the rest of the list isn't complete dirt of course ).

@ Simon - I appreciate your passion I'm almost certain that try as I might someone will misinterpret the vibe of the event and I know for a fact whatever way I do this I won't be pleasing everybody. Points cap on items sounds like a good idea - say, 100pts to send on magic items/gifts/powers all up. Problem is if I do that players will feel they have license to take 100pts of horrible gear which is not where I'm pitching the event. Really want to stop short of banning a range of stuff like Cupped Hands, Rumination, Hoeth, Power Scroll etc on the basis that it just doesn't need to be said - this just isn't the event to be taking that stuff in the first place! I won't be using any judges at this point. I will make the call on everything - happy to wear a target on my head so other people don't have to - and if players don't like it they can wait it out and play at Equinox. Very happy to say that to the face of whoever won't play along with what I consider to be an appropriate list. I'm sure I can do a good job. I'm sure I won't please everyone. I'm sure I don't care if I do or not

@ Ant - I'm fairly certain I'll tweak the LOS for hills like Nick did for FoB. Unless someone can spring me 20 tables worth of true line of sight epic bigness hills (which I can't see happening). As per my response to Simon, I don't want to have to feel the need to ban items but they will probably go under the red flags list for each race of what not to take for the event (so, not explicitly use the word "banned" but strongly imply you're thinking about this the wrong way if you really feel the need to take them...).

@ Nick and Ant - yes you could take a L4 and have a lower leadership army. And to offset your possible magical dominance you wouldn't take a BSB which I reckon would be pretty fluffy. So then you take some risks and have to play better to not get run over. Checks and balances. I certainly wouldn't assume Dave would accept a magically-tooled L4-based list for this tournament.

@ Glenn - Almost wrote Lords really are important for some armies. Then you wrote the BSB might be more important. Then I realised you're right. I think OGs might be able to get away with a Ld8 boss if they have a BSB in there. Might be a point of fluffiness for Ld9-10 armies to NOT take a BSB.

@ PapaNasty - Damn good points and an interesting take on the magic. Hadn't considered tying it into comp!!


Sorry folks, two points I didn't mention earlier:

- what about specifying how units are going to be run/deployed/formed? So I get a list with 50-60 Slaves or Gnoblars or <insert fairly useless but highly frustrating Steadfast unit here> but it's run in Horde formation (a horde of furry rat death!!!) making it less useful as a Steadfast tarpit. Also gives me a flat out idea about how important/useful a BSB will be to the list.

- how about restricting magic users to one L2 or two L1s?

[nik_]

Set up a 'theme' for FluffyCon. The evil Slann have managed to trap all the winds of chaos at the poles, and the winds of magic are running low all over the old world. Everyone wants magic back, so they're fighting to break the Slann enchantments. Consequently, there are only 2d3 power dice per turn...

[Fujin]

Thinking (very) roughly about your own lists and model collections, would this work?

25% Heroes, 30% Core, Special 30%, Rare 15%


At 2000pts?

500pts Heroes, 800pts Core, 800pts Special, 300pts Rare. I think those numbers are right.

[nik_]

@Fujin Works for me

[SKELATOR]

my 3cents, how about no magic at all , ban it all , just let tks move as normal that solves that problem.
please not 2000pts thats just going backwards, the more the better i say.
 

[Glenn Patel]

So no lords, or is that characters that caps at 25% total?

Also, 30% of 2000pts is 600, not 800.

[Fujin]

Ugh... maths.

Not sure about the Lords thing. I think I'd like players to retain the option and get creative with kit as opposed to saying a big "NO!"


So maybe it could be:

- Lords 15%
- Heroes 25%
- Core minimum 30%
- Special 30%
- Rare 15%


How much would people be helped by allowing the units that aren't counting as Core to count as Core e.g. Dire Wolves, Giant Rats, Chaos Warhounds?

[SKELATOR]

just harden up and paint more, cmon how hard is it.

[SKELATOR]

and yer. ban all magic.

[Amy ちゃん]

very keen to enter this comp next year.

2000pts seems ok
or even smaller would be fine.
no lords seems fair too
(no tyrant for me)

can you send me a players pack when it's ready???

[PaW]

Implementing no lords is fine for certain armies. e.g Elves , Woc
Others get hurt alot more e.g Orcs and Goblins , and other low Ld armies

Up to you though. That giant fanatic thing looked intresting

[Fujin]

That's my concern too Peter. A blanket "no Lords" is looking like less of a way to go. However if I allow Lords at 2000pts then it forces players to actually make some decisions about what to include.

Maybe.

[Argron]

@ Fujin
- Lords 15%
- Heroes 25%
- Core minimum 30%
- Special 30%
- Rare 15%
looks good or something similar. Though I dont think you can increase to core requirement to far because some armies will suffer to much because of it.

I like the idea of lvl 1 and 2s only, no army needs a lvl 4 caster to play properly.
Also im all for 2000pts. 2400 is to big especially when your trying to build fluffier list and cant put in those 200 point monsters and 400 point lords to fill up your points.

[SKELATOR]

dave can u please asnwer me . why do you want to go backwards in pts. it work well the last 2 years with 2250pts,iam sure 150 more will not make much diffence. to the right people who enjoy fuffy con for what iit is.
keep the breakdown as per rule book .thats what it is there for.

[Fujin]

Hey Skellie,

At this stage I have nothing confirmed mate. What I'm considering is what is going to be possible for 30+ players to be involved in. Honest truth - I know I would really struggle to field a FluffyCon-appropriate army right now with Vampires at 2400pts. I just don't have the models to make that happen without taking either:

1) a bunch of tougher units like Wraiths and the Black Coach
2) a tooled up boss and 3-4 tricked out supporting characters


Now granted between now and then I plan to get 30-odd Ghouls painted up (as fluffy as they are ) but it's rude to assume I can place everyone else in the same position. That's why I think it's up for consideration and not as clear cut as we'd like to think.

I'm not trying to "go backwards". I'm trying to figure out what's going to work for this tournament.


Cheers.