Arena of Death: Superlight. Any takers?

[edmundblack]

Very quick question this: were I to start another Superlight AoD, would there be any takers?

Form would take similar to what's gone before in that there'd be a fixed points limit and certain restrictions on unit types, and in the past there's been two which have proven successful:

1. Players send me their entrants, rounds divided up into heats and opponents are randomised. Last player standing wins.

2. Players send me their entrants, and these are posted up in the first thread. Each participant then "calls out" a challenge to another player, with no player fighting the same person twice. The number of fights is less than the number of players, so tactical choices come in to play. Points are:

For a Challenge win, player gets 3 points.
For a Challenge loss, player loses 1 point.
For a Defence win, player wins 2 points.
For a Defence loss, player loses 0 points.

At the end of the series of fights, the winner is the person with the highest number of points. In a tie break for first or last, there's another fight regardless of if they've faced previously or not. Winner takes all.

The second one is a feat of dice rolling (yes, I sit hit rolling dice for real) and organisation, but it can work. Last time, there were fights going on with certain Tau builds with a billion different guns that went on for aaages. :? But it was fun still. :D

So, of these two formats, which one would people prefer to have a go at, and would this prove worthwhile again? :D

[Xarboth]

I'd definitely be interested in this. I wouldn't mind either way, but I've not played the second type before, so would go for that given the choice. An extra tactical element, too.

[MC Tic Tac]

I'd go for it.

Long time we had a simple bare bones AoD

Format 1 please, I don't like "Calling out" other players/entries as everyone picks on "weaker" entries or favourable match ups.

[edmundblack]

But then the emphasis is on players to choose their entry wisely and create a strong contender. But, we'll see. If more people reply, I'll see what the consensus is and roll with it. Might do the other type later on too, for balance. :D

[scythes]

I like AOD's like this, I'll vote for #1.

[edmundblack]

Sweet. Keep it coming chaps. :D

As for rules, I'm wondering whether or not to allow 3+ armour saves in. The idea is for no heavy infantry, of which space marines most clearly are. 15 points limit otherwise? Or take it to 20 and stick with the restriction?

[Leonix]

2nd looks fun ^^.

[edmundblack]

You and your billion guns ... :P

[Leonix]

You and your billion guns ... :P

Says the man with the Force Weapon :p

[DrakonTheNightLord]

1. Please.

Though I lost my CSM codex...

[The Dark Pwner]

how does this work? i've never heard the term silverlight befor...

[tone.tran]

2 please!

[Ron]

Sure, I'd be interested in this. The Fire Dragons always seem to win these though. :P

[tone.tran]

EB uses 15pts limit and all Eldar players cry.

I think what worked well before was to limit all entries to not allow AP 1,2,3. I know it was AP1,2 before, but I once had the Dark Reaper entry which abused it too well since 2+ saves were also restricted.

[PyroSikTh]

how does this work? i've never heard the term silverlight befor...

You mean Superlight? Means it's Bare Bones.

I want to see a bit more information before I sign myself up. I've never done an AoD before...

[Baragash]

I can haz commit violence plox?

Also vote #1

[edmundblack]

OK, seems that 1 is the preferred way to go.

Pyro - this is dead easy. This is "superlight", so entrants are cheap and lightweight, typically drawn from the Troops section of Codices, but can be any model which fits. There's a 15 points limit on entrants (though I think that might increase to get more diversity in there) and there's no AP1,2 or 3 weaponry (the reason being, such weapons tend to nuke the opponent before anything happens). You create your entry and send it to me via PM. I then randomise who will fight who into "heats". Those who win go onto the 2nd round and so on until the Final. Winner of that wins the whole thing.

For the purposes of AoD, all entrants are given the Relentless special rule so can move, shoot at full capacity and assault as normal.

What I think I'll do this time in order to try and increase the action is give everyone a 5+ invulnerable save, or if they've only got an inv save of 5+, increase it by 1.

Also, if people are interested in doing Version 2, I'll get one started up at a later date. :D

[scythes]

You could do a double ellimination bracket to give people a second chance. If they lose they go into a losers bracket. Then the winner of the losers bracket fights the winner of the winners bracket but would have to beat them twice since they haven't lost yet. Used to do this in a card tourney a while back, worked pretty well and wasn't "you lose you're out".

[edmundblack]

Hmm, could do. It's certainly a bis disheartening to go out in the first round.

[scythes]

It's a bit more work since it's more fights, and it's not very likely that the loser bracket guys will win, but it can happen.

[edmundblack]

Done. Get your entrants in now before the spaces fill up. ;)

[Baragash]

Or Group Stage ;)

[edmundblack]

Would be easier if there were more than 8 entrants tops, but it could be done, yes. :P

[tone.tran]

Sent. I'm sad not to see style 2 implemented, but I'm sure it'll be just an enjoyable :D

[edmundblack]

Style 2 is likely to happen after this one. I find that with style 2, it takes a bit longer to get sorted, normally an hour's worth of rolling/writing.

[tone.tran]

It is defintely harder to do. You wouldn't want to have any more than 8, even something like 6 may be more manageable. I'm gonna wait a bit until some of the other AoD until I try out another AoD variation I wanted to do a while back.

[edmundblack]

So then, that seemed to go well. I think the "Arena Invulnerable" worked well, acting as either a minor safety net or a improvement on a model's basic inv save. What do you guys think?

For style 2, I've been thinking about mixing it up a little. The current method of winning points based on if you're attacking/defending works well, but I've been thinking about some sort of modification based on the points difference between the two models. For example: for the Free For All, there's a 125 points limit. If an attacking model of 100 points beats a model of 125 points, some sort of addition is given to recognise that a weaker (?) in some way model took down something that should have easily beaten it. Likewise, if the 125 points model took down a 100 point model, then either a reduced "bounty" of points is given, or no modifier etc.

Little complicated I know, but some feedback and ideas would be welcomed. :D

[tone.tran]

Bah. I'm actually working on the point difference now for an aod. I'll share my thoughts so far with you when I get back home later tonight

[edmundblack]

Great minds think alike, tone. ;)

I've not yet come up with a satisfactory (to me) method of doing it. It's something which I think has potential and would bring a greater degree of tactical thought into how a game would go, but getting a fair mechanic going isn't easy. Going for the simple "attacker is 10 points cheaper so wins +10 points" is the easiest, but is it the fairest for participants? What about if the attacker was 10 points more expensive? Losing 10 points for a loss is hardly sporting, but does also make sense in a way.

[tone.tran]

Well, I have for a long time felt that a weight class would bring forth a select few entries. There isn't many ways to make a good 150 point entry. Therefore, my initially thoughts are to have modifiers to increase stats and possibly add items to that list as well.

If you wanted to increase the model's wound by 1, take the base cost of the model and multiply by 1.5. This way, I can choose to take a 100 point captain, or a 14 point marine and boost him to 6 wounds 14*(1.5^3) for 107 points
give the model a +1 attack for 1.1 times the cost
+1 S/T = 1.35 cost

Then have some multiplier for USR as well. Those numbers uptop I just threw together. I'm working through what may be balanced. I was thinking of just having stat modifiers to start. This would allow me to see how that goes before I figure out how to deal with USRs fairly.

This would allow a terminator to be able to hold his own in a heavy weight devision with the right modifiers.

[Xarboth]

How about a simple percentage multiplier to the victory points? It'd mean you'd have to give out more than 3 points for a win, but it's easy enough to multiply that up to 300. Then you work out what percentage of your entry's points the opponent is and multiply the points awarded by that percentage?

So for player A with a 100pt model fighting player B with a 125 point model, awarding 300pts for a win when you attack, 200pts for a win when you're defending, losing 100pts for a loss when you attack (so basically miltiplied your proposed points scheme by 100 to make percentages easier!):

Player A's entry is 80% of the points of Player B's entry ([100/125]*100=80%); whilst Player B's entry is 125% of the points of Player A's ([125/100]*100=125%).

So Player A challenges B, and wins: 300points for the win, multiplied by 125% for the points difference = 375points.
Player A challenges B and loses: Would normally lose 100pts, but because of the points difference multiply it by 80%, and A only loses 80pts. Player B in that case would win (200*80%)=160pts.
Player B challenges A and wins: 300*80%=240pts.
Player B challenges A and loses: B loses (100*125%)=125pts; and A gains (200*125%)=250pts.

So the smaller entry gains a higher bonus for winning, but loses less points for losing a fight.


Potential problems:
1) The bonuses can become pretty big and dominate the tactical side of things. Solution: Reduce the modifier (Only use, say, half the percentage difference - so 112.5% and 90% in the above example) to give the base points (i.e. the 300, 200 for a win) more weight.

2)Bigtime confusion. Solution: Ignore this idea :P

[edmundblack]

They're both good ideas, but I'm sure you can appreciate that they're not the smoothest. How about adding the difference in points between the two entries for victory, or adding the difference as a percentage of the loser's cost?

i.e., in the first example A challenges B. A is 100 points, B is 125 points. A wins and gets +25 points.

Second example, A challenges B, A is 100 points, B is 125 points. A wins and gets +25% of B's total, so +31.25 points.

[Xarboth]

I assume that'd be a bonus to the points for winning, rather than the total points received? Because if that were the only way to score points, then the person with the highest value entry would never be able to score points.

But yeah, that kind of thing is a much simpler system, but it would need to be weighed up against the base points for a win. Perhaps just using the points limit for the entry as the base score for a win, and then the difference between points as the bonus? That way you could use exactly the same system for any size AOD.

Then you'd have to decide how many points to award for a successful defense, etc, if you wanted them to be different. You could just give the bonus to the 'challenger' and the bare points to the 'challenged' if they defend successfully?

(Am I making this far too over-complicated?)

[edmundblack]

What happened first time (and it went OK) was:

Attacking win = 3 points
Defensive win = 2 points
Defensive loss = 0 points
Attacking loss = -1 points

Alternative plan is: Keep It Simple, aka "if it ain't broke ... ". :P People do need to think about the quality and role of their entry moreso, it's not a case of creating the best badass going and wiping the floor with everyone else.