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The SGW 2006 Tournement Review

First, let me say that I know the actual date of this tournament was January 2007. I had intended to host this in November and then December but was not able to get the size of a group I wanted.

So whether you like it or not, here is the tournament review:

The Game:

I pre-selected Heroscape for this tournament since scoring would be easy and everyone was familiar with the game to even out newbie from veterans.

The Map:
The map was separated into two areas:

The Castle:
The castle covered about a 3rd of the map with tall walls all around. There where two entrances, a main gate and a second opening on the far side of the castle. There where also two levels of elevated towers.

The Siege:
The siege area was in a half moon shape surrounding the castle. The castle had a water border with a single bridge to the main gate. There where also several barricades to provide some cover.

The Players :
Jim Barnabee:
Tim Myers
Andrew "Dozer" Myers
Michael Davis
James McGee

The Teams:
Of the 5 players, there where two teams. The Castle had two players, the Siege had three to balance out the additional bonuses and defense of the castle.
Choosing the teams was simple. Each player chose a token with a number. That number had a matching token randomly located in one of the 5 starting positions on the board. In the end…

Jim B. and Tim become the two castle defenders while the other players became the siege.

Each team now had 15 minutes to discuss strategy and look over the available figures for the game (About 100 total)

The Selection:
This started as an open pick with only a few restrictions:

• No player could have more than 1 dragon
• No player could choose more than 2 of the 6th edition releases (as these where new and I wanted everyone to have a chance to play with something new if they chose to)

All players rolled a D20, highest roll went first, then the next highest, so one. At this point there where no point restrictions, just choose whatever you want.

The last player to choose got to choose first, the rest rolled for 2nd-5th choice placement.

After 4 rounds of draft picks we added up scores. Andrew had 100 points over everyone else, so he set the bar at 405 points. Each other player then chose in order of initiative any number of figures to get to 405 points without going over.

Anyone who could not choose up to 405, had to get as close as possible, any point left over would be applied to their final score.

Placement:
Each team placed their figures in their starting area. It was agreed among all players that the teams could start anywhere in their respective side (Inside vs. Outside of Castle)

Once placement was complete the game began as normal.

Scoring:
I did not play and acted as final word on all rules disputes. At this point no one knew that they were playing for as it was a hidden prize.

Scoring was kept simple. After a predetermined period of time the game would come to an end. The player (Not team) with the most points in kills plus any leftovers from the draft would be the winner.

This added an element of teamwork, but not too much teamwork, since if player A beat an enemy down, but player B on the same team delivered the killing blow, Player B got the points.

Basically each player kept what they killed. In the situation where you killed a member of a squad, the total points of the squad were divided by the total members of the squad, to give each pawn a single point value.

Example:
A squad or wraths cost 120 points. There are 3 wraths in the squad, Killing one wraith would then be worth 40 points (120/3)

A Winner is Declared:
Play ended at 3:30 and total scores where tallied. This was due to Jim Barnabee having to leave. I determined that if any player had a 100 point lead over everyone else, they would be an immediate winner, otherwise Jordy would take over for Jim and the game would continue.
Jim had a 101 point lead and declared winner: For this I awarded him a new copy of Starship Catan:

Most other players where very even in their scoring at this point and the Castle team had defended the castle very well.

But it really does not end there:

The Aftermath:

After Jim left we kept playing to see how it would fair a few more turns in. In the end, the Castle fell and the Siege team declared final victory. It all came down to a breaking through one of the outer doors (so Siege characters could enter the castle, as well as opening up a transport Glyph for fast access into the Castle. James made a major move by moving a character that could eat any small character it was adjacent to into the castle, quickly knocking out most the castle defenders.

In the end the game was fun for everyone:

In Conclusion:
Some folks suggested in the future we also have points for those on your team that survived at the end of the tournament since Jim had suffered some good losses which may have impacted the score. Maybe next time.

Rules Summary:

• We used the standard Heroscape rules with the following changes:
• Castle units behind ramparts could still be targeted but received a +2 to defense vs. not being able to be hit at all.
• Several Glyphs were placed at random outside the Castle. One Glyph of transport was placed in the castle. It was the only known Glyph. Any character could use the Glyphs (once the sister Glyph was discovered) as long as at least one adjacent space was available. The Castle players were able to hold off the use of this Glyph for some time as they blocked all adjacent spaces.
• Flying characters could fly into or out of the castle normally as well as land on open rampart spaces.
• Flying characters could not hover next to ramparts, they needed to be able to land in a legal space.

Thanks again to all who participated.