My local group (Team 107) of intrepid gamers and I have started to prepare for WargamesCon in Austin,Texas (June 21-24). We missed tickets for Adepticon, Nova is on Labor day weekend and Most of my gaming group helps me run Feast of Blades, So this year (and most years) WargamesCon is "the big one," we are looking forward to.
The thought:
Some of us a prior athletes and as we looked at the way we play 40k we realized that we were only scrimmaging against specific teams. While a full scrimmage is good, we found that we really needed to work on Skills drills to bring up the level of play for the WHOLE team.
We thought that we could work on skills drills by doing the following:
Stage 1 (2 months): Each week before we start our pick-up games each player brings two armies, one "ringer list," and one "Personal tournament list. As an example, I play Grey Knights, but I made a list for Mech Blood Angels as a ringer list. This list is very likely to be seen at a tournament and is built to tournament levels. Then, two player pair off (Player A and Player B). Player A can choose to play either HIS tournament list or a ringer list (It is highly suggested to play ringer lists that aren't your own). Player B must take the unchosen option of Player A. After this game the players switch.Example:
Game One
Player A: Plays a ringer list that isn't his (Eldar)
Player B: Plays his Tournament list (Space Marines) he has to choose this because player A chose a ringer list.
Game Two:
Player A: Plays his tournament list
Player B Plays a ringer list (daemons)
The whole point of stage one isn't to have really good games where you survive by the skin of your teeth, it isn't even to give your oppoenets tournement list a "good look," at the different armies. The point of this stage is to learn armies that aren't yours and to get familiar with rules that you might not use a lot because you never play armies with those rules (i.e. decent of angels, Mob rule, etc.). This is also the point in the training regimen where you can try out weird combinations in your list and just see how they would work, cause while your testing new units your opponent is playing a ringer list.
Stage 2: 4 months.
After getting to know all the different codices and the intricacies of the rules within them (Not to mention a basic understanding of the tactics within those armies) we switch gears and begin only playing our tournament lists. We then begin to not pull any punches and give it our all. At this stage we finish all of our games until the last die roll and we try to get them within 2 hours. This stage is all about mastery of the whole game with our tournament lists.
End goal:
In the end we should be fairly well versed in the ways of the different armies and the intricacies of each list, we should know when an opponent has made a basic mistake and what their general battle plan will be when we face a list. We should also have a good idea of how to play against more of the common tournament lists from stage 2. All in all we should be well rounded players, all we need now is weighted dice!
What do you think of this training regimen? Lame...Cool...Super cool!?
Duke
Great idea, the more prepared your people are the more satisfied they will be with their performance. They will enjoy the tournament much motif they dont feel like they got caught flat footed.
ReplyDeleteOther good ideas are to discuss how both players should have deployed in the other two deployment types. Also pausing between turns to discuss better plays.
Good luck looking forward to meeting you there! :)
That's what I did last year for Wargames Con. The only mistake I made was by excluding some armies, because no one in my area played them (sisters). I still did ok against my sisters opponent, but I missed a lot of things in retrospect due to unfamiliarity.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when playing some of the older lists you really don't have to learn everything in the army, but get used to the 1-2 builds that people use. Dark Angels: Deathwing Built, Chaos - Duel Lash, Marines - Vulkan, etc... there are certain lists that have a good chance of making it to the top tables.
I just registered my three friends and I to go back to wargames con this year. I'm not sure at the moment if I'm bringing my DE again, or Tau, but I look forward to crossing blades with you guys!
@brian: I agree, knowledge (preparation) is half the battle!
ReplyDelete@shawn: that is our thought of the last four months, face all the "common," tournament builds as well as our own groups' builds.
I'll see you all there in June. I'll be wearin my blue "DUKE" shirt, come up and say hey. Good luck ( unless you play me,lol)
If you're looking to ramp up for WargamesCon, might I shamelessly plug my GT? :)
DeleteThe Bugeater GT (Omaha, NE) is taking place June 1st-3rd, several weeks out from Wargamescon but still close enough to have a dry run in a tournament setting before the big throw down. Last year we had over 40 players from 9 states, this year we'll have more than 60. We're cheap ($52 for a 3 day event ticket), official hotel is cheap (<$100/night), and it's a manageable drive from Denver to Omaha.
Loving the idea!
ReplyDelete