When thinking about blogging about the tournament I had a hard time finding a good way to proceed. After a little consideration, I decided to break down the tournament into various categories so you can see my thoughts on each aspect of the tournament, as well as the tournament as a whole.
Travel and Accommodations:
On Thursday, I flew out to San Antonio, and met several friends and gaming buddies along the way. I was lucky to match up the second leg of my flight with a group from Leadership 2 so I didn't have to travel alone. I hate travelling alone and it was nice that there was a group of like-minded gaming individuals to help split costs. Plus, as we were all staying in the same hotel, I could make sure I made it to where I was supposed to go.
We stayed at the Hotel Contessa right on the San Antonio River Walk. This was a great place to stay. It was downtown and close to bars and great food. It was also within walking distance of the tournament venue (about 15 minutes) so it was easy to make it to the games on Saturday and Sunday morning. This is the hotel that the group I was with always stays at for the Alamo GT and I would have no problem going back and staying there again.
Tournament Venue:
The venue was in a small community room of about 3000 square feet. The room was well lit and had decent air conditioning! Air conditioning for a tournament venue is always important because, more so this last weekend as (1) it was in the mid-eighties in San Antonio last weekend and (2) there would be a room full of gamer guys who can raise the room temperature significantly. The venue also had bathrooms, plentiful parking, was easily located close to downtown, and had a small bar that served extremely reasonably priced alcohol and small food stuffs. I'm talking $2.50 a draft prices. This place made tournament drinking so much easier. And no one had to bring in coolers and keep searching for ice.
I would rate this venue as one of the better venues I have ever played a tournament at. This is a great example of a tournament venue and is what tournament organizers should look for when planning a tournament.
Gaming Tables and Terrain:
The venue provided standard white collapsible tables upon which the tournament staff placed thin cardboard pieces cut to 6' x 4' sections that were covered in green plastic. These tables easily identified where each table began and ended, but did not provide any space to place units, bags, etc. All tables were clearly marked by table numbers and there were only a few tables in another room so finding your spot for each round was fairly easy. However, the tables were placed a little close together so that once you started playing things got a little cramped as the person on the table behind you was also trying to play their game.
Terrain for each table was pretty standard. Most boards had about 6 pieces of terrain, varying from woods, and buildings to marshes and hills. They had no identifiable effects, and all woods counted as normal woods. There were also some pieces of difficult or impassible terrain and most pieces of terrain were no bigger than 6". The terrain was a combination of hand made and purchased terrain and looked fine on the tables. There were no "themed" tables, but I also didn't feel like I was playing with terrain that should not have been on the battlefield. I did notice a lack of obstacle terrain and I sensed this was because most players in the area didn't like the obstacle terrain rules compared with the more standard 7th edition type terrain of forests, hills, and buildings.
Terrain placement involved alternative deployment with the restriction that no piece of terrain could be within 6" of another piece or within 6" of the table center. I don't really like this rule in 8th edition Warhammer. I feel that tournaments are still behind the curve on terrain requirements and use 7th edition terrain rules. In particular, I feel there just isn't enough terrain on the board, especially forests (and no, this isn't just because one of my armies is Wood Elves). I find that having two extra forests on the board force players to play more cautiously for fear of losing steadfast or being held up by stubborn skirmishers. I also don't like restrictions on where I can place terrain. If there is a piece of impassible terrain on the table, I should be able to place it where anywhere I want, whether that is in a deployment zone (forcing my opponent to think about hit deployment more) or in the center of the board (forcing my opponent to move more strategically). There are no terrain placement rules in 8th edition and if a tournament is not at least playing with the mysterious terrain rules, then they should not also be restricting terrain placement. I feel that I got hosed by this rule the entire tournament as there were several times that a building near the center of the board would have forced my opponent to split his forces into two directions rather than just move straight forward at me. But, I found that I was in the minority at the tournament about terrain (probably because I play armies that require more strategy in the movement phase).
Scoring:
The scores rules are pretty standard and are available at the tournament website here. The only big scoring effect is rather than some tournaments that use a varying point scale for sportsmanship, the Alamo gives everyone 64 points on credit which can be increase or decreased by either best opponent or bad game votes. I don't really like this system because it decreases the deviation within sportsmanship scores. It felt really hard to give a person a bad game over a good game despite rules arguments and list design. Thus, when I was erring between good game and bad I gave a good game where at other tournaments I could have given a mediocre score.
I also disliked the fact that army composition was only addressed by the good game/bad game vote. I felt it was much harder to give a bad game vote for an army design if my opponent was nice and we had a good game. I think the lack of actual composition points directly affected the types of armies that were brought. The only problem with bringing a tough as nails list was that in Round 1 you would also be playing a tough as nails list. That isn't really much of an incentive, if you ask me, to not bring a broken army list. Especially as regardless of whether you won or lost that first game, pairings after Round 1 were based solely on battle points.
Rules Changes:
When I was designing my army list for the tournament, the rules and scenarios for the game were available ahead of time here. Thus, I designed my army to only need to win by 100 points against most opponents and with characters that would help achieve specific bonus objectives. Heck, that was why I even brought standards to the tournament at all, was for the bonus point in Round 5. But when I arrived at the tournament Saturday morning we were all presented with two new rules changes that were not previously disclosed.
One, was optional rules for Round 3, which made the game more interesting and fun, but didn't impact the scenario itself. These optional rules will be discussed more thoroughly in my battle report on Round 3, but as a preview they involve drinking, and getting certain bonuses based upon the number of drinks consumed.
The other rules change was a bit more distressing. Each round now had an additional Sneaky Git rule which read:
"If the losing player loses by LESS than 500 points, he steals two victory points from the winner."What this rule meant was that if I managed to win the game, but win by less than 500 points, I lost 2 battle points from my score. This rule absolutely hammered my ability to place at this tournament and had I known about this rule ahead of time I would not have submitted the fast cavalry list I did. That army was designed to win by 100 points, not 500, so I knew before beginning the first round that I was playing 10 possible battle points down from everyone else in the tournament. I was really disappointed by this change, not because I think it is inappropriate, but because I didn't know about it prior to submitting my list. I actually love the rule itself, but I don't like having it surprised on me after having submitted a list designed to play under the prior rules. Next year, I will be expecting something like this so I will be having to play a different build.
Comparative Army Lists:
Because there was no actual composition points, the army lists that were brought to this tournament were head and shoulders above the normal difficulty level I see and play at tournaments. Most armies I saw maximized unit sizes, magic levels, artillery pieces, and mounted units. For example, there were several armies with double Ironblasters, double Terrorgheists, large knight buses, at least two cannons or artillery pieces, huge slave units, huge horde units, maximum Irongut models in a unit, maximum Chaos Dwarf artillery, and pretty much every other nasty thing you can think of.
If you plan on attending next year's event, understand that the army lists I played, and the units identified above were not "flukes" or "rare." Rather, they were the standard lists looking out across the field. Build your army accordingly. I know I will!
Overall Experience:
Overall, my experience at the tournament was fantastic. I was disappointed by both my overall play and the last minute rules changes. But I am already looking forward to next year's tournament and am preparing to do much better and expect similar changes. The tournament itself ran smoothly and on time and the vast majority of players, myself included, seemed to be really enjoying themselves (especially in Round 3 and first thing in the morning for Round 4). I would recommend that everyone try and attend this tournament if they are able and just take my criticisms into account when designing and submitting their lists. See you next year in San Antonio!
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