West Coast Qualifier: Tournament Overview

The West Coast Qualifier is over and victors have been announced (see previous post). But, with this post I thought I would take the opportunity to better explain the qualifier. Next time I will describe the list that I brought to the three-game tournament and then I will provide a breakdown of my three games, along with my opponent’s army lists.

The qualifier was held on November 15, 2014 and Endgame in Oakland, CA. The rules were fairly straightforward and simple: 2500 points following the U.S. Master’s rules pack. The U.S. Master’s rule pack used Swedish Comp for army list design (we were using the October 2014 version) with a required comp band of eight (8) to fourteen (14). Any comp score above a fourteen would be reduced to a fourteen and any list with a score of less than eight was banned from the tournament. All games were standard Battleline deployment.

Swedish Comp is an interesting comp formula. If you haven’t heard of it, or played with it yet, I suggest you try. It is not an “end all, be all” composition system, and it allows for armies to still have some very nasty combinations. But the purpose is to provide a recognized level of power across all armies and allow players to design and play armies at similar strength levels. Although the system can be complicated at first, but this is the easiest way I can explain it. Every person begins list design with a score of 300 points before taking a single unit. Then you begin building your list, deducting a number of points from your starting total of 300 equal to what the unit costs. For example, a Level 4 mage might cost 28 points while a unit of core troops or a particular magic item costs 10 points. After your list is built, you then divide your total composition score by 10 (thus, if you finished score was 140 you would be a 14, but if your final score was 10 your list would comp a 1). In this manner you try and build a list that falls between an 8 (or 80) and a 14 (or 140).

The benefit of playing within a composition band, is that if players want to take particularly nasty combinations or play slightly harder lists, the “softer” lists are given a leg up in the game. For example, in the U.S. Master’s rules pack, the difference in composition scores relates to a pre-game victory points difference in favor of the softer list equal to 100 victory points per full point of composition difference. Thus, a 14 playing a 14 would not be entitled to any bonus points, but a 14 playing an 8 would start the game 600 points up before the game even begins. This type of victory point advantage can heavily influence the play style of the opponents for that particular game making one player play more conservatively or more aggressively than they would normally to overcome the points difference.

Winning at the U.S. Master’s (and thereby the West Coast qualified) is determined solely by victory points and the tournament uses the standard 20-nil system. This system provides battle points to each player based on the difference between the victory points both players earned. Both players start the game with 10 points each. For each 150 victory points a player beats another by, they gain 1 battle point and their opponent loses 1 battle point. So for example, beating someone by 500 victory points corresponds to a three point bonus for the winner for a total score of 13 and a three point loss of the lose for a total score of 7. A full 20 battle points requires a difference in victory points of over 1500.

This year, the following players came to the West Coast qualifier (also included is their army choice and final composition score):

• Austin Morgan - WoC - 13.5
• Dave Inman - Skaven - 10.6
• Ed Phillips - DoC - 11.3
• Fred Whitney - WE - 10.0
• Ivan Jen - O&G - 13.9
• Jacob Berry - WE - 12.6
• Jeremy Campbell - OK - 14.0
• Joseph Urban - Brets - 13.1
• Josh Fricke - DoC - 9.1
• Josh Stuart - DE - 12.2
• Justin Rusk - WE - 14.0
• Mike Hengl - O&G - 12.8
• Mike Sanders - OK - 11.5
• Mike Scaletti - WoC - 14.0
• Que Bohn - DoC - 14.0
• Zach Lopez - WoC - 14.0

An interesting fact drawn from above is that the most played armies were WoC and DoC (as they seem to comp fairly well in Swedish Comp) and I would expect this to be the same at U.S. Masters as well. Also of note is that the majority of players came in with “softer” composition scores and five players, myself included, had a 14.0. I am betting that this is more of a West Coast thing, and that most players at the Masters will be closer to the 10-11 bracket.