Da Boyz Team Tourney – Crispy’s Wrapup

     Looking back at the Da Boyz Team Tourney, I’m surprised how much list tailoring and the pairing mechanism influenced the game balance. You might say that’s a fairly obvious revelation (come on, you knew that you were playing at a team event right?), but I think that there is a definite difference between the theoryhammer view of a team event I had before hand and the reality of playing in one. Before the event, I was confident in generating a well-rounded all comers list that could play multiple rolls. Now, I can definitely see how designing a specific list to fill a specific roll would have been more beneficial. Chalk it up to experience over theory.



     Pairing is also another mechanic that can throw a monkey wrench into your plans. Talking to my teammates, I think we all agreed that things could have gone differently if we put more thought into pairings. It wasn’t as simple as (X army > Y army). We all had favorable matchups in mind, but I think our opponents did well in depriving us of good options. They were also rock solid opponents.

     So, what could have been done differently? I definitely see how attacker and defender lists can benefit the team. Being able to generate a list that handles a specific problem was something we lacked. For instance, Hyv3mynd took it for the team and faced down 2 Dark Eldar armies. I’m not sure we had the tools in our arsenals to handle the DE. Next time, I maybe one of us will bring an army tailored against mobile shooting. I think that there was a ‘team building’ aspect of the event we may have missed out on. Instead of 4 guys coming together and playing what we usually play, team building, where we focus on strengths and complement our weaknesses, could factor into our overall strategy.

     All of that said, I’m not too sure what else I would change. My first two games were fantastic and really close. I don’t know about you, but the close ones are my favorite. My third game was a complete tactical failure on my part, but was still pretty good because of my opponent. In the end, ‘The Grand Stategery!’ finished near the bottom of the battle points (lol, we may have entered the sub-basement of battle points). At the end of the event, I had to cut out early and drive a teammate home. While driving, we were talking about the event and how we were both a little disappointed in our performance. Before it could turn into a pity-party Hyv3mynd called to tell us that we’d missed the awards ceremony and our team managed to snag the Best Sports award! Combined with the good games, it was great day.

     Thinking about the event itself, my only criticism of the event concerns the missions and how they were scored. The missions weren’t bad, they were pretty much old 5^th ed objectives, but they lacked the flavor provided by the new edition. I was really surprised how small additions like Slay the Warlord and First Blood change how the game feels. The missions felt a bit bland, which is fairly weird as I was happily playing them just a few months ago. I suppose it shows how good the new mission structure is.

     In terms of the scoring, each team could score 80 points per round, 20 points per player. If you won big, you could score the full 20 points. If you tied your game, each player would score anywhere between 3-7 points each. In a few of my games, the combined score of my opponent and me added up to 12 points. If you had a close game, both players would get low scores. To me, the close games scored both sides like losses. It didn’t seem right.

     That wraps up the team event for me. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be covering the Fantasy side of the GT, the Local Invitational tournament, and I’ll be posting a few game aids for download. Thanks for reading.

-Crispy