Friday 20 August 2010

A quick note on Stelek's 5x5 system...

NB - I plan to add more to this post later, just kinda a placeholder.

Anyway - here's the latest thing he's advocating.  Instead of the previous system which, as I understood it, had the opponent pick 5 of your units at deployment (after seeing list, but before models were placed) and these were the ones they could claim a KP for eliminating.  Fine and dandy, no? Yes, yes, there's that whole 'benefits MSU' thing, but, really, it doesn't matter, because MSU is just better generally.

Now, however, he posits picking them from your own list, and at the List Building stage.

This is a dumb idea, sorry to say.

Too open to abuse - it'd be very easy indeed to bring multiple copies of the army list, with different units listed as being KP-worthy...ugh.  It's even easier than the most prolific cheating I am aware of, that of moving over the distance you are allowed.  Seriously, I think GW should sell T-Shirts to demonstrate moving front of base to front of base, not front to back.  Sigh.

In fairness, I haven't GOT a system I've invented that I think perfect for Competitive play.  But I don't really think I like this one.

That's all for now.

7 comments:

Rkik said...

I completely agree.

I never really considered the cheating angle before, but just as far as the list building it seems a little unbalanced. I imagine most people will either nominate their toughest units (Land Raider, Terminators, etc) or nominate units that they will then keep in the back of their formation (or in reserves).

With the opponent nominating 5 KP from your list, it opens up a lot of tactical choices. Like, do I nominate the easy things to kill, or the harder stuff to try and dissuade my opponent from using it aggressively.

The only problem with that becomes tracking it during the game and the extra time it takes for setup.

Anonymous said...

Not worried about cheating so much... I just don't like it...

So far, the best I've seen is the NOVA Open's 5 obj / VP (or KP) and Seize Ground format... I've played a senario and it was WAY more challenging than the normal missions cause they had multiple layers.

Stelek said...

So, did you not read all of the article?

Part of doing this is using the BOLS method of army list verification (see, they did something right, and I mention it--universe is still here).

You send in your list, and you get back an approved set of army lists for the tournament--with your 5 Kill Points clearly marked.

Still dumb? Give me a real reason why, other than the one provided so far, the "I didn't bother to read the article" one.

Love you too.

Stelek said...

Oh and it's not me advocating anything, it's me trying to figure out how to make the system work with 100 people.

Moar ideaz helpz mee. ;)

TheKing Elessar said...

I don't know if I like that. I am gravitating towards the opinion that everyone should submit lists to something like that a month in advance, and once triple-checked, they should be made public, to prevent any list shenanigans.

Stelek said...

Not sure lists need to be made public, I think that isn't transparent, just silly/work/possible advantage to other players.

You never know when some armies aren't coming, but then you would. That's bad imho.

TheKing Elessar said...

Yes and no. Since none would be published until all had been verified you couldn't tailor, and with 100+ players the odds of any one particular match-up would be infinitesimally small. Or Just really small. lol

I can se how it would benefit some players, but only the better ones, in which case I can't see it as that big of a problem, tbh. Especially when Strength of Schedule and a cut to Single Elim is thrown into the mix...or we use W/L.

You may well be right, but I think it's a conversation worth having, and I would like to see an event try it out to see how it worked/hear of an event that DID.

I don't really think, for example, that the ETC is particularly negatively affected by the lists being published a month or whatever beforehand - even though it is *very* Rock-Paper-Scissorsty K.

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