Crimes Against........

So the UK's biggest tournament, the South Coast GT, has decided to go for six Battleline games rather than use the scenarios.

This event is organised by the principals of the Heelanhammer podcast. Now I really like their show, the content being heads and shoulders above everything else available, with the possible exception of Bad Dice, but recently it has become a bit of a whingefest against scenarios. The key objections raised are that they have the potential to ruin the tournameny either by the creation of non-games or by eliminating the victor's ability to harvest VPs in situations where the game ends immediately.

To me these criticisms are as more an indictment of the scoring system being used in the UK tournament scene than any reflection on the scenarios. Most use wins and then VPs harvested as the basis rather than the 20-0 system used in this part of the world.

As I have said on this blog before the scenarios act as an inbuilt comp system requiring you to make concessions in your list if you want to be competitive across a range of scenarios. Removing scenarios betrays an inability or unwillingness to adapt. So your game is ruined because two units rolled a '1" on Meeting Engagement - spread your risk by having more units. You dont like the potentially unstandard deployment of Dawn Attack - deploy your most important units first.

To the outsider it looks like a reluctance to adapt or an unwillingness to think pn your feet. Throughout history there are numerous examples of Generals having to make battle in less than ideal circumstances. To me scenarios create rather than diminish the probability that you find the better general. And if you lose you can always say you were shafted by the scenario.

The other complaint regularly being voiced is how boring units of 40 Bloodletters are. Well putting aside the fact that the Daemon player probably finds it no more boring than facing 6 dice "Flesh to Stone" or "Okram's Mindrazor", I'm struggling to see how removing scenarios will do anything other than encourage those builds. One of the problems they face is removed and replaced with certainty.

Now as I said I really rate the views of those on Heelanhammer and big ups to them for their efforts in organising the SCGT but on this occasion I can't help but feel they've got it wrong.