Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Steamroller 2012 50 Point Reinforcements Event

I ran a 50 Point SR2012 event with the artifice that Reinforcements happen ever game, no matter the scenario at Gametown in New Berlin, WI this last weekend. I wanted to see how reinforcements affected the games as well as terrain setup and this gave me a very decent amount of data to compare. I had 12 players show up, with a majority coming in from out of town. I think everyone had fun, I know I had fun hanging out  with everyone that I hadn't seen in awhile.

I learned with reinforcements from a terrain setup that:
1. Buildings should not be 20"-23" up on the right side of the table. It blocks reinforcements hard.
2. Putting a forest in the same spot will make people sad too.
3. Placing a wall somewhere over there can be beneficial.
4. I can't place terrain in a way to prevent the other player from attacking the reinforcements.

These things make it actually quite difficult to place terrain without causing an imbalance. I need to avoid #1, but creating an imbalance on the table is something I desire now when making tables. In SR2012, you have a choice now of going first or picking sides. I feel that having symmetrical sides unfairly punishes the choice of the second player so now I'm giving an incentive to choose a side. I just need to be careful not to go to far where everyone chooses to go second to pick the side. I'm going to be tracking this now to make sure it isn't abused (when I can).

Placings for the top 3 of my event where:
1st - Carnage4u - Skorne
2nd - Rydiafan - Mercenaries
3rd - MidwestJedi - Skorne

We had the following faction breakdown:
Skorne - 3
Khador - 2
Legion - 1
Cryx - 1
Circle - 1
Mercenaries - 1
Minions - 1
Cygnar - 1
Retribution - 1

Here's some pictures of the event.
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 3:
And a Fool in some Biker Scout armor...

5 comments:

  1. Just remember when placing terrain that it should not give undue advantage to either player. It's in the rules now :)

    Interesting to see 2 Skorne on top, what were people running for reinforcements? Troop heavy? Jack/beast heavy? Mixture?

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  2. 2nd player's 2nd turn scenario scoring + 3" extra deployment easily makes up for the first turn benefit. Not sure where you're getting the idea that it doesn't.

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    1. I agree, I just want there to be a thought to the choice rather than always declaring 1st or 2nd. I feel that first and second are pretty balanced right now.

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    2. Wouldn't that render creating uneven tables unnecessary?

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    3. I think having mirrored tables is rather boring and removes part of the advantage of going second, however small that advantage is. I don't make the tables favor player 2, however. I just make the tables so they are different on both sides.

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