Isn't fluff largely just a matter of perspective and what source you are consulting -a SM army of 5 air assaults could be considered perfectly fluffy

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Godwin's Law strikes again!


...why do we need anything more sophisticated/prescriptive?

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

The Club Challenge system isn't used to impose 'fluff' restrictions on players, it's used to level the playing field in the core games (Where army list balance is much less fine than in Epic!).


As this tournament will be allowing some experimental lists, having such a system could be beneficial.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

yes...fluff is probably the wrong word to use! I suggested that prize be a players vote for precisely this reason; do people think it is best merely to outline the aims and intentions of the event in the hopes that those attending will understand what i'm getting at here?!?

Something we've been discussing this end is mixing and matching things around a  little bit; using pre-set scenarios in each round instead of the tournament scenario in the book; this way it adds variety, pushes people's ability to be flexible and may help reinforce the idea that, whilst competitive to a degree, ti's a fun event to see what can be done with epic?

_________________
MoK's Painting Blog
Now Showing:
Mok's Modular Modern Messy Guard Army

That sounds interesting.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

If this is something you're thinking off then maybe change the title from tournament to campaign day?

Split the entrants into good/evil and use all the results of the days gaming to declare one 'side' the winner.

You can still have prizes (Best painted, Most wins/loses etc) but everyone is gaming towards a collected goal, not solely a personal one. You could even have a commander for each side picking the match ups every round. Lots of options to play with then.

I'd still prefer the friendly tournament as billed to a campaign day myself.

Pre-set scenarios could work if people want to and make it something a little different, but if you do MoK I'd recommend keeping them relatively simple in design, rather than getting carried with anything too complicated, as people may already be playing against new players and new armies and ways of playing.

Hmmm...that's a REALLY good idea M; and one that i'd be really keen to pull off! At the moment however it would seem like a BIG leap for me and the Vangaurd to take; this is the first time we've attempted to run an epic event and keeping it RELATIVELY simple something that i feel is important; for the sake of my sanity alone!

GLYN: yep; if we do run with scenarios i imagine it would be kept nice and simple; probably just a preset  terrain and objective set up, and minimal special rules. If that's the direction we go then i can see us releasing the ideas we've got before the event, seeing if anyone can point out mistakes and then refining them.

HOWEVER: i would like to return to a brief discussion of a campaign idea; i've had a narrative campaign in mind of for a while; chaos v imperials, with some feralish orks coming from the northern jungles.  With an Arbitrator or Games Master, two 'Generals' assigned and the ork tribe played as random 'barbarians' to mix and match things a bit as a two day event i can see that being really intersting; big high quality map; some set piece battles with high quality terrain for people to work towards and hopefully some sort of a big finale on day 2 could make for a really interesting weekend of gaming.  THere would still be prizes, there would still be individual scoring and best army prizes but the idea of team play is really exciting! What do people think of that (as a brief tangent to this conversation...)

_________________
MoK's Painting Blog
Now Showing:
Mok's Modular Modern Messy Guard Army

The problem with a narative campaign day is what do you do with Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar, Tyranids etc?

Naratives where all the races in the universe come together to fight over a pretty hat never look good.

On reflection I think that a 'friendly tournament' might be a better setup.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I think you should walk before you attempt to run and the two events cater to some of the same people, but some a different audience too, so it'd be cool to do both. I'd be keen to attend such a campaign too on another occasion (I just didn't want it to replace the tournament), but it would involve a lot more work to organise and to get right. Do this tournament really well and people will be more likely to come to something like this.

To keep it themed rather than coming up with silly background ret-cons for them being there (e.g. the Tau in the Medusa campaign) you should require people to use any variety of Ork, Chaos or Imperial armies. I'd be surprised if most people didn't have at least one of those armies (with spare armies they could probably lend to people who wanted to play but didn't have the correct sort). Be open from the start what it's all about and check what armies people want to use when they register (even restrict late-coming people to play on one side or another if the other side's spaces are full up to keep it equal). Sounds good to me

Could also be good publicity for epic in a way if you could get some photos of some really big cool battles and bung them on Warseer and the like.

edited to add - re: scenarios you might like to talk to Chroma, as he's in the process of producing his Total War fan supplement with loads of scenarios and the like to add more variety to epic play.

To make things clear the winter warmer will not be a narative campaign event.
To asnwer the "what about the other races" question; my answer would simply be 'tough!' The idea is to run a chaos/v imperial campaign with some orks thrown in; i'm sure almost everybody who wanted to attend could find such armies! Another time one might run a different storyline with another two races; like other's (Tzeentch and his tom foolery aside ;-) ) i'm not a fan or random 'everyone get's together to have a scrap' type campaigns either.

Thus far i'm seeing a trend to preferring a straight friendly tourney with additional armies allowed; is this enough to attract new players? Glyn has already jumped at the chance by the seems of it and (by my count) another 8 or so races to play is quite an exciting idea; especially if people can play with up to 3 of their favourte currently unofficial collections in one day.

_________________
MoK's Painting Blog
Now Showing:
Mok's Modular Modern Messy Guard Army

How about calling it an 'Open' tournament or 'Development' tournament or even 'Playtesting' tourney which gets accross that it is intended to be even more relaxed than a normal tourney but loses the implication that normal tourneys aren't friendly by singling it out as friendly.

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

I'm sure calling it a friendly tournament doesn't imply EpicUK tournaments aren't friendly! It's just a comment on the attitude of the tournament with it's wider list of army lists availability, not on players or anything.

I quite like the idea of calling it a friendly tournament personally, it seems a good ethos and people could be potentially be a little put off or confused by calling it a 'Development' or 'Playtesting' tournament - yes as an aside it could help with that - but the main aim is to have some good games of Epic I would think. While 'Open' Tournament just sounds a bit vague - people could wonder 'open to what?'

Howsabout the 'Bristol Open'? (AKA Winter Warmer!)

_________________
MoK's Painting Blog
Now Showing:
Mok's Modular Modern Messy Guard Army