War Games Con feedback

[Count Domar]

Just wanted to pass on my feedback in the hopes of making next years convention even better.

Here are a few of my comments:

1. The greenstuff/painting/centerpiece seminar was great but I think you should have one subject per class and each class about 4 hours. This will give the person enough time on each subject to go into a little bit more detail or to spend more time with the participants to help them out.

2. I was a little disappointed with the whole "Badge" and sign in process. When I signed up for the seminar I was told that I should sign in to receive my badge, a "Swag Bag" and then be directed to the area I would need to go for whatever I had signed up for.
A. I found that there was no centralized sign-in table (The only table I found was one for signing in for the tournaments) so I never received any kind of badge.
B. There was no centralized control so anybody could come and go at the convention so what was the point of telling people they needed to have badges to attend the convention? If you don't care about others checking out the convention (Those not signed up for any events) then don't force those who are attending events to buy a badge as part of coming to the convention either (If it were to cover some of the costs of the convention then raise the event participation cost).
C. The Swag Bag: My disappointment was that there was none. When I first arrived at the convention and went to sign in (See item A and B above) I found out that the item that GW was sending had not arrived yet so there was no Swag Bags. I am not sure if "all" of the items in the swag bag was being provided by GW or just the bag to put the items in. If they were only providing a bag to be used to place the items in why not just place the items in a generic bag in order to pass them out. If GW was providing all of the items then it appears that the coordination on these items were a little on the late side. Coordinating earlier with GW or the other vendors providing items as part of the swag bag should be done early enough to ensure they will arrive prior to the beginning of the event.

3. Vendors at the convention: Was there any? As there was not central sign-in table I did not know who to ask if there were any and if so where they were located. It was my understanding that last years convention had vendors present so I would assume that there would have been some this year, however, there may not have been.

4. T-Shirts. Once again, was there any? If so I did not know where to purchase one. I would have loved to have had a momento of the convention as this was the first one of this type that I had attended.

Sorry to rant as I did but hopefully it will be taken as constructive feedback to help with next years convention. It did look as if the handling of the ongoing tournaments was being done in a very professional manner.

Jim

[Epheus]

Ill give a sandwhich here, good/bad/good.

Good = Lots of people, even many faces I had never seen before, and the tournament was organized and ran well for FOW.

Good = Lots of tables and room to play, was nice to be able to move and play and not worry about running others over.

Good = Judges and JWolf were readily available, was good for support when needed.

Bad = Terrain, it was horrible. I dont know what it is about so many local and even some national tournaments, but in WWII people really did fight in forests and have lots of terrain to deal with. TINY patches of trees does not constitute a forest or even woods, its barely big enough in most cases as 2 or 3 stands. This is not 40k. These tables were poorly laid out, poorly imagined, the terrain was AWFUL (cant move trees, dont stick to hills, etc...) to manuever around and not nearly enough. CERTAINLY not good enough for a nationals tournament, please speak with those that played at QoB on Saturday, MUCH MUCH better terrain.

Bad = Swag, I have to admit I was terribly disapointed, as was everyone I spoke with. Sure did seem like alot was either promised or hinted at. Also, prize support was no where near what was implied, and/or people were under the perception it was going to be, in fact people flew/drove in from other states/cities to play and spent more on gas then what the awards were.

Bad = Was a total mess for communication. The FOW tournament rules were posted as one thing, ended up being something totally different, which does affect play style and lists to some degree. Times were not clearly posted, on one page the Fow tournament started at 9, another 10, bit confusing and really hard to track if your not a blogger. Still not entirely sure its a national qualifier, but if nationals is going to be ran here next year, and with 18 people and 25.00 bucks to play, I dearly hope so.

Good/bad = Very cool having a new mission, and good that rules for that mission were provided. Was a bit unfortunate that we had 2 out of 3 of the missions be FFA which had a few grumbling, but I enjoyed the Night fighting, very different from the norm.

Good = Timing, tournament started at a great time and was not rushed, food was available and didnt have to go anywhere, kudos!

Good = Awards, very cool, something to remember the tournament by. Gift certificates is cool too, does not force me into something I dont want, and money to do something I like is always appreciated! (not to contradict the misperception it would be more, just as I said, Money to play is great, just be sure expectations are not overly pushed). Maybe next time actually state what they will be?

Newly adapted " pretend Battlefront" tournament point system: did anyone ever decide how to handle platoon count when platoons are removed from the table that do not count towards Morale (Fighting Withdrawal, Lone survivor, etc...). Also, according to BattleFront, the "new" scoring system is NOT official at all and was just a suggestion from a employee of Battlefront, hence probably not thought through entirely and at this point?

In fighting withdrawal, you could be taken down to 1 or 2 platoons quite easily without actually losing one. Starting at 6 lets say, does that mean you started with the 1 or 2 on the table, or did you start with 4 and are now at 50%, or do only count with what you end and therefore losing 1 platoon (even if you started with 10) coudl feasibly be 50 percent of your force? ALL of these are broken, and may strongly favor the attacker or the defender in different situations.

Ok, that is my wall of text, enjoy.


All in All, I was very glad I attended, I had quite a bit of fun and played against some excellent players. Winning did not hurt either, hehe.

[Jwolf]

Thanks for your feedback.

I'll answer some of these items.

First, Count Domar:

1. I'll give Dave your feedback.
2. A. The Badge option allows several bits of flexibility for the organizers, and simplies our recordkeeping. First, it allows us to easily provide a set discount for certain other criteria (we discounted the badge fee for people who attended the other Austin IGT and for participants in another local tournament for FoW, to help support other events). Second, it allows us to better recoup the cost of the space without ending up overcharging people who are coming for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday events. We had discussed having simple badges as we did last year, but determined that there was no real value to either the participants or the convention in doing so. We already have plans to have a badge worth keeping for next year.
B. Yes, people could come and go. No one could participate in events without being know, as there was a hard count for the Workshop and the tournaments have a registered list. I'm willing to accept the loss of people that do not want to pay for a floor pass and are willing to "sneak" in to open game or look around. Badges do not solve that issue, as the percentage or people that do not wear or lose their badges is significant enough that we would require a full-time staffer acting as the badge police, which I am unwilling to do. If a person is so desperate to attend and either too broke to pay $30 for a floor pass or thinks that sneaking in is awesome, then I'm willing to accept that.
C. Completely my responsibility. We had a miscommunication and failed delivery of the bags for the swag, so bags were not made until Saturday and distrubuted on Sunday. Feel free to email me and I'll send you something to replace the swag bag.

3. Vendors were not in attendence this year, not did we particularly have space to put them. Our overall schedule for last year did not allow for a lot of vendor browsing, so we did not push for vendors this year. If space allows, we will include a vendor room next year.

4. We did not make Tee-Shirts. Perhaps we'll do that next year, and perhaps not.

Thanks for your feedback, and we definitely experienced some growing pains, going from a "simple" set of tournaments to a larger multi-faceted event.

Epheus:

Thanks for the Goods. I'll discuss the bads.

Bad = Terrain. This is one of the most seriously debated issues for FoW, and being an infantry player myself, one I tend to agree with you on (I love playing FJ in the woods). We will have a significantly more varied terrain set for next year.

Bad = Swag. Mia culpa. I did make sure that everyone at the QoB got a set of books, which I hope helped somewhat. I will not have this problem again.

Bad = Communication. I apologize for the change of rules, but I felt that trying what seems likely to be the ruleset for the next nationals was worth doing. At least more feedback can be given on the proposed scoring as it relates to various missions, which is a good thing. This is a qualifier, and the results will be posted and given to battlefront.

Thanks for your feedback.

[chapterhousestudios]

Hi there Wolf,

As you know I came to last years convention as well. I was pretty impressed with everything last year and was looking forward to this year for the last few months.

I have to say I enjoyed all my opponents as well as the painting was fantastic.

I think my friend and I had the same feelings at the end though, we were a bit let down compared to last year, let me emphasize that I know some of the issues were out of your hands.

#1 Point Spread - I think the point system for the missions was beyond complex and the spread was huge. Having a mission worth 0-40+ points makes it near impossible for someone who won or tied a few games to even get close to those who get lucky draws and wipe out opponents a couple of times.
I had 6 possible troop choices and the multiple objects (3-5 in the missions) was ok, until you had to hold 3 many times to get the points..

#2 Organization - Last year you guys were on the ball, the badges were all made up, for the most part everything started on time (or close) and we all left Sunday at reasonable times... This year.. many people had to leave since flights had to be made etc etc.
Considering that last year was the first attempt, I am surprised at how the organization level was seemingly lower then the previous con.

Hope some of this helps to make next year better.

Nick

[Galadren]

I can agree with alot of the complaints here, and I also understand the difficulties that caused them, as far as the prizes and swag.

All in all, though, I have to say that as a 40k player I had alot of fun. The missions were pretty rough and I often found myself getting a secondary and tertiary while being unable to snag a primary. I have to agree with chapterhouse in saying they were a bit overly complex and the points spread was difficult to beat. But overall I met some great people and had some really close games that literally came down to the last turn.

My only real complaints have to do with the hotel itself, though. It just wasn't that great of a place for the money that was being paid, and often times I found the service sucked. Especially in the cafe. There was very little else that was quick to get to in the time alotted for the lunch breaks, so me and my friends would just hit the cafe. Problem with the cafe was that it was taking them 10-15 minutes to show up to take our orders and then another 30+ minutes to actually get the food. When you're on a one hour window to eat and get back to the table that was cutting it pretty close. My other major problems were the prices to use the internet and the fact that the hotel seems to sit in a cellular dead zone. I honestly will not be staying there again next year.

But overall I will say I had alot of fun over the weekend and I look forward to attending again next year.

[Beamo]

I had a blast, myself, and I intend to come back next year with painted armies to play with, and not just stuff to put in the painting competition.

My only criticism isn't really a bad, so much as something to consider next time around:

I loved Dave's workshop a lot, and would probably not pass up the opportunity to attend it again, assuming it's not identical to this year's, as that would be kind of... silly. My issue is that it ran alongside the team tournament, so you didn't have to choose so much what game you played, but whether you even played at all that day.

My proposed solution is next time, think about breaking the classes up over the three days, and maybe doing them in the morning and letting the tournaments start slightly later than they did this year. That way people might be able to fit more into their experience.

Just a thought.

Brandon Griffith

[evilamericorp]

I heartily agree with having a later start time for events. Unless the hotel has some sort of time restrictions, I think pushing the start time back a couple of hours would give people time to sleep in a bit more, while not really cutting into night life shenanigans for those that partake in them.

[Flummer]

First off, I want to say as my first con, the four of us from Missouri had a blast. We plan to make it down next year, but it would be nice to see a few changes.

1. Receive your missions the evening before the event. I only played in the team 40k tournament myself, but I really just did not have the time to figure out a plan until the very last minute.

2. What happen to WYSIWYG? I know me personally and my 3 teammates all put in vast hours converting (and painting) to make sure we were in the rules. Then to find out that non-winged Nurgle Deamon Princes where winged Slaanesh ones. Come on, Really? Now let me just say, the gaming group I come from plays a lot of proxies, and I am okay with that. But, in this setting, I feel like this needs to be a lot more strict.

3. Painted models. Almost the same rant above. Seeing the guy with 6 juggers, 3 all metal and 3 plastic, not even primed, made me a little ticked.

4. Spaced out tournaments. None of the 4 of us that came down played in anything after Friday. A 7 round tournament just isn't our cup of tea, but 3 round team tournaments, Warmachine/Hordes, and even singles tournaments that may be like 1250 point style are right up my alley.

5. Seminars on more days. I really really wanted to attend the one, but it was only offered for Friday.

6. The last thing I have to say is just kinda a preference thing but, I felt like that in the team tournaments it should be in the rules that the 2 teams come from different codex's. Thats what makes the tournament unique and fun. If I want to see a 2k all SW list I could stay at home. SW and something else, now we are getting interesting.

I really want to say the issue with the Swag a bummer but I realize that for the most part it was out of your hands and that GW really dropped the ball on you. But, I do appreciate what we did get and appreciate your help JWolf.

[Jwolf]

Addressing from the last post since my last reply:

Nick V:

#1 Point Spread - Point spread was the same as last year. Overall it worked, but I agree that some luck in early round pairings may have been magnified due to the spread. I am already considering a simplified scoring system, largely because this will influence your experience of #2. Do remember that a large point spread also allows a larger comeback if you do well and the guys at the top stumble, so the knife cuts both ways.

#2 Organization - I can appreciate your experience of things seeming disorganized. We definitely had some growing pains, and I made a stupid call about assembling the swag bags that I won't make again. From the tournament inside direction, every round was actually calculated faster once all the results were in than last year, and we had a lot fewer internal problems getting the rounds in. That said, we had 2 rounds where we did not have all the results until less than 2 minutes before we were supposed to start the next round, and almost every round we had several results out with 10 minutes until the next round was supposed to start. It's simply not possible to verify anything for 200 players in a couple of minutes, so we had a lot of late starts. Not priniting badges this year was simply a matter of functional use of time. Last year we printed an average of 2 badges per person, and ate a lot of time doing so. Next year we already have a plan for badges that people will want to keep and we'll have those ready when you check in.
I'll agree that we had organizational issues, mostly related to the swag bags and the difference between two single event(s) and multi-day multi-event issues. We've learned, and next year will be significantly smoother.

Galadren:

See above regarding points.

The hotel cafe will be better prepared for you next time. This feedback is important, as I meet with the hotel later this week. I ate from the concessions cart all weekend, which had good food, but I would like the cafe to be quick enough that people can eat there as well.

Brandon G:

We're already considering multiple hobby seminars on multiple days next time. It is not a simple thing to have seminars that do not conflict with other events, though. Dave's seminars were all on day 1 so that he could play in the Narrative games on Saturday and Sunday, for example.

Ogre Nick:

Later start times mean later end times. Not sure I'm going for that. One of the things I like is ending before 10PM... I'll include your thoughts in the postgame email to participants, though.

Flummer:

1) We can do that.

2) Call it to the attention of the judges. I am happy to intervene, but it's hard for me to know what is WYSWIG and what isn't without an army list in my hand.

3) I feel the same way, and discussed this with several players who had unpainted models. It is a problem that all TOs wrestle with, and I'd love to have a good solution. I think at least primed is possible for almost every player in almost every situation, and adding a couple strokes of color to get to 3 colors takes another hour or so for an entire horde army. I'm open to feedback and definitely looking for ways to ensure at least minimal painting occurs.

4) I'll consider some smaller tournaments, and 3 days of Steamroller events is definitely on the plan for next year.

5) More seminars will be the subject of a lot of public discussion for next time. I'll be looking for more feedback on what people want and how to get it to them.

6) Not a bad rule, I like it. I might go with a variation of that, because I do like things like different Marine chapters working together, different craftworlds, different IG, etc. And I agree that some variation on the two forces is a good thing.

The swag bag problems are my fault. I had the goods in my hands, but not the bags I wanted to use. I should have just put the goods in shopping bags on Thursday and been done with it. A bad call on my part which will not happen again.

[silashand]

6) Not a bad rule, I like it. I might go with a variation of that, because I do like things like different Marine chapters working together, different craftworlds, different IG, etc. And I agree that some variation on the two forces is a good thing.

I think his suggestion might help to eliminate the problem where some people show up with their girlfriend/wife/whoever as their "teammate", but the only thing they do is roll an occasional die and the one person basically plays both armies as one. If it's supposed to be a "team" tournament, then it needs to be a "team" and not one guy abusing the system so he can play more solo games.

Cheers, Gary