RoR Companions Cup

[Morbio]

I originally thought of calling this the RoR World series, but then I realised I wanted to include people from more than North America so it didn’t really seem appropriate It then became the RoR World Team Challenge until Hidde suggested a much better name!

This will be a team event with teams representing 4 world regions; British Isles (UK & Ireland), Europe (excluding British Isles), North America (US & Canada) and Rest of World (all other places). The format will not be dissimilar to golf's Ryder Cup and hopefully will be a fun and challenging event. The reward for winning will be bragging rights and the satisfaction of contributing to the glory of your team.

Tournament Format

The first round will consist of two separate matches, each between 2 of the 4 regions (Determined by a random draw by me).
Note: The first named team in each match will be considered to be the home team.

Example: British Isles vs Rest of World and North America versus Europe.

The winning teams will then play in the final, the losing teams play to determine 3rd and 4th place.

I'm hoping that this competition can complete in 1 calendar month (it’s only 2 games per person) and we can make this a monthly event.

Teams, Captains and Selection

The teams;
Hannibal (representing British Isles) will be captained by Ericdoman1
Caesar (representing North America) will be captained by TheGrayMouser
Pyrrhus (representing Europe) will be captained by Hidde
Alexander (representing RoW) will be captained by Davouthojo

Each team will consist of 5 players. We may increase this in the future if demand is high. Note: Ideally we want an odd number of players to make it more likely we get a result without recourse to summing BPs won and lost.

The captain of each team;
- will select players for the team, whether they do this based on LoEG position, their knowledge, first-come requests, etc. is up to them. The following forum document viewtopic.php?p=191294#191294 will be used to determine a player's location and eligibility for a team. So, if you want to be considered for this event then please update the document!
- will determine which army each of his players commands.
- will have some influence regarding which armies fight each other (more later)
- may want to give guidance regarding army composition and tactics

Armies, Points and Terrain

I will select a set of armies, points size and terrain selections that will be used for the tournament.

The 5 armies for this inaugural tournament will be 650 points and are;
- Mid-Republican Roman
- Pyrrhic (In Italy)
- Later Carthage (post 235 BC)
- Later Ptolemaic (Greek)
- Suren Indo-Parthian

The terrain (with match number) for this tournament are;
1. Very Open
2. Open
3. Mixed
4. Open
5. Very Open

Determination of Matches

The match-up of all 5 armies will be determined before any battles begin. The process for doing this is as follows;
- The captain of the away team will nominate an army to fight match number 1.
- After seeing the enemy army the captain of the home team will then nominate an army to fight match number 1. He will also propose an army to fight match 2.
- After seeing the enemy army the captain of the away team will then nominate an army to fight match number 2. He will also propose an army to fight match 3.
- After seeing the enemy army the captain of the home team will then nominate an army to fight match number 3. He will also propose an army to fight match 4.
- After seeing the enemy army the captain of the away team will then nominate an army to fight match number 4.
- Match 5 is determined by what's left.

I figure this may give a slight advantage to the home side... and why not!

Both captains will then assign their players to the armies and PM them to me. I will publish them once I have received both selections.

Players then create their respective 650 point armies.

Each home player creates his battle (with FoW and double moves on), PMs his opponent and fightthe battle. Note: This relies on both players to select the correct terrain for the battle!

The winner should publish the results on this forum.

Determination of Team Match Results

A win will gain a point, a draw half a point, no points for a loss.
A team wins if it gets 3 or more points in a match.
If both teams get 2.5 points then total team BP difference will count (total team BPs for minus total team BPs against).
If still a tie then the team with most BPs for... to encourage attacking play!
If still a tie then captains will play-off with 650 point mid-Republican Roman armies (it is a Rise of ROME tournament!) - repeated until a winner is found.

Administration
I will administer the tournament, which comprises of;
- The selection of armies for the tournament
- Decding upon the points used for the tournament
- The selection of 5 terrain compositions
- The random draw of opening matches, the final and the 3rd/4th play-off (I'll use a die). This will determine home advantage too.
- The collection of army-player assignments and publishing of them
- Arbitration on any rule disputes (hopefully I've thought of all eventualities)

I hope you will all trust me to be impartial in the draw and not to abuse any information I may see regarding team selections. Of course, if I'm not selected for team Hannibal it will be a moot point!

Finally, I wonder if this will be a good way of determining who really was the best general of ancient times?

Initial draw to follow....

<Edit>

[Morbio]

Initial Draw....

Team Name (die roll, reroll(s)) in descending die roll to determine sequence. First name team is home, then away team opposition, followed by second home team, then the opposing team.

Pyrrhus (6,5), Ceasar (6,3), Alexander (3), Hannibal (1).

So, the 1st round matches are;

Pyrrhus vs Caesar

Alexander vs Hannibal

Captains: Please select and post the list of your team members. Use whatever method you want for selecting them.

Caesar and Hannibal Captains: Please nominate the army to fight match one.

Pyrrhus and Alexander Captains: Once your opposing captain has nominated his 1st army then please nominate your opposing army for match 1 and the army to fight match 2.

[deeter]

At 650 points, those Punics will be hard-pressed to field a decent army. BTW: does this permit the Hannibal in Africa list?

Deeter

[Blathergut]

Understands a bit of all that up there. Is gonna let Caesar figure it out and say, "Do this!"

[TheGrayMouser]

Team North America (formerly called Foghat)

Batesmotel
Blathergut
Deadtorious
Deeter
TheGrayMouser

Cheers!

[hidde]

Team Europe need players.
Anyone interested please pm me or post here.
Note that if more than four wants to join I will primarily pick who gets to participate based on what I know about players skill.

Cheers.
Hidde

[tofman04]

Team Europe need players.
Anyone interested please pm me or post here.
Note that if more than four wants to join I will primarily pick who gets to participate based on what I know about players skill.

Cheers.
Hidde

Hi,

Count me in Europe team.

Cheers

[IainMcNeil]

If its not too late would you be interested in us hosting a competition for the 4 sections?

E.g. one tournament for each region to select the best players to represent their section of the world? Each player can only enter their home region tournament.

Then you use this to determine who is going to play in the international games. E.g. if you need 4 players you choose the top 4 from the tournament. If some are not avaialble you look down till you get someone who is ready to play.

The international section of the team comp would need to be handled manually as you currently plan to as we have no team features in the system.

Any interest?

[Morbio]

At 650 points, those Punics will be hard-pressed to field a decent army. BTW: does this permit the Hannibal in Africa list?

Deeter

At 650 points it should challenge all armies, to a greater or lesser extent, to field units which many players would want to avoid. This will be part of the challenge, which may have faced the great generals of history, what to do with the weaker units: arrow fodder, reserve, keep out the way, guard the camp? The good news is that the same challenge faces all generals as all have to build an army from the list. In principle, it doesn't really matter if only 95% of the points are used because it is the same for all sides

I'm not sure what you mean by the Hannibal in Africa list. What I'm expecting is that the Later Carthage (post 235 BC) list is used - I think that defines one RoR army list... or am I wrong? If it means can an Inspired General (Hannibal) be used, then the answer is yes.

[Morbio]

If its not too late would you be interested in us hosting a competition for the 4 sections?

E.g. one tournament for each region to select the best players to represent their section of the world? Each player can only enter their home region tournament.

Then you use this to determine who is going to play in the international games. E.g. if you need 4 players you choose the top 4 from the tournament. If some are not avaialble you look down till you get someone who is ready to play.

The international section of the team comp would need to be handled manually as you currently plan to as we have no team features in the system.

Any interest?

Iain,

I have no objections, but I guess this is something the captains need to decide upon. I see that Caesar (North America) have already picked their team, so maybe it won't be of interest to them. I guess ultimately it may depend on how open the selection process will be, will the captains want to select their team, have thir wildcard picks or what.

I'll let each captain decide.

[IainMcNeil]

Totally up to you guys - just wanted to let you know it was an option if you wanted to do it

Setting up tournaments is relatively easy although we are limited to historical battles right now.

[batesmotel]

Totally up to you guys - just wanted to let you know it was an option if you wanted to do it

Setting up tournaments is relatively easy although we are limited to historical battles right now.

Hi Iain,

Since we are focusing on DAG armies for this, I suspect the tournament support you have right now isn't terribly helpful.

Chris

[batesmotel]

...
Armies, Points and Terrain

I will select a set of armies, points size and terrain selections that will be used for the tournament.

The 5 armies for this inaugural tournament will be 650 points and are;
- Mid-Republican Roman
- Pyrrhic (In Italy)
- Later Carthage (post 235 BC)
- Later Ptolemaic (Greek)
- Suren Indo-Parthian
...

I think the straight Parthian list is probably a more usable list at 650 points and also a more historical match up for the Mediterranean armies than the Suren Indo-Parthian list that was historically more involved in conflicts in Iran and central and south Asia. The biggest problem with the Suren Indo-Parthian at 650 points is that the games are likely to come down to an awful lot of herding and chasing of skirmishers since the number of cataphracts and non-skirmisher foot is fairly limited. As someone who didn't enjoy chasing Bosporans, I suspect you would probably rather not have games like that in this. Another possible list to include as a semi-steppe/horsey list would be the early Mithraditic list.

Chris

[deeter]

Rather than Parthians or any shooty army, how about later lowland Guals?

Deeter

[Morbio]

...
Armies, Points and Terrain

I will select a set of armies, points size and terrain selections that will be used for the tournament.

The 5 armies for this inaugural tournament will be 650 points and are;
- Mid-Republican Roman
- Pyrrhic (In Italy)
- Later Carthage (post 235 BC)
- Later Ptolemaic (Greek)
- Suren Indo-Parthian
...

I think the straight Parthian list is probably a more usable list at 650 points and also a more historical match up for the Mediterranean armies than the Suren Indo-Parthian list that was historically more involved in conflicts in Iran and central and south Asia. The biggest problem with the Suren Indo-Parthian at 650 points is that the games are likely to come down to an awful lot of herding and chasing of skirmishers since the number of cataphracts and non-skirmisher foot is fairly limited. As someone who didn't enjoy chasing Bosporans, I suspect you would probably rather not have games like that in this. Another possible list to include as a semi-steppe/horsey list would be the early Mithraditic list.

Chris

I'm not after historical realism, just some interesting matchups that challenge the team captain with selecting the right army to battle another, and once selected give challenges to the field commander to deliver the goods. It could be that the captains match Suren Indo-Parthian against each other and then it will yield a completely different challenge that won't be about herding (IMO), alternatively it could be a large pike line for herding, or something else completely!

[Morbio]

Regarding the timeline for the tournament....

I'd like to complete the 1st set of matches in the next 2 weeks(ish) and the final and 3rd 4th play-off in the last 2 weeks of Feb. Obviously since this is a trial of a new tournament format it may not run to plan... but no worries, it's not a life and death issue if it overruns.

P.S. Expect to see more horde armies in the next tournament!

[Blathergut]

*Is warming up the bubblettes!!!*

[ericdoman1]

Hi y'all

Our team of vegetarians (Hannibal the Cannibal) will consist of

Morbio
Steve-H8
ianiow
Triarius
ericdoman1

Not sure about the rest of you but time is pretty limited for me. For at least 12 hours Monday to Friday I will not be able to play, work, travelling food. This weekend I am away, with no chance of playing. Also away from Feb 18th to 21st Feb due to the Britcon doubles competition.

TGM and I have finished games in a matter of days but due to time difference have been lucky to play 1 turn a day.

Thing is as many of you will know I do play my games pretty quickly. I have 3 unfinished games in the LOEG and that is it. I would imagine verybody else is in the same position with limited time.

Finally thanks to Morbio for arranging this.

Cheers


Eric

[Morbio]

We can hopefully work around time issues. If we need a few more days we can wait for the results. Finishing in Feb is a plan, but not a critical one.

In order to keep things moving forward I'd like the captains of Caesar (North America) and Hannibal (British Isles) to post their army for Match 1 (Very Open). N.B. Don't post the player, just the army. Once you have done this then the captains of your opposing teams can post their army to fight yours and post the army for Match 2, etc.

We can do this now, even if all the players are not selected, because deciding the army matchups is independent of the players.

So, TGM and Eric, please post something in the form: Match 1 (Very Open) - <army>.

The armies you have to choose from are:
- Mid-Republican Roman
- Pyrrhic (In Italy)
- Later Carthage (post 235 BC)
- Later Ptolemaic (Greek)
- Suren Indo-Parthian

Hoepfully we can get through the army selections in the next few days.

[Blathergut]

If pantherboy is on team RoW...shouldn't he have one mouse finger tied behind his thumb???