Well done to the following on thier trophies at the inaugural REARGUARD competition, held at Rampage 2009, courtesy of Ilford Wargames Group.
- WINNER Lance Flint Christian Nubian
2ND Steve Murton Bedouin Dynasties
3RD Nik Gaukroger Hittie Empire
Well done Nik - as he joined late from the 25mm I, and as the armies were already out, I said he needed to pick a biblical army to join ... a fine effort with the Hittites.
In general, the format does bring out different armies as some ar good at 700, others at 900 etc. As the list checker it was interesting to see different approaches to the designs. I think this will develop considerably next year for those who have played this year.
Special metion to Dave Parish for getting the entire list-worth of Byanatine Thematic Cavalry on the table for his 900 pt variant - including all the poor ones as well. Most impressive.
A very good mix of armies and games played in excellent spirit. Some gallant attempts by people facing 900pt armies with 700pts. No-one quite managed the 10 bonus for routing a 900pter with a 700 pter, but one game got very close. Several people had army rout wins with 100pt deficits to claim a 7pt victory bonus.
As far as I could tell the format worked very well and gave new an interesting puzzles. I am keen to get feedback here from the players on the competition and assuming it was liked my intention would be to run it every year at Rampage and try to build the numbers up.
A few questions for people to respond to as players:
Q1 POINTS LEVELS. I did consider doing 6/7/8/900 pt armies but I think the 7/8/8/900 we used is perhaps the best mix of armies. What are peoples views?
Q2 DECLARATION OF POINTS SIZE. After each round I published who had used what size of army. This has the + that it makes the last round quite interesting as you know what you have to do and where the exciting games are; but maybe its better still if it is secret throughout so you don't know. My issue is that if secret then there is a bit fo a market for information going on, hence my current view that it is better above board and transparent.
Q3 DRAW. Do people like the date based initial round?
Q4 BONUS SYSTEM. Is there merit in making the bonus points a bit more sophisticated - e.g. bonus points for nearly breaking a 900 with a 700, or jsut for winning with a smaller army, or survival with a wmall army vs a large (we would need this with 600 vs 900 games). That said simple is always good ...
Thanks to all the players and hosts. Looking forward to hearing the experiences from the different games. Here's to next year.
Si
