Scoring System

[david53]

If we are seeing a trend towards larger armies and thus to draws it would be a shame but as the thread has stated above it is true that many players will always try to bring the army that gives them the best odds of a win (or in some cases of not losing) no matter how we change the rules.

Its not draws played for but if like me a below average player takes my usual army of 12 or 13 BGs end up facing a player with 17 or 18 BG the armies I have fought have'nt been filled with LF but armoured drilled medium foot.

In the hands of an average player there is no chance of collecting the points needed to win.

Hammy will say the player with the large Bg army came last at the Celtic Cup but how many games of FOG had he played.

I played a club player on Monday the one who won the 650 event the weekend just gone. he brought same army 800 points I think it was 17 or 18 Bgs, we both have simular experience in FOG.

Now after 3 and half hours of not dodging each other I lost 4 points my opponent lost 8 but since I started with 13 Bgs the points ment more to me than they ment to him and there was no way in any part of the game did I think I would collect 17 or 18 points. I am sure my opponent never felt that he was going to lose his army.

Maybe this is just a mid table thing, but i would like to get two top players give one 12 BG and the other 17 or 18 BG and see if a victory could be achieved or would it be like a lot of mid table games with this difference in Bgs end up a draw.

Dave

[dave_r]

I played a club player on Monday the one who won the 650 event the weekend just gone. he brought same army 800 points I think it was 17 or 18 Bgs, we both have simular experience in FOG.

Now after 3 and half hours of not dodging each other I lost 4 points my opponent lost 8 but since I started with 13 Bgs the points ment more to me than they ment to him and there was no way in any part of the game did I think I would collect 17 or 18 points. I am sure my opponent never felt that he was going to lose his army.

It sounds to me Dave that you had given up before you started. The thing with multiple BG's of Average four packs is that they are very brittle and a bit of concerted effort can see them collapse like a pack of cards.

[timmy1]

I agree with Dave R here. Once one 4 goes, the two Ave MF 4 base BG either side can very easily drop to disrupted and that is not a fun place to be.

[peterrjohnston]

Analysis of Italian FoG results.

From all the results I have where I know the BG numbers. It's 354 games, ie 708 scores. It includes the IWF EIC in Roma.

I've broken it down into 5 groups of army sizes, and color coded from yellow to red, as shown in the legend.

Then for each army group size, it shows the percentage (from 0 to 1) of 5 groups of results.




Obviously with only 708 scores (the more the better), and the bulk of those being for 12 to 15 BG sized armies, you'll get some statistical variation. But, as far as FoG in Italy is concerned, then:
1. If you don't like winning, take an army with 11 or less BGs
2. If you don't like losing, take at least 16 BGs

[peterrjohnston]

The more I look at it, the more depressing that 11 or less BG line looks.

[hammy]

The more I look at it, the more depressing that 11 or less BG line looks.

I agree that 11 BG is not many and have not used an army with that few BGs but then I have not played many singles comps.

It might be possible to do a similar analysis for some UK events but I am not sure how many of them the number of BGs is available for.

From the graph it would seem to indicate that 18+ BG is the way to go. The question is how big is the sample size?

I know of plenty of armies with 18+ BG that have not done spectacularly well.

[peterrjohnston]

82, 328, 204, 44, 50 scores for each band from 11 upwards. Not enough to make me entirely happy there won't be errors in there.

In theory, or perhaps ideally, there should be no relationship between expected results and number of BGs in an army, ie the benefits of larger numbers of BGs should be balanced by better quality BGs or size, etc. By results I mean in a general sense, rather than those from the current scoring system.

If the current scoring system was working properly, all of the curves should follow the same general pattern. They quite obviously don't. I think you can draw three possible conclusions:

1. The results from Italy aren't representative of all results.
2. The rules aren't balanced re BGs.
3. The current scoring system is distorting the results.

[peterrjohnston]

There may also be a feedback in the results as well. "Better" players realise there's an advantage to be gained using more BGs under the current scoring system, "weaker" players don't.

[david53]

I played a club player on Monday the one who won the 650 event the weekend just gone. he brought same army 800 points I think it was 17 or 18 Bgs, we both have simular experience in FOG.

Now after 3 and half hours of not dodging each other I lost 4 points my opponent lost 8 but since I started with 13 Bgs the points ment more to me than they ment to him and there was no way in any part of the game did I think I would collect 17 or 18 points. I am sure my opponent never felt that he was going to lose his army.

It sounds to me Dave that you had given up before you started. The thing with multiple BG's of Average four packs is that they are very brittle and a bit of concerted effort can see them collapse like a pack of cards.

Not given up but that game was impossible for me to win I had'nt given up there was no way of getting 18 points. I still say losing points when you have an average army affects you much more that a person losing points with a swarm it must do thats the way the scoring system is set up.

Big BG armies do matter in FOG.

[david53]

The more I look at it, the more depressing that 11 or less BG line looks.

So what your figures make plain big BG armies in FOG are the winners then.

[david53]

I know of plenty of armies with 18+ BG that have not done spectacularly well.

But have they done badly, or how have the players that faced them get on. Your coming I think from the wrong angle the interesting point might be not how they fared but how their opponents that faced a large BG army got on.

[hammy]

I know of plenty of armies with 18+ BG that have not done spectacularly well.

But have they done badly, or how have the players that faced them get on. Your coming I think from the wrong angle the interesting point might be not how they fared but how their opponents that faced a large BG army got on.

Depends on the definition of badly really.

You seem to want to ignore the Celtic Cup example and I can't specifically point to other tournaments with BG data at present.

What I do know is that I have never used an army with more than 14 BG in an 800 point tournament and I have won more than my fair share.

[david53]

I know of plenty of armies with 18+ BG that have not done spectacularly well.

But have they done badly, or how have the players that faced them get on. Your coming I think from the wrong angle the interesting point might be not how they fared but how their opponents that faced a large BG army got on.

Depends on the definition of badly really.

You seem to want to ignore the Celtic Cup example and I can't specifically point to other tournaments with BG data at present.

What I do know is that I have never used an army with more than 14 BG in an 800 point tournament and I have won more than my fair share.

No I don't want to ignore the Celtic Cup, it was won by you one of the top players what I am talking about is facing large BG armies from the middle of the tables.

Its like you playing a top players who has an army of 18 BGs could you win well in the time given?

Thats what I am arguing that two average players with the same experience one with 18 Bg and one with 12 BG the one with the least will find it harder to get 18 points compared to the player with only 12 points to get.

[petedalby]

From the rules - page 22 - 'A typical army has 10 to 15 BGs'

From the Celtic Cup list, most armies taken appear to exceed this.

We a solution - RBS's suggestion - let's just get a competition organiser to trial it?

[dave_r]

So if a typical army has 10-15 BG's why do we want to cap the number of AP's to break an army to be 13 and not 15?

[david53]

From the rules - page 22 - 'A typical army has 10 to 15 BGs'

From the Celtic Cup list, most armies taken appear to exceed this.

We a solution - RBS's suggestion - let's just get a competition organiser to trial it?

Maybe Britcon as its one of the largest event would be a good place to trial it?

[dave_r]

Erm, maybe Britcon as the largest event would be a good place not to trial it!

carry out trial in smaller competitions first then move onto the big boys.

[peterrjohnston]

You seem to want to ignore the Celtic Cup example and I can't specifically point to other tournaments with BG data at present.

I think you need a lot more results before you can start to draw conclusions from them. I'm guessing the Celtic Cup is 120 scores. 60 games, 30 players? The Italian results are 354 games, 708 scores. I'd still like more, to be honest. But then there isn't any more from Italy until the next tournament. Does no one have results and army sizes from Britcon/RollCall/Warfare, for example?

What I do know is that I have never used an army with more than 14 BG in an 800 point tournament and I have won more than my fair share.

Not to be rude, but according to the rankings site, you've won one 800AP tournament, a theme restricted to high medieval, using SHNC, one of the very few armies in that period that can get large numbers of BGs in a functioning design (Anglo-Irish is another). None of the armies you faced, except possibly another SHNC, can feasibly have more than 15 BGs and function well.

My point being that your basing this on personal experience. What matters is everyone's experience.

My personal experience is that using "good" armies with large numbers of BGs essentially makes you unbreakable in a tournament game. However, again that's personal experience, although the Italian results seem to support my conclusions. But I would still like to see more results.

Another interesting statistic from all those results. Percentage of 0 scores:
Armies of 14 or less BGs : 5.2%
Armies of 15 or more BGs : 0.8%

[peterrjohnston]

Erm, maybe Britcon as the largest event would be a good place not to trial it!

carry out trial in smaller competitions first then move onto the big boys.

Here's a serious question for you Dave. Have you recently, in 800AP singles, ever used an army with 11 or 12 BGs?

[hammy]

Not to be rude, but according to the rankings site, you've won one 800AP tournament, a theme restricted to high medieval, using SHNC, one of the very few armies in that period that can get large numbers of BGs in a functioning design (Anglo-Irish is another). None of the armies you faced, except possibly another SHNC, can feasibly have more than 15 BGs and function well.

My point being that your basing this on personal experience. What matters is everyone's experience.

My personal experience is that using "good" armies with large numbers of BGs essentially makes you unbreakable in a tournament game. However, again that's personal experience, although the Italian results seem to support my conclusions. But I would still like to see more results.

Well if you check the same ranking site you will find that as per the results there I have only played in one 800 point comp as well

There should be another set of results apearing for the Celtic Cup which I also won and when we figure out how to put Campaign 2010 into the rankings site while I may not have won that it is not because of performance (I won 4 out of 5 games and got a winning draw in the other), it is because Campaign is in divisions and th draw was complex.

I have agreed that my personal experience is that I have no issue with armies having lots of BGs. That said so far I have always had 14 BGs in my 800 point armies so perhaps I am a 'swarm' player.

I think your stat with percentage of 0 scores is interesting but the key issue is do swar armies do better because they are chosen by better players or do they do better simply because of the number of BGs?

I think that you may be correct in that there is some advantage to armies with lots of BGs but from looking at the results of the major UK comps it does not seem to normally be large armies that win most of the time.