Slitherine

As I actually have the BG sizes for all the CC armies I thought I would do some analysis:

First taking the average number of BG by finishing quartile (I put the larger quartiles in the middle so 7,8,8,7 players)

Top 1/4 = 14.43
2nd 1/4 = 14
3rd 1/4 = 15
Bottom 1/4 = 14.57
Overall av. = 14.5

In round 1 5 players played against armies with at least 2 more BGs than they had. The scores in these games for the smaller armies were:
9.4, 13.2, 17.3, 21.2, 25

In round 2:- 0.6, 1.3, 5.9, 9.1, 16.2, 20, 21.9, 24.3

In round 3:- 0.7, 2.4, 6.7, 8.1, 11.7, 17.3, 22.1, 25

In round 4:- 0.7, 1.9, 3.8, 5.3, 7.3, 7.6, 10.2, 23.6, 23.7

Overall average score with at least 2 fewer BGs that opponent = 11.36

Not sure what that says but...


Number of armies of that size, number of BG and Average final totals by number of BGs in army
1 @ 11:- 36.6
2 @ 12:- 40.3
7 @ 13:- 42.5
7 @ 14:- 55
5 @ 15:- 45.6
5 @ 16:- 55.4
2 @ 17:- 45.2
1 @ 22:- 4.9

16 BG is a league above the rest. IMO that is a swarm. I also think the 22 should be discounted as it is a statistical anomoly.

philqw78 wrote:16 BG is a league above the rest. IMO that is a swarm. I also think the 22 should be discounted as it is a statistical anomoly.

The 22 could be discounted I agree.

Overall though BG numbers were high in this comp.

I will try to do the same for the Birmingham comp.

philqw78 wrote:16 BG is a league above the rest. IMO that is a swarm. I also think the 22 should be discounted as it is a statistical anomoly.

So thats five swarm armies(not counting the 22, in that case we ignore the 11 as its below average) out of twenty eight ie about 18% of the total armies used.

Is there any chance that we could see the results for this event?

kevinj wrote:Is there any chance that we could see the results for this event?

Err, yes.

I sent them to Matt for the BHGS site a couple of days after the event but the interweb ate my e-mail

I have since sent them again.

I think I also sent them to Karsten but will double check that.

Just to make sure I'm correctly calibrated. This is for 800 points?

The Celtic Cup was.

Birmingham was for 650 points.

Rob

Interesting. It does suggest having 13 or fewer BGs is tougher.

However, the player skill entering the event is another factor.
Were any of the armies at either end of spectrum dogs. It seems the 22 Bg group may be.

What were the top quartile armies?

It suggests that having 13 or fewer BGs was not an option chosen by 2/3 of the players who entered....

Now, in my book, 12-13 is about the normal range - you have to try reasonably hard to get more than that.

madaxeman wrote:It suggests that having 13 or fewer BGs was not an option chosen by 2/3 of the players who entered....

Now, in my book, 12-13 is about the normal range - you have to try reasonably hard to get more than that.

I normally end up with 14 BG and don't work too hard to get that many. I would be happy to play the right army with 12 or 13 BG though.

The impression I got was that armies in the Celtic Cup were on average rather larger in number of BGs than armies in English comps. That is just gut feel though, not a scientific analysis.

I'm getting a headache trying to follow Hammy's statistical analysis. Is this some sort of English payback for the US 1-1 tie?

Confused in the Colonies

I normally end up with 14 BG and don't work too hard to get that many. I would be happy to play the right army with 12 or 13 BG though.

Surely this depends on the army you use, something like the English HYW it would difficult to get 14 BGs with out sacrificing too many combat effective troops for filler? Which will reduce the effectiveness of the army?

Maybe the real problem here is that the army lists are too generous on small BGs. Perhaps the simplest fix is to limit the number of 4 element foot BGs and 2 element mounted BGs (and perhaps 6 element poor LF BGs).

If the army lists said something in general like:

- No troop type (e.g. Auxilia or Legionarii would count seperately) can have more than one BG of 4 elements if foot and 2 elements if mounted unless specifically exempted by the army list notes (to allow say Republican Romans to have as many 4 element legion BGs as they want, these don't seem problematic).

Would it be a massive problem? Would it improve things?

If the problem is really down to army lists let's fix them instead of saying "army lists are perfect it is rules problem." I seem to recall in DBM it was never ok to adjust the points values of troops, abilities had to change to match the AP and such.

I very much doubt any army list fixes will be done in the next two years.

BlackPrince wrote:I normally end up with 14 BG and don't work too hard to get that many. I would be happy to play the right army with 12 or 13 BG though.

Surely this depends on the army you use, something like the English HYW it would difficult to get 14 BGs with out sacrificing too many combat effective troops for filler? Which will reduce the effectiveness of the army?

It does depend on the army. I have never used a 100YW army so have no idea of how many BG I would end up with. I do know that if I did field 100YW I would not go out of my way to get an extra BG.

It just happens that all the armies I have used in 800 point singles comps have had 14 BGs. Interestingly, most of the 900 point armies I have used in doubles only have about 15 BGs

ethan wrote:Maybe the real problem here is that the army lists are too generous on small BGs. Perhaps the simplest fix is to limit the number of 4 element foot BGs and 2 element mounted BGs (and perhaps 6 element poor LF BGs).

If the army lists said something in general like:

- No troop type (e.g. Auxilia or Legionarii would count seperately) can have more than one BG of 4 elements if foot and 2 elements if mounted unless specifically exempted by the army list notes (to allow say Republican Romans to have as many 4 element legion BGs as they want, these don't seem problematic).

Would it be a massive problem? Would it improve things?

If the problem is really down to army lists let's fix them instead of saying "army lists are perfect it is rules problem." I seem to recall in DBM it was never ok to adjust the points values of troops, abilities had to change to match the AP and such.

As Graham has said, I can't see the army lists changing either. There is however nothing to stop tournament organisers imposing limits if they feel it is needed.

When the swarm was first discussed I did a perfectly swarmy Roamn army where all the foot were 6 bases (apart from the ones where there are only 4 bases allowed) and all the mounted were 4 bases. As far as I was concerned the army was pretty much the same as the 9 BG of armoured MF swarm.