Slitherine

As the AJSP have confirmed that the dates for the 13th ITC are 3rd and 4th September it is now time to call for teams.

As usual it will be teams of 4 players each playing in a different pool - the details of the pools to be announced ASAP (suggestions welcome, email to me) - one team per country entered.

If necessary to balance the number of teams and thus avoid a bye a "Barbarians" team may be selected at a later date, however, if at all possible this will be avoided.

The same venue that has been used before in Lisbon will be used in 2011.

What you need to do now.

Those countries who would like to send a team and are confident that they can field a full team should send an email confirming attendance to myself at the email address below. There is no need at this stage to name the players, we will be asking for that later in the year.

Woohoo!

Team USA will be there. Dan will send the official email, as he likes to do that sort of thing. Question: will GB be sending anyone to give Ruddock some help this time?

Marc

babyshark wrote:Woohoo!

Team USA will be there. Dan will send the official email, as he likes to do that sort of thing. Question: will GB be sending anyone to give Ruddock some help this time?

Marc

I fear I may be there Marc - if that counts

timurilenk wrote:

babyshark wrote:Woohoo!

Team USA will be there. Dan will send the official email, as he likes to do that sort of thing. Question: will GB be sending anyone to give Ruddock some help this time?

Marc

I fear I may be there Marc - if that counts

But will you be barbarian or proper british?

He's British, proper, well, hmm!

philqw78 wrote:He's British, proper, well, hmm!

Careful Phil!

hazelbark wrote:But will you be barbarian or proper british?

Well as the highest scoring Brit last year, it would seem I have been roped in to the UK team

timurilenk wrote:

hazelbark wrote:But will you be barbarian or proper british?

Well as the highest scoring Brit last year, it would seem I have been roped in to the UK team

GB team.

timurilenk wrote:

philqw78 wrote:He's British, proper, well, hmm!

Careful Phil!

A proper Brit doesn't fall over after leaving the pub because he's looking at an App on his phone. He falls over 'cos he's drunk.

(suggestions welcome, email to me)

I thought last year's pools were pretty good and had plenty of variety?

philqw78 wrote:A proper Brit doesn't fall over after leaving the pub because he's looking at an App on his phone. He falls over 'cos he's drunk.

Probably true

nikgaukroger wrote:GB team.

Not a good sign that I do not even know what team I am playing for Nik

petedalby wrote:

(suggestions welcome, email to me)

I thought last year's pools were pretty good and had plenty of variety?

It has been suggested that the book based pools are too broad/not focused enough or not balanced. I am considering whether different pools may be a good thing, even if just to be different from previous years.

Thoughts and/or suggestions are most welcome.

It has, for example, been suggested that FoG:R should be incorporated with teams being 3 FoG:AM players and 1 FoG:R player

Not sure I like the FoG R idea. Pre-Gunpowder ancients is preferable to my mind.

As for pools, I would pick a book and say armies from this book. Not bothered which four books.

Don't have a strong opinion on periods though.

I have always liked the "periods" approach, using dates as the limits. Period One might benefit form some rejiggering, though, to make the light chariot armies more interesting.

Marc

Just to let people know the sort I ideas I am mulling over I’m thinking of coming up with “themes” that are based around lists of armies rather than books or dates. These would change to some extent each year - for example from the 4 run in "year 1" you might keep 2 for "year 2" and add 2 new theses. An example might be the following which I knocked up as an example:


"Dawn of Chivalry – 1050AD – 1149AD"



Wolves from the Sea


Viking

Norse-Irish

Norman

Anglo-Danish



Oaths of Fealty


Feudal Catalan, etc.

Early Hungarian *

Taifa Andalusian

Feudal Navarrese

Feudal Castillian

Fanatic Berber

Italo-Norman

Feudal French

Imperial German

Feudal German

Communal Italian

Papal Italian

Early Scots Isles & Highlands

Feudal Scots

Anglo-Norman

Later Welsh



Decline and Fall


Nikephorian Byzantine

Bedouin Dynasties *



Swords and Scimitars


Early Crusader *

Later Crusader *

Fatimid Egyptian *

Georgian *

Seljuk Turk *

Cuman *

Komnenan Byzantine *

Cilician Armenian *

Syrian States *


The trick would be coming up with 4 themes that each have enough "popular" armies in them so that there is always a choice for the entrants and nobody feels they are being forced into a particular pool due to overly restricted themes. In reality that probably means being careful with the Asian armies and needing to bolt the American ones onto something rather than having a theme of their ow.

Another idea suggested to me is for 3 themes like that above plus an open pool.

Sounds good to me Nik - the challenge is to avoid a list of armies where there is one stand out choice or where one list is very different to the others. I think Derby for example allowed the Magyars into an otherwise Dark Age Foot Period and about half the entries were Magyars - much to the dismay of the HF armies.

Another idea suggested to me is for 3 themes like that above plus an open pool.

Not very keen on that - sorry - kind of defeats the object of having pools doesn't it?

The American armies could easily go in a "Stone Age" theme with early biblicals and some of the early/less advanced eastern armies. Lots of variation there.

petedalby wrote:Sounds good to me Nik - the challenge is to avoid a list of armies where there is one stand out choice or where one list is very different to the others. I think Derby for example allowed the Magyars into an otherwise Dark Age Foot Period and about half the entries were Magyars - much to the dismay of the HF armies.

Derby actually allowed far more than just Magyars as it was a Wolves from the Sea book "theme", however, you correctly identify the basic problem with that approach - to use your example if you want a western Dark Age theme (i.e. a bit of an infantry slog) then make sure you don't let the steppe style horse-boys in to dominate it.

Another challenge of coming up with a number of themes is to ensure that there is variety between them - e.g. they aren't all infantry slogs - to give players a chance of getting a period they like the style of.

Another idea suggested to me is for 3 themes like that above plus an open pool.

Not very keen on that - sorry - kind of defeats the object of having pools doesn't it?

Not my favourite I must admit, however, many players do like a completely open competition, at least now and then, and this would allow for that - just an idea to help people think around things

philqw78 wrote:The American armies could easily go in a "Stone Age" theme with early biblicals and some of the early/less advanced eastern armies. Lots of variation there.

Indeed, an obvious place for the TPLAC armies (with apologies to Yes Minister).