WDS Tiller Operational Campaigns Tournament News

[HMCS Rosthern]

Now that we have completed the FWWC tournament here is a Tournament AAR. Please provide feedback. 

Assessment

Drop outs continue to be a problem. With the tournament system, when someone drops out either a replacement player is required, or someone in the tournament has to drop out from the opposite team. In those cases, as per the current tournament rules, the person forced out still remains in the draw for a free game, but its not a satisfying outcome for the person if they want to play in the tournament. In general we have been lucky to find replacement players.

The points system appears to work well. Given the close tournament results to date, the points system provides sufficient granularity to avoid tied scores.

Scenario selection has been inconsistent. It's comparatively easy to set up the logistics for the tournament, but selecting balanced appropriately sized scenarios has been very difficult. Most titles have scenarios that meet the Tournament size requirements, i.e., roughly 3 days and of medium size. It is really difficult to determine the play balance of any selected scenario. I have been relying on the theblitz.club scenario database, but the information is not sufficient. I have picked scenarios that met the size requirement but were totally unbalanced in favour of one side. I have failed in some cases to properly vet the selected scenarios, e.g., not checking victory point levels carefully to see if a major victory is attainable. In the FWWC tournament the Central Powers entrants were all in the top half of the standings, suggesting the tournament scenarios' play balance was in favour of the Central Powers, but the scenarios were selected by WDS. My selection for the scenarios in the It's A Long Way to Tipperary had issues, resulting in one team winning all the games in a Round. Organizing a tournament requires considering scenario play balance and its impact to the over all Tournament play balance (i.e., the play balance of all scenarios). 

It has been said that the tournament competition is not as important as the opportunity to meet and play new Entrants. As these tournaments progress I find that there is a core of theblitz.club members that will sign up for every tournament, and a set of Entrants that come and go. That means that the pool of new Entrants is minimal, and the core members will tend to play each other more often. If competition is not emphasized, and entrants are always playing each other, then what is the point of the tournament?

Proposals for the Future

I propose that a future tournament will emphasize competition, where a prize is awarded to the entrant with the most Tournament Points on each team at the end of the tournament, i.e., the entrants on the same team compete for the team prize. Since I only have access to two prizes per tournament, the free draw for participating in the tournament would be dropped. This implies that a condition of entering this tournament is that Entrants make a best effort not to drop out and will play through to the end.

If there are dropouts, the following resolution process is proposed. The tournament format of two teams requires an even number of entrants. Backup entrants can join the tournament, first come first served, at any time and replace the dropped out entrant. If a team member drops out, the backup is invited to enter, and if no backup is available a replacement must be found in a reasonably short time. If no replacement can be found, the tournament will ask for a volunteer on the opposite team to drop out. If no volunteer is found the currently scheduled opponent on the opposite team is forced to drop out. 

Every attempt would be made to get new opponent pairings, but entrants will likely play known opponents as the tournaments progress.

Next Tournament

The next tournament will feature the Modern Campaign series. More on this later.