SFR, Inc.

[cliffwiggs]

So...

Each year I design an army and bring it to Gencon. I playtest it a couple times with my kids or against myself and it always seems to work out.

yet when I bring it to the actual event, it never works, falls apart, and looks like I just grabbed random dice.

for example, last night I played two games. in one my army performed as expected, but I didn't feel it was a real test.

so I played it again. This time it got smacked hard by an amazon cav army on an 8th face flatland tower. and it STILL managed to win.

so it won both games in 2 and 3 turns respectively.

however at Con, I know that it'll fall apart and lose in just as many turns.

anyone else notice this? is it just because I play like I play and not like other people play? for example, I can make a feral army like chucks, but I can't play like chuck.

ah well. if you see me get stomped (again) this year, you will know why
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Multiplayer Champion Gencon11/Battlefest Champion(tied) GenCon10/World Champion GenCon07/National Champion Origins05/Intermediate Champion GenCon02/Novice Champion Origins99

[DEEPBLUEB2]

This is something I'm working on as well...

this is what I found...
sure design the army based on math if you like...but then play test it..
you'll find it works..and then it does not work.

So really the key thing to do is add or subtract a section of your army...and replace it with another type of math.

Now it's using your original design...mixed in with an unpredictable force.

I first notice this when I first started playing dragon dice...
a took a handful of coral elves...literally random...
and rolled them....
I got swords a plenty...from all of them...then I rolled again and got a boatload of missiles...
but what good is that?
I mean I wanted to control what I rolled somehow...

So I think the real key is to know they are unpredictable...and just be lucky enough to get the right roll when you need it...
you did say the game only lasted 3 turns...?
so you may get lucky for 3 turns...it's not out of the equation.
Trouble is...are you willing to risk something you can't predict or controll...
I really don't see why not...
besides...even a well constructed army can run flat.
Another thing too...
if you do add unpredictability...then it makes it harder for your opponent to attempt to dissasemble your army, as they are not sure what it will do.

[chuckpint]

There is something to be said for playing an army that you know it's strengths and weaknesses without thinking about it. I know exactly what my Feral/Treefolk/Goblin armies I play can and can't do.

Once I tried John K's "Death from above" Battlefest army. An army that kicked everyone's butt, and didn't lose a single game at GenCon. I simply could not get it to work for me. I lost 3 out of 4 games with it. I simply did the wrong things at the wrong times with the wrong dice. In other words, while I had the same dice, I wasn't playing them the same way.

So it's knowing how the army works more than anything. And that means playing it over and over and over again.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
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Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[cliffwiggs]

[DEEPBLUEB2]

[DEEPBLUEB2]

ahh..here we are....

[ddicerc]

I agree on the familiarity theme. Here in NJ at DexCon, one of the reasons that Jonathan won Nationals last year ('0 was that he's been playing that same Frostwing missile/magic army for three years. (He qualified for the finals this year, but had to drop out sick, so who knows what he might have done this year?) Give him another army, even one with Frosties, and he doesn't have the same grasp of how that army works.

On the flip side, Robert has played a variant of his World Champion army of '06 for so long, now other players know how to counter it. He did not do well with it this year. He knows how it works, but so does everybody else.

[As an aside, you might ask why that doesn't also hurt Jon. I think there are two reasons. (1) Robert is older, won his title first, and is seen as bigger threat, not to mention more obnoxious, so players target him rather than his younger and somewhat more circumspect brother. (2) Robert's army is melee-oriented, as are most of the other armies played at DexCon. Jon's Frosties are a change of pace, but no one wants to try to go toe-to-toe with him at that range yet.]

I think that this year we could see some new armies emerge using the Acolytes, which may trip up the familiarity argument for a while.

There's also the fact that most of us play only a small set of recurring opponents, as Cliff noted. We know each others' styles and army tendencies well. When you take an army to an event where other players play, you see things you haven't seen in play much. (Cliff, I can understand where you're coming from on the characterization of players. Robert plays Undead (or Pelters), Jon is Frosties, and Dan plays Goblins. Mike D. tries different armies, and no one knows what I play, since I haven't played competitively in years. Wait until the '10 Nationals!)

And finally, as I always point out in my demos, DD is a dice game, and anything can happen, no matter what those pesky odds say.
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Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)