Monday 16 September 2013

Warning, Rant Ahead - 40k Throne of Skulls Review



Last weekend I attended my first ever Throne of Skulls tournament at Warhammer World.  This was my first tournament of any kind since 6th edition was released, and my first ever Throne of Skulls, so I thought I would write a review of what I thought of Games Workshop's flagship events, with a few additional related thoughts.  I will split it into two parts, the event itself, and then the players attending it.


The Event

Firstly, I have to say that the event itself was extremely well run.  The staff were fun, well informed, professional, and actually knew the damn rules.  In short, everything you would expect from organisers at an event run by a company the size of Games Workshop, but given who we are discussing here I was still pleasantly surprised. The venue and tables were of course beautiful, and although a few tables were a little lacking in the LoS blocking department, it wasn't too bad and no table was completely unbalanced.  The missions and deployments were straight from the rulebook so everyone knew what they were doing.  Nice and uncomplicated, which is perfectly fine.  The food was ok as ever, and the Quiz in Bugmans Bar on Saturday evening was a lot of fun.  Accordingly, I have to preface the following essay (read, rant) with the following statement: I did actually have a very good time overall.

However, there are many, many minus points about this event that need to be mentioned.  I know winning isn't everything, but do think the title of Grand Champion' should at least reflect who actually performed the best.  Therefore I have to go over the much discussed topic of the scoring system with the new advent of 6th edition in mind.  When the current format of the these tournaments came into practice a few years ago there was a major outcry over the scoring system.  This is because it is possible (and in fact probable) that the player with the most wins and/or points will not win the event.  The overall winner is the player who beats the other players using his codex by the greatest margin, so if there are only 3 Dark Eldar players and two lose every game, then the other one has a very, very high chance of winning if her wins several of his, despite a Tyranid player winning all 5 of his games, and all other Tyranid players winning 3 or 4 of theirs.  Yes really. 

This was the case last weekend, with a player who had 18 points losing to someone with 17.  The player that won was using Orks, as were seven other people, but he was the only one to win more than one or two games and therefore his average difference was massive.  The guy who got 18 points won more games, but had less of a difference between the other players using the same army, so he lost out.  This was bad enough in 5th edition where there were no allies to skew the stats, but now it us just criminal.  As we all know, many armies only function due to their allied contingent, so to award the winner based only on how well they have done with their primary codex is absurd.

Added to this farce is the fact that the pairings are completely random.  I was playing as Imperial Guard and on the first day I faced two tragically unoptimised Ork lists and an equally bad Space Marine list, and I only lost 3 tanks and a squad of veterans all day, wiping out every one of my opponents.  None of said opponents won a single game that day (I made a point to ask them all).  How in God's name is this fun for anyone?  It certainly wasn't fun for me, I learned little, I literally pointed and clicked and stuff died.  I imagine it was even less fun for the guys I was playing, as they each faced things like Wave Serpent Spam and Deamon Monstrous Creature lists against which they stood no chance at all.

Finally, the price.  £60 for five games over two days?  Most events charge £30 maximum, often for 6 games.   Enough said really.

My point, in a nutshell, is that anything has to be better than this.  

The Players

The most interesting and disappointing thing for me about the Throne of Skulls was the quality of the attendees.  I mean this in several different senses, made into subheadings below.

Hardcore Nerdiness, and all that entails (BO, lack of social skills) 

This is going to come off with me sounding like an arsehole but I don't care, It really was that bad.  At most independent tournaments there is a hardcore nerd or two.  You know, the guy who gets in your face and tells you about their Ork Squig Hound and his attempts to eat a Bloodthirster and what would have happened if he had managed to do so and the deamon that may have been spawned in the warp as a result and how Draigo would never have been able to kill it and on and on and on, and then just will. not. go. away. no matter how obvious you make it that you are not listening.  Quite often this person will smell very bad, and follow you around after your game like a limpet.  At the Throne of Skulls I estimate that between one 1/3 and 1/2 of all attendees were this guy to a greater or lesser extent. 

Maturity both in age and outlook

Now on this one I am prepared to concede that I should have seen it coming, based on the target audience of Games Workshop over recent years.  Somewhat linked to the above was the general age and maturity of the players.  I attended with a group of late 20's/early 30's guys from my local store in London, and I expected the usual age range of similar to slightly older guys with a smattering of teenagers and 50+'s.  Nope.  At least 50% were under 23 by my estimation, and as such they were much less mature than I am used to.  Even the older guys tended to fall into the nerdy category above.  Me and my mates felt a little out of place. 

Lack of Rules Knowledge

The lack of rules knowledge was startling.  Prior to the tournament I had played perhaps a total of 8 or 9 games of 6th edition since it dropped.  I asked each of my opponents during the game how often they played and they all said at least once a week for the last several years.  Despite this, I found myself teaching three of them several vital aspects of the game, and correcting them on many, many minor rules.  I will admit that the two guys who really did know the rules corrected me on a few things, but as I said, I have barely played.  I just found this a little surprising after playing at several independent tournaments where every single opponent knew every single rule to the letter. 

Outright Cheating 

In my third game I faced a Salamanders player who quite honestly, was a cheat.  I also saw at least five examples of cheating throughout the rest of the weekend.  My buddy, who is quite new to the game, got screwed out of two victories because of people deliberately playing a rule incorrectly, and then refusing to look it up when he asked if it was right.  Should he have pushed them harder? yes. But he shouldn't need to.  I wouldn't let the Salamanders player get away with anything, and it resulted in a very unpleasant game, which ended in him conceding on turn 4 and walking off.

Now, I don't know whether to attribute this trend to the age of the players, the crappiness of the written rules, the lack of referees wandering around, or all or none of the above.  What I do know is that I have never experienced this before anywhere.  Not at a store, at a tournament or at a club, and I was pretty shocked. 

Appalling Overall Army Quality

This might be a personal thing, but the quality of army's was pretty bad.  There were obviously some stunning exceptions, but the general level of modelling and painting was tragic.  In fairness, the age of the players may have a lot to do with this, because my armies were nothing to look at when i was 18-23 years old either.  Once again, it just surprised me.  Incidentally, this also applies to list quality as there were very few top flight lists in attendance.

Summary

My summary, in case you were in any doubt at all, is do not go to a Throne of Skulls event, ever.  While the intentions of the organisers are clearly good, the result is less than impressive.  The depth of the fanboyism was depressing, as I listened to people filling in their feedback forms at the end.  Talk of 'excellent' and 'no way they could ever improve this' were everywhere.  I will leave you with the harrowing thought that when I mentioned that I used to regularly attend tournaments all over the country, I was met with replies of 'really? there are other tournaments out there', no less than seven times, and only one other person knew there were other tabletop games out there.  Games Workshop clearly has its audience and it isn't letting go of them any time soon. 

30 comments:

  1. I've posted a similar thing about the GW doubles (now Battle Brothers). Firstly I have to say my experience of the staff is the opposite. A couple of them are good and know the rules but the majority make totally incorrect rulings that are easily proved wrong by finding the right bit in the rulebook.

    That aside I agree the system of random pairings is stupid. The idea is to create "fun" but it does completely the opposite. I can see what they're trying to achieve but they're going about it totally the wrong way. That's the reason they're dropping in popularity. That and because the doubles is now £100 per team!

    The problem is that the events are actually good fun but mostly because of the number of people there rather than anything GW do. The doubles is probably 80-90% people in their 20s and up though.

    Challenging on rules is always difficult and you inevitably end up pissing someone off over the weekend. I always think about how pissed off I'd be if I lose the game based on something that my opponent was doing wrong (whether deliberate or not) so I have no problems challenging.

    As you correctly point out, Throne of Skulls is the only tournament in existence for some people. They're probably the same people who buy direct from GW rather than getting FLGS discount.

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  2. Throne of Skulls is a scrubs tournament, made by and for scrubs. Waste of money & time.

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  3. Dont hold back there Alex....

    Have yet to attend one and doubt I will given I would rather spend that time and money on a competitive tourny, just my taste lies there rather then what Alex said haha.

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    1. yes, that is how i feel overall, but i had the option of a ticket and a space in a car and a hotel booked so i just thought i might as well! as i said, i had fun, but it was a deeply flawed event for sure.

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  4. That's it Alex you tell it like it is! Agree completely, TOS is an event for scrubs, and the sorts of fucking tools who don't know the rules, and do shit like not moving their skyrays, then making some fucking lame ass excuse why they didn't afterwards, I mean c'mon. <3 really, :)

    Paul

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    1. Now Alex will never podcast anything again...
      Still, as long as he messes up on Ustream we can still enjoy it. ;)

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    2. Good luck trying to get 2nd at a 256 man tourney yourself mate ;) And yes, I'm a scrub, already got my tickets for the next TOS, you jelly?

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    3. 2nd out of a dozen or 2 you mean, the 200+ seals dont count you know that dont you. Go and win 2 gt's then you can come back and smack talk ;)

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    4. Unfortunately winning gts nowadays comes down to dice and luck, with everyone taking Tau and eldar, and now marines, not much comes down to skill.

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  5. Hi there guys - very interesting article. I'm actually the person in question who scored 18 points at the weekend. I was running Dark Eldar Primary and Eldar allies. While I was a little disappointed not to win overall with such a high score (hard to achieve with DE as well), I was thrilled to win best in race, having lost out to the dreaded "Army list presentation" the previous year with space marines.

    The random pairings are a bit fail i'd admit. I tabled every opponent, and it wasn't (ironically) until my 5th game that I played someone who also had 4 wins. Regarding the cost of the event, yes it is expensive I feel, but you do get 3 meals, plus the pub quiz.

    I'd also agree that the level of competitiveness isn't the biggest, but for me that;s the attraction. I spend the rest of the calendar year playing in more horrible tournaments, so for me this is an ideal chill out.

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    1. that is fair. might i ask what you actually faced in your games? did you have good matchups, poor opponants, or did you just play well over the two days?
      regardless, congrats on the placing, getting 5 wins is rarely easy no matter what the circumstances!

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    2. Thank you very much :)

      I'll show you my list first:

      Dark Eldar(Primary Detachment)
      ----------------------------------

      HQ
      -----------

      Baron Sathonyx


      Troops
      ---------------

      Kabalite Warriors
      5x Kabalite Warrior
      5x Splinter Rifle
      Venom
      Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Cannon

      Kabalite Warriors
      5x Kabalite Warrior
      5x Splinter Rifle
      Venom
      Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Cannon

      Kabalite Warriors
      5x Kabalite Warrior
      5x Splinter Rifle
      Venom
      Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Cannon

      Kabalite Warriors
      5x Kabalite Warrior
      5x Splinter Rifle
      Venom
      Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Cannon


      Fast Attack
      ----------------------

      6 Reaver Jetbikes
      2x Cluster catrops 2x Heat Lance


      Heavy Support
      -----------------------------

      Voidraven Bomber




      Eldar (Allied Detachment)
      --------------------------------


      HQ
      -----------


      Autarch
      Fusion gun, Haywire grenades, Laser Lance, Mantle of the Laughing God Plasma grenades, Shuriken pistol, The Phoenix Gem
      Eldar Jetbike


      Troops
      ---------------


      Windrider Jetbike Squadron
      6x Guardian Jetbikes, Shuriken Cannon

      Windrider Jetbike Squadron
      6x Guardian Jetbikes, 2 Shuriken Cannons

      Fast Attack
      ----------------------

      Shining Spears
      6x Shining Spear
      Exarch
      Star Lance


      Some venom nastiness here, but as you can probably tell my focus is on the jetbikes. Speed speed speed is the key here. In almost every game, my entire army was in my opponent's deployment zone by turn 1.

      Game 1 - I played the Blood Angels pod list that was painted as Soul Drinkers - the Librarian was the coolest Sarpadon conversion ever! I think this isn't the best match up for me - I had to take some heavy losses on the alpha strike (I castled up to prevent the venoms getting shot to bits). Once i'd survived that, I was good to go.

      Game 2 - vs Eldar. This list had a wraithknight and 2 vauls support batteries with shadow weavers. Also had 3 squads of jetbikes. This was an ok match up for me - my opponent played well, but his toughness on the guns and wraithknight was pretty much negated by the venoms.

      Game 3 - Vs Grey Knights. This was the Spartan list? I don't know if you saw this but the player in question was asked to remove his army from the cabinet due to the % of non GW parts used to make it. Loads of Psycannons and S8 Autocannons here, so that was a problem. I had to utilise my jetbikes correctly to win this one.

      Game 4 - Vs Corteaz and various typs of henchmen. Dakka dreads and jokaero, along with several Chimeras. Night fighting was on turn 1 in this game, so that definately helped.

      Game 5 - Vs Nids, 2 flyrants and 2 tervigons. This was probably the dream match up for me given it was hammer and anvil.

      So to answer your question, I think it's a mixture of all 3 factors. I shoudl also point out that I had never used the army before, my friend had been painting/magnetising everything for me, so I didn't actually get to practice with it until we got to throne.

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  6. Completely agree for the mostpart, although I'm not sure about 50% being under the age of 23, probably just that most of them were extremely load and/or annoying (hopefully I wasn't in that category, in fact I was pretty subdued day 2 as I felt like shit).

    If you're looking for a competitive event I would definitely agree that you shouldn't go. The way it is scored is ridiculous for a competitive event. But if you're looking for a good and not particularly serious time I wouldn't disregard it. It is extremely spendy especially if you're staying the night though.

    I do have to admit though that my army looked God awful. If I'd been allowed to bring my Chaos Marines (they wouldn't let me because I hadn't covered my Spawn in enough Green Stuff) though I wouldn't have had to bring the list that I painted up in a week at an age pre-dating that at which you're legally allowed to start driving.

    I go to enough big indy events, occasionally I like to just turn up and participate in an event where I don't care about winning the games as much.

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    1. hey there, you played the Salamanders player i was talking about in your fourth game. did you have any trouble with him? he really was an ass to me, trying to use rules that don't exist, and just making shit up on the fly, and then trying to get concessions out of me when it turned out to be false.
      he had some bad luck on turn two when i instagibbed Vulkan with a Manticore missile and it went downhill form there, and just got angrier and angrier after that. not fun!

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  7. I like your candor and I appreciate your breakdown of the event. BUT I do have to say that GW has always been upfront about the scoring of TOS. Believe me, I am no way trying to defend GW, but when they first ran TOS in the US, you had to win a Grand Tournament to get a Golden Ticket to attend. It was the hottest rage. Every body was desperate to win one! Then they posted the rules and all the sudden the Golden Tickets were not so hot! I think only a handful of guys attended, and then the following year they opened it up to GT winners and their friends, and then after that they opened it up to any one who was interested in buying a ticket.

    In the US there are so many events that we have the luxury of picking and choosing which to attend based on who is running it and what rules they use.

    To say something good about TOS though, maybe it is a good place to go if you want to try out an untested fluffy list in a situation that is not quite so cutthroat!

    Jawaballs

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    1. thanks for the comment. i was well aware of the scoring system, but i was unprepared for the true implications of it when combined with random pairings. it really is one thing to read about something and another to experience it.
      your final point is right on the mark, it was a good learning experience for me, and i don't regret it at all in that respect.

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  8. The only reason I would consider going to the ToS is because I live in Nottingham so even though it's £60 when you add in transport and hotels to a Indy event it costs as much if not more than ToS.

    But yes the neckbeards.......

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  9. Frankly I am appalled.
    Shocked.
    Stunned.
    Atreides... Why the fuck did you go to this in the first place!

    You should have known the "hobby weekendness" of it all rather than being a tournament!

    All this geek angst has been brought on yourself lol

    Apart from all this ToS is shit stuff... Which we could all have told you without going... How was the gaming? You enjoying sixth? Does this "practice weekend" herald a return to gaming for Andy P?

    What list did you run? What changes would you make?
    Fill us in brother...

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    1. haha, i went because some mates were going and they had a spare ticket. last minute decision made less than a week beforehand. I actually did have a good time because the guys i went with are cool and i treated it as a fact finding and experience getting mission rather than an attempt to compete. to that end, it was a success. i now have a good grasp on the rules and missions of 6th edition and can see what works and what doesn't a bit better.

      my list was basically a modified and stripped down version of my 5th ed mech guard list.

      CCS, mortar, chimera
      Veteran Squad, 3 plasma, autocannon, chimera
      Veteran Squad, 3 melta, auctocannon, chimera
      Veteran Squad, 3 melta, auctocannon, chimera
      PCS, 3 flamers, chimera
      inf squad
      inf squad
      Vendetta
      Ventetta
      Manticore
      Manticore
      Aegis + Quadgun

      it worked ok, the manticores and vendettas were outstanding, as was the single mortar in the command squad (i didn't lose warlord once, and vs stuff like lootas and cultists a single mortar causing pinning is well worth the 5 points)

      the rest of the list is outdated and needs some work. problem is i hate infantry blobs, finding them unwieldy, slow and easy to destroy, with no real offensive output to speak of.

      i will certainly be gaming more now i have a handle on the game again, and a bit more cash to spend to go to events. just need some list advice i think. is pure guard even viable any more?

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    2. Guard cant compete against Tau or new eldar, hence their poor viability.

      One Wave serpent has the same, if not more damage output than all 3 of those chimera squads from range (excluding the meltas).

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    3. oh well, i guess i will have to be a 'scrub' and just do the best i can with them then...

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    4. Glad you've enjoyed it buddy and relearnt the ropes. I suppose it fully served its function if you also had a blast with mates!

      Re Imperial Guard... Unfortunately, as Alex says...in his brusque banter... Pure IG are a struggle. You are a very good player though buddy so you know you'll always compete!
      Manticores work still, vendettas are of course superb and the price of most guard units means you can still get a lot of dudes for your money.
      Chimeras have taken a punishing from the firepower of the wave serpent and Tau in general mean av12 en masse struggles despite it relative high AV. On the offensive, the chimera has definitely fallen from grace in the meta.

      Blobs are good, double blob is a very decent option with psychic support. But as you don't like "wielding" them on the tabletop, I'd stick with what you like. So scoring may not be a super strong area, but resilient enough and mobile enough.

      Artillery and Russes are a strong point as is the Hellhound and its variants. Which is good as you like that shit.. I too REALLY miss Hellhounds.. By they are superb now for smashing deck chair scorers, drones, little jetbike units etc. The Russes also provide firepower that's hard to remove in the meta.

      On the plus side, with very little work Allies can plug those gaps very easily - like that game we had where you ran wolves for divination - 4++ and Prescience makes for accurate dudes, DA with Azrael and Outflanking Ravenwing can grab hard to reach objectives and line break as well as pestering back field units, White Scars bikers can lead alpha strike that can neutralise the key centres of gravity in your opponents list...Riptides etc...

      Food for thought... And now it's my dinner....more later x

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    5. Didn't mean you man, just giving u a straight up answer, didn;t have time to write blocks of text like ven at work :)

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    6. Oi! I'm a really busy man ... Kids don't teach themselves.....often... ;)

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  10. I'd probably agree with a lot of what you said, sounds like you got a horrible run of it up there. I went along to one in April, and I have to admit I got pretty lucky with my opponents in that they were all decent people with whom I had some good tight games. I did however see a lot of what you describe up there, did my best to avoid it.

    The random pairings make a complete mockery of ToS as a tournament. I approached it as a weekend in which I could get in 5 games which is about 5 times as my usual monthly quota, so for that it worked well, but compared to proper tournaments then it is such a luck of the draw. When I was there it was a win-loss-draw format with sports weighted to around 2 wins worth. I thought the sports was a bit high, perhaps the equiv of one game would be a better balance - I could be called bias though as sports dragged me above 2 players for best in race (I was 4 wins and a draw, they were 5 wins). I think that being a good sport is an important part of being a Warhammer player, but I don't think anyone has come up with a good system of judging it, and far more experienced people have tried, so I'm not going to make any suggestions.

    Hope I'll see you at some other Tournament sometime Andy, any chance you'll make the new location Blog Wars in future?

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    1. Hi Andy, it wasn't actually that bad. I had one of the closest most enjoyable games ever on Sunday morning and learned a lot from a good kicking at the hands of a good tyrannical player the same afternoon. It was just Saturday that left a bad taste really.
      It is a shame blog wars is so far north now, I just don't think I will be able to make the trip.

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    2. At least it wasn't all bad then.
      Funnily, despite being further north, the new location is a lot easier by train, and the one I get is out of London. Its an early start, but it makes it a true one dayer for me, rather than a whole weekend like when it was in Mansfield. I do however need to find some other tournaments to go to, broaden the horizons a little :-)

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    3. Well if you fancy a trip or two down to Brighton next year me and some mates are planning on doing a few of those to get ourselves back in the game.

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