Team Yankee: Orccon Tourney Report

The Team Yankee tournament at Orccon in Los Angeles (Feb 17,18 2018) gathered 11 players (plus a ringer) for a five-round, two-day event. This event was sponsored by  who provided some awesome prize support for the winners.

Christian Sorenson took top player honors, while Igor Torgenson gathered accolades for his table design, and Alex H. wowed judges with his well-painted West German force. Below are some photos of the day, along with comments of the TO and players, as well as the top force lists.

The tourney was escalation based: Day One at 70 points. All missions were random (card draw) with all tables playing the same mission. Day Two was at 85 points. Players had to field the same type of force as Day One, but could redesign the force as they saw fit. Missions on day two were selected table by table using the More Missions Matrix.

Alex H. took top painting honors for his West German Force.

 

Fortunately, with Wolfgang’s bratty wagon, the British forces were well fed during the campaign.

 

An overview of the winning table design by Igor T. Buildings are a mix of 4Ground Miniatures, BattleFront, and GC Minis

 

Details like the window art and posters, as well as custom paint on the service station, helped Igor win best table design. I dubbed the table “Igortopia”

 

Igortopia includes plenty of parking for the high-rise buildings.

“Igor’s table was ideal for a mechanized infantry since there were a lot of choke points for tanks,” said Hyato T after the tourney. “Infantry teams can occupy the buildings and get bulletproof cover instantly.  If they occupy the building on both sides of the street, they block the road and force the opposing tank teams to go around the city.  Hence, this will allow mechanized infantry formation to place anti-tank asset in an advantageous position.”

Igortopia’s trolley brightened everyone’s day.

“I had intended to repaint the tram to something more period specific,” Igor said, “but ran out of time. Turns out building custom TT scale in-street track is time-consuming. Who knew?” He adds: “The Tram manufacturer is the German toy company Siku.”

West German Air Force

 

Hyato’s Air Corp

Player standings at the end of Day 1/Round 3:

1. Christian S (23)
2. Igor T (16)
3. Hyato T (16)
4. Chad M (13)
5. Malcolm H (12)
6. Alex H (10)
7. Raymond L (10)
8. Kevin M (8)
9. Justin R (5)

Day 2

For Round Four, the opening of Day 2, we ended up with two players dropping out. One I was aware of, and that made our player count even. So I left my army at home, happy that I could go back to Tourney Organizer Status. Unfortunately, another player dropped without notice. So, I had to institute a bye system. Normally, in our area, we play that the lowest scoring player takes the bye, but gets minimum points for a win.

Kevin M was matched against the player that dropped, so he was kind enough to take the bye instead of having me rearrange tables due to the no-show player. Since we were running off the Flame of War Version 4 victory points chart, that gave Kevin six points.

For Round 4, players had been allowed to “escalate” their lists up to 85 points from the previous 70. They needed to stay with the same type of formation (or main formation if they had two), but could redesign the force however they liked within those parameters.

Also, we shifted from all tables playing the same mission, to each table’s players using the More Missions Matrix.

I added one more wrinkle to the day. Instead of playing straight swiss matchups (with no repeat player matchups) in round 4, I switched pairings to a dutch system. This paired Player 1 vs Player 6, Player 2 vs Player 7, etc. This, to my mind, accomplished two tasks. First, it kept players from the same store/club groups from playing against each other for another round (it worked out that way on three of the four tables).

It also moved the SPOTLIGHT match-up of Christian (in first) vs Hyato (tied for second) into the final round. Igor, the player tied with Hyato, had just lost to Christian in round 3.

The Spotlight Grudge Match between Christain and Hyato!

Interestingly, after the Dutch round was finished, when we shifted back to Swiss pairings for round 5, the matchups came out exactly as they would have in turn 4 if we had used Swiss parings in that turn.

In addition, several of the round 4 Dutch pairings would have occurred in round 5 under the Swiss system. After the tourney was over, I went ahead and ran my What-if scenario all the way out. By moving parings and scores from round 5 back to round 4, Christain would have faced Malcolm’s US force in the What if round 5 (they did actually face each other in the Dutch round).

Table layout by Hyato

Only one game that wasn’t played, that should have occurred under the What If switch, was Igor vs Hyato. This hypothetical match-up would have had only minor potential to affect the final top half of the finishers.

Igor’s British Formation prepares to defend Igortopia

In that hypothetical match, Hyato would have had to defeat Igor 8-1 to tie Igor for 2nd place in final standings. He also needed a win to move ahead of Malcolm’s final standing. The game he played against Alex (instead of the what if game vs Igor) netted him a 3-2 in the Dutch round.

Overall, the what-if exercise showed me that the switch to Dutch for round 4 had little to no impact on the upper half of the finishers.

Final (real) Standings:

1. Christian S (39)
2. Igor T (31)
3. Malcolm H (21)
4. Hyato T (20)
5. Chad M (15)
6. Kevin M (15)
7. Raymond L (14)
8. Alex H (13)
9. Justin R (13)
10. Johnny V (12-one day)
11. Jonathan B (one day)
12. Troy H (ringer – one day)

Troy is a long time gamer, and the author of the Cup of Blood medieval fantasy series. He’s also the dude who strives to keep the typos under control on No Dice No Glory.