Sitting and pondering over some New Scenarios

 As people seem to love the Area type scenarios, I had a little think, well I was having a shit and thought of a few ideas for some Area type scenarios.

Hold the Flanks v1

As per Dominate, but the ball is split and put on each edge of the table so you have a 12" semi Circle from the center line coming in from each flank

• Most Scoring Unit Strength overall wins

The Scenarios we Love and Love to Hate

So after a week of gathering feedback on the Scenarios you Love/hate, the people have spoken and spoken loud.

There was a lot of Hate for various Scenarios and none came out unscathed.

The majority of the comments were undying proclamations of hate

All da Hate:

The results are in and Kill leads the pack of the most hated Scenario, followed by Pillage.

Generators

I always loved Lars’ Epic Dwarf Map Pack created by Lars from the Giant Dwarf Podcast and used to use both generators.

So after creating the Shroud of the Reaper website, and playing with pure electronic results and votes submissions that automatically fed into a results calculator, which in turn automatically updated a web page. I thought what next....

So I mocked up a Map generator and scenario generator.

This had issues as Shroud of the Reaper website uses google sites, cause its free and does what I needed. 

BUT google sites does not hold static urls for images you upload, they change url randomly throughout the day as the site is load balanced. 

So many frustrations later, 

• Tried images at the base of the page - Image URL changed within hrs, sometimes on re-publish
• Tried hidden static pages - URL held for 24hrs then boom broken links
• Tried pulling direct from Google Drive - URL held for 24hrs then boom broken links
• Tried displaying the image held in Google Drive - no joy, would not show at all
• Was at a point of WTF, then thought if Google sites wont do it, prehaps another generic free web hoster will.. 

I had a trick, a way around it, yippiee kia yay Mo Fo.

So then the task of re-loading all the images, publishing on a generic unbranded site, grabbing the URLs of those images, and feeding them into the randomiser scripts.

Ta Dar.... Map and Scenario generators are back.

Scenarios

So I created an image for each of the 12 v3 scenarios, that are then used to random pic from, I also created an Old School Scenario picker, for the previous scenarios.

Maps 

Trawling through the interweb, I re-created a load of maps in a consistent style, so far there are 52 Maps that are stored and random picked from.

So where can you find these generators?

Random Scenario Generator

https://www.shroudofthereaper.co.uk/scenario

Shroud of the Reaper - Pirates of the Mytalein

So on the 19th of September 2020, Shroud of the Reaper hosted a REAL LIFE tournament.

This was is the of the seemingly apocalyptic ball ache that is COVID, so social distancing measures, new processes, new cleaning regime etc needed to be created and adhered to.

Working with the Hall owners, the Bexley Reapers Wargaming Club plans were in place, tested out and fingers crossed we did not go into full lockdown 2 days before like the March tournament!!

So what shit did I put in place that allowed this to go ahead?

Shroud of the Reaper and Bexley Wargaming club have its own scenery, and Club night is on Monday, so any club terrain I used was taken out of circulation for 1 week.

The Hall has installed multiple hand sanitiser stations around the hall.

Club and Shroud have bought more and included a bottle and a detol spray on each table, which could be used to spray the tables and terrain between rounds.

Freemantle Hall with the measures both the Hall and the Bexley Reapers Wargaming Club Committee have put in place is classed as a COVID-19 Secure venue.

Direct from the Gov.uk site

Gaming is part of the hospitality sector under the Recreation category
"Recreation is any activity that people do for rest, relaxation, and enjoyment.
The goal of recreation is to refresh a person's body and mind"

Hospitality venues also have exemptions
"COVID-19 Secure venues, such as hospitality venues, can still host larger numbers in total but groups of up to 6 must not mix or form larger groups."

Gov recommended measures include:

• HANDS – Wash your hands regularly and for 20 seconds.
• we already recommend this, and hall has its own hand sanitiser, club has its own as well
• FACE – Wear a face covering in indoor settings where social distancing may be difficult and where you will come into contact with people you do not normally meet.
• we already mandate this when moving about the hall
• SPACE – Stay 2 metres apart from people you do not live with where possible, or 1 metre with extra precautions in place.
• with 7 tables we were well within this

Therefore we could legally host more than 6 people in the hall, but limit the "gathering in groups"

• Games are played 1:1 within there own bubble, therefore there is not a gathering of more than 6 people together in the same bubble.
• Smoking Area: 6 people max in area at a time
• Gathering around a table, prohibited
• Again players are 1:1, so are timed bubbles
• Care needed on peoples entry and award ceremony, so never more than 1:1
• 3 or 4 Zones for people to wait/watch ceremony, or just distance yourselves to not a group "gathering".

The table layout was drawn out, tested and implemented, there was around 3 to 4 meters between tables, to allow for people to sit and stand and still be in there own bubble:

Balanced Scenarios

I previously explored Balancing Scenarios here.

So what is the rational behind having scenarios with balanced VP?

For any tournament the VP you have won by can then be used as a decider, and allows for less ties.

The aim is for each scenario to be balanced on scoring with each other, so that every scenario can score:

• Maximum available VP on the table of 7
• Highest possible winning VP is 7
• Highest possible draw VP is 3
• Highest losing VP is 3
• Highest winning VP with the Highest losing VP scoring 3 is 4

This works for every Tournament Scoring system, for example King of Herts Scoring, Northern Kings, BlackJack, Standard Attrition, etc

Therefore making it easier to record and keep track of VPs, so they can be used as deciders.