Festival of Pike, a small late medieval tournament

[the_iron_duke]

I was thinking a small tournament could be fun, consisting of continental European powers from the 1475-1500 period. The competition format will be a group stage followed by a knockout phase. There will be between 6 and 8 places available and the playable armies are:

Ordonnance French (later)
Low Countries (Maximilian)
Ordonnance Burgundian
Swiss (Burgundian War)
Medieval German (later)
Medieval Danish (later)
Condotta - Venice
Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian*

* I've swapped the Later Medieval Swedish army with the Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian army as the Swedish army selection was a bit limited and they didn't have any pike. All armies now have some pike to choose from and all armies are now continental.

Competition format:

The competitors will be partially seeded and placed in order according to their competitive ranking. Players in the top 30 of the LOEG table will be seeded according to their position in the table. The remaining players will be put in a randomised ranking order.

The lowest ranked player will get the first choice of army to compete with and so on, so the highest-ranked player will have to make do with whichever army is left.

The format will be two groups of four (or three) then the top two of each group go through to the knockout stage, which will consist of two semi-finals and a final. Therefore each player will play between three and five games depending on their success.

The players will be assigned to the two groups according to their ranking as follows: Group 1 will have the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th ranked players while Group 2 will have the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th players.

In the group stage two points will be awarded for a win, one for a draw.

If points are equal after the group stage, the result of the head-to-head between the two equal players will decide who goes through. If the game was a draw, the player with the best overall combined percentage of BGs destroyed in their other games will go through. If there's a draw in the knockout stage there will be a rematch.

Group matches to be played consecutively not concurrently (that is, playing against one opponent at a time rather than starting all three matches at once).

Battle rules:

Army size size will be 500 points, with no restrictions on army composition, use of allies or suchlike. Players can alter their army composition between games.

Games must be played on green maps. I think there are always green maps available for selection so this should be workable.

Fog-of-War and Double Moves are on.

-------------------------------------------------------

Have I missed anything? If you can think of any improvements, especially to the seeding/ranking then please contribute.

-------------------------------------------------------

The difficult dilemma will be if there are more than eight applicants. Priority will go to those who seem most likely to stick with the tournament, so those who have demonstrated good behaviour in tournament before, have been on the forums a while or can be vouched for by other participants are likely to get preference. A random number generator may need to come into play.

Anybody interested?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOURNAMENT SUMMARY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Participating armies and commanders:

1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1
2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964
3*- Low Countries (Maximilian)/Tiavals
4*- Ordonnance Burgundian/Fedem
5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete
6*- Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian/solly
7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke
8 - Medieval German (later)/fogman

* = seeded player

Group Stage Fixtures & Results:

Round 1:

1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1 [17/39] vs [41/40] 8 - Medieval German (later)/fogman
4*- Ordonnance Burgundian/Fedem [35/36] vs [26/33] 5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete

2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964 [18/40] vs [40/40] 3*- Low Countries (Maximilian)/Tiavals
6*- Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian/solly [42/41] vs [40/42] 7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke

Round 2:

4*- Ordonnance Burgundian/Fedem [40/39] vs [15/41] 8 - Medieval German (later)/fogman
1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1 [43/41] vs [39/44] 5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete

3*- Low Countries (Maximilian)/Tiavals [41/41] vs [35/41] 6*- Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian/solly
2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964 [30/40] vs [28/43] 7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke

Round 3:

1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1 [10/40] vs [36/36] 4*- Ordonnance Burgundian/Fedem
5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete [0/x] vs [0/x] 8 - Medieval German (later)/fogman

2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964 [23/42] vs [41/41] 6*- Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian/solly
3*- Low Countries (Maximilian)/Tiavals [35/41] vs [45/43] 7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke

Group Tables:

Group A
____________________________________________________________________
Army/Commander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |Pld| W | D | L |Pts|
___________________________________________________________________
5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete . . . . . . . . . .| 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
___________________________________________________________________
1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
___________________________________________________________________
8 - Medieval German (later)/fogman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
___________________________________________________________________
4*- Ordonnance Burgundian/Fedem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |

Group B
____________________________________________________________________
Army/Commander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |Pld| W | D | L |Pts|
___________________________________________________________________
2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964 . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
___________________________________________________________________
7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
___________________________________________________________________
6*- Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian/solly . . . . . . . . . . .| 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
___________________________________________________________________
3*- Low Countries (Maximilian)/Tiavals . . . . . . . . . . . . .| 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |

Knockout Stage Fixtures & Results:

Semi-finals:

5*- Ordonnance French (later)/stockwellpete [35/37*] vs [20/43*] 7 - Condotta - Venice/the_iron_duke
* Match abandoned at Turn 21 with this score due to irreconcilable differences and stockwellpete's attitude.

2*- Swiss (Burgundian War)/Turk1964 [42/42] vs [31/40]1*- Medieval Danish (later)/ericdoman1

Final:

Tournament awarded by default to ericdoman1, who also is granted the right to wear the plume d'or.

[solly]

Hallo. I'm interesting to play this tournament, a little good idea.
Thanks, ciao!

[the_iron_duke]

Hallo. I'm interesting to play this tournament, a little good idea.
Thanks, ciao!

You are welcome with your application. There is no timetable, so things will progress over the course of the next few days as interest hopefully grows. Keep an eye on the thread as I'll probably want confirmation of players' intended participation before commencement of the tournament.

The champion of the contest will be awarded the Plume d'Or - the right to wear a golden plume on their kettle hat, bascinet or spangelhelm. Which valourous knight would pass up the chance to fight for such a glittering prize?

[martog]

Hail Mi Lord ... I would be interested also, but will be on hols shortly, coming back on 24th, so if nothing has "kicked off" before then, I am throwing my Houndskull into the pot, so to speak. Carefully doffing ... Martog

[the_iron_duke]

Ahoy there, martog-ties! Welcome aboard ship, though I'm not sure this ship will sail.

[Fedem]

Im in.

Cheers

[the_iron_duke]

Welcome, Fedem. As it stands, you'd be the top seed which gives you a shaded cabin on the port side of the ship.

[Turk1964]

Gday there i will give it a go. Cheers Turk

[the_iron_duke]

G'day Turk1964 - as the latest top seed you've elbowed Fedem out of the presidential suite, where a magnum of champagne and platter of quail eggs lie waiting.

[fogman]

On second thoughts, I'm in if you don't mind.

[the_iron_duke]

Ah fogman, the dark horse, the unknown quantity...to most, perhaps, but not to me as I have been on the wrong end of some recent defeats to you (the 100% v 6% an ignominious record). Anyway, since you are competitively untested and so not in the top 30 (like your humble helmsman) you are unseeded and are therefore quartered in a windowless cabin below deck near the boiler room.

As the passenger list fills and the voyage seems more likely to transpire, are all competitors satisfied with the tournament rules? It would be good to have general consensus and move forward by committee, so now's the time to discuss rule amendments if they are needed. A couple of grumbling points I can foresee are:

i) Green-only maps. Since all armies are European I think green is most suitable to support the tournament's dramatic integrity. It is, however, possible when selecting a map to get three arid and one green and so the map chooser might not be best pleased in those circumstances if the map isn't favourable to them.

ii) Armies being assigned according to the ranking system. As it is, the unseeded players get first picks on army choice. Although the eight armies have different strengths and weaknesses, I don't think any that are necessarily better or worse than any other. I think any army could win the tournament if handled the right way and, as always, with a bit of luck. The alternative, I guess, is to assign all armies completely at random to all competitors, seeded or not.

I'd prefer to keep the rules as they are but I open the floor and am receptive to the wisdom of the crowd.

[Fedem]

I'm Ok with the rules duke.

Cheers!

[Turk1964]

Yep rules look ok to me,let the battle commence

[ericdoman1]

Count me in, as I am not expecting to last long in pete's KO comp.

As we are talking about boats/ships/galleons. I may well be riding into battle on the back of a gondola?

[Tiavals]

If there be space, I be willing to join.

[ericdoman1]

Hi Mr Erudite Honk

Just a suggestion or 2.

The late germans and Italians are prob a lot better with the Swiss allies.

What if you prevent all armies from using Swiss allies (two).

This will probably help with the ranking of the armies.

If the Burgundians could have hills every time, they would be No.1:)

[the_iron_duke]

Count me in

There's a shark in the water!

As we are talking about boats/ships/galleons. I may well be riding into battle on the back of a gondola?

I would've imagined you paddling furiously in a coracle with a dagger between your teeth.

If there be space, I be willing to join.

Come aboard o noble knight, for seeking glory is your right.

Hi Mr Erudite Honk

Well remembered, Rod Iceman. I think I prefer Tuned Hokier or Hoked Tunier, though I'm not sure which.

What if you prevent all armies from using Swiss allies (two).

I'd be tempted to leave it as it is. I think the Italian army in particular would become rather one-dimensional and knight-heavy without their allies but it's still open for discussion.

Eight competitors have now thrown their gauntlets into the ring but martog will be unavailable for another two weeks. I fear I may have to make a ship captain's executive decision and give the order to set sail while the winds are favourable, lest the good ship drift into the doldrums and get beached on a sandbank. So, there may be one cabin still vacant if someone else wants to join.

[stockwellpete]

I will take the vacant cabin, good sirs.

[ericdoman1]

Well done Pete

[stockwellpete]

Well done Pete

Green-only maps was the clincher for me!