Hi Sia.

Thanking you and your Austrian contingent for partaking in a
fun-packed weekend of gaming. We were pleased to be made welcome.

A good post you made here Sia, and I shall gladly return comments on
the topics which are relevant to my GT experiences. Brace yourselves
for the shocking truths...

The Quality: Well the venue was top notch and the staff were so
friendly and quite amazing really. It should go without saying that
the organisation of this event was dire compared to the excellent job
of the last UK event. Wayne co-ordinated a splendid event in a shite
venue in 2006. My feeling (and I'm sure Chris agrees with me) is that
this GT would have been lame, if the GT elders* had not been on hand
to salvage it.

*Fact: Were it not for the trust we placed in Lex, Wayne & yourself,
then our party would have cancelled the trip.

The Metgame: This is a big old topic. For starters I have a quite
different understanding of 'metagaming' to you Sia. Magic the
Gathering is probably to blame for this! Bubblegum cards aside, it's
no secret that the Portbury Knights are not fans of the 'Intel' system
incorporated in the GT's metagame, nor the metagame itself.

The sacrifice of currency (Wyrdstone aka Treasure) in Mordheim games
to gain 'Intel' is a sore spot. Without currency it is very difficult
for warbands to improve. Chris & I were able to strike some balance in
this. We were sacrificing currency to attain 'Intel', while still
leveling up charaters and replacing dead henchmen. Other players may
have struggled with this, or maybe misunderstood the orders/options.

Regardless, I think that the interaction between fantasy game formats
could be improved, yet remain simple in the campaign.

The Map: Using the new Mighty Empires tiles was a nice touch. They
look cool! I have nothing against the Settlers of Catan system you
employ but I think it's a shame that you aren't basing the campaign on
the Mighty Empires campaign rules (old &/or new). I have fond memories
of playing ME - the old rules are now available on the SG site for
anyone who can be bothered to read them.

As a big fan of Warhammer lore, the novels, the RPG books, and the
cartography, may I say that I am disappointed when campaign maps do
not resemble a place in the Warhammer World. :(

The Rules: I agree that the GT should be used as an arena (within
reason) for development. GT goers such as Ian Davies, Chris Kneller &
myself have contributed to experimental Mordheim rules. Some of our
work has been released as semi-official/unofficial material. We could
have tested out some new experimental material at this GT if only
there had been more players. Next time for sure then we'll push the
special scenarios, random happenings & warbands. FYI Tim is really
interested in using a warband list for Marauders of Chaos from this
summers unoffical campaign release. I have emailed Tim a copy to use
at his local game club.

The Narrative: I really enjoyed the approach Markus took in running
the freestyle narrative. He does it well. It is very tricky to do this
with all of the time constraints for playing the games! Players are
handling all of those pesky in-between-game admin duties. There is so
much to do!!

Chris & I were both communicating with our team captain Wayne to
determine orders. The orders do not usually feel like they relate to
the Mordheim games, which is a shame. The act of reporting to the
captain DOES give Mordheimer's feel of team gaming in the GT. This
positive effect needs to be retained, where as scenarios could be
properly categorized and applied depending on what orders are being
given. This might help bring the Mordheim games closer to what is
happening on the WM front line.

We were playing too many basic skirmish games for my liking, in which
shooting is very important. The '50% of models armed with missiles'
limit should not be required in a Mordheim campaign which features a
variety of scenario types (including special scenarios like the ones
which Markus employed).

When playing such special scenarios, the guidelines should be printed
and provided to players as a reference. This really helps at the table.

Hand-outs should be used (something delivered before the event starts
as an introduction for the players, optional scraps of limited info
during the event, deeper reading at close of play on each daily
session) to prompt & inspire players in a narrative campaign.

The Truth: I am not surprised to hear that WM players don't read their
campaign rules. When my gaming group runs a Mordheim campaign, we
expect less than half of the players to read the bloody narrative!
What happens is that information from the fluff is discussed between
players and so it works its way round the group via gossip. Severe
punishment is handed out for anyone caught not following the thread of
our special scenarios.

That's all folks,

Stu.

--- In eurogt@yahoogroups.com, " Dr Siamak Lou" <siamak@...> wrote:

John commented on the quality of the GT. Wold you be so nice to
elaborate that.

The Crew would like to know if the metagame, the ME map, and all shown
items were clearly understandable.

We will not comment on the fact that experiemental rules were used.
This is a long standing EuroGT policy. We will not change that.

Concerning MH. Did you like the narrative approach and did you have
the feeling that MH was part of the tourney. Did you have
communication concerning intel with your captain. Would you prefer a
more conventional approach (as in WM ) with orders and missions ?

We liked the hall and Bugman. We had some problems with the size of
the hall and the crowd. Sometime we felt a little bit lost there. We
really appreciated the help of theGW Staff, but would like to had a
"special guest".It is a big difference if you have the Designer at
your side who says..that´s the way it is instead of long rule queries

What is very sobering, every year with no tendency towards
improvement, is the fact that few players read the rules. I would
estimate that 10-20% actually read the rules.

If I imagine that from 20 WM players only 2-4 ! would read the rules
and everybody else would just come along to play...

I for my part enjoyed playing MOW and WMA still it would be a good
idea to have systems which could run on theirself means at LEAST 4
players in reality 8. Having sufficient Marshalls who should pay only
a very limited amount of money and help ops to run the tourney.

I have no idea how long we will carry on the EuroGt Flagg to be
honest. 9 Years are a long time.

Sia