Monthly Archives: December 2017

Thursday Night Shadespire Tournament

Almost forgot to post about this: I helped organize a quick Shadespire tournament last week at Huzzah Hobbies.

We figured/hoped that the speedy play of the game made it well-suited to a weeknight activity and it’d be an easy way to ensure that a few folks got in a couple of games… and were totally right.

It was hugely successful: on a Thursday night, we got twelve people.  We got three games in, and were done at a pretty reasonable time.

I found this Winter 2017 Organized Play packet somewhere (the Shadespire FB group?), and we worked with that.  Some key points therein:

  • No best two-out-of-three matched play.  This makes sense, as it means you get to play more opponents.  And, really, we had time for only three games.
  • You need to track W/L/D and the Glory Point delta.  This actually maps down to Glory Points per player; the rest can be calculated.
  • 45 minute rounds.

Things went very smoothly except pairings.  According to the packet, you effectively group players into brackets based on their number of Wins, Losses, Draws (3, 0, 1 points each, summed; simple enough) and then pair within brackets, matching the highest net Glory Points player in the bracket against the lowest net Glory Points in the bracket (okay) shifting the lowest & highest within a bracket up and down a bracket to account for any odd number of players (this was just too hard to do).

I worked up a spreadsheet to track the event, ’cause that’s how I’m wired.  Came away from the evening with a few revisions to make, but for the most part it worked well.  You can access (and copy) an updated version of the Google Sheet to use for your events here: Shadespire Tournament Tracking Spreadsheet.

In terms of warband distribution:

  • 2 Garrek’s Reavers
  • 5 Ironskull’s Boyz
  • 4 Sepulchral Guard
  • 1 Steelheart’s Champions

Wade took 1st with Ironskull’s Boyz, Thel took 2nd with Steelheart’s Champions.

I ran Garrek’s Reavers and got the teeth knocked out of me: two losses and a draw.  I’d have come in dead last, but that draw was in the last round vs. Casey and across all of the games, I had one (1) less Glory Point loss than he had (-9 Δ vs. -10 Δ).

My games went:

  • Round 1 vs. Thel (Steelheart’s Champions) – Loss with -6 GPΔ
  • Round 2 vs. Caleb (Sepulchral Guard) – Loss with -3 GPΔ
  • Round 3 vs. Casey (Sepulchral Guard) – Draw with 0 GPΔ

So far as I can tell, everyone had a really good time.  I think the plan is to do it again in January.

Xi Guan Progress

Pretty much done with the two Xi Guan Shops, which means I’m halfway done! The final stretch isn’t going to be easy, since the Office Buildings are more complex, and while I’m not sure about the Tower, I have no illusions about Lo Pan’s Noodle Hut.

Also, “done” is relative. I’m working to get these things assembled, which means painting, varnishing, and assembly. I’ll varnish them again before I play with them, and once everything’s “done,” I’ll come back with some oils to dirty everything up.

This second batch of buildings went much more smoothly than the first. Some lessons learned, for sure.

I haven’t been able to spend nearly as much time working on my Xi Guan terrain as I’d like. It’s frustrating, but I’m starting to find a groove and hopefully I can build up some momentum so I’m not sinking months into it.

The two clinics are 90% assembled at this point. Once they’re all built, they’ll get varnished and grimed. I’ve got another six to paint and build (advice to do it in that order: extremely good advice), and then two Top Down Terrain buildings to get through.

Also got, and built, Necromunda this weekend. Debating trying to paint up a gang now, before everyone’s moved on from the game, but I don’t want to lose momentum on the terrain.  (They’re on square bases, because I plan to paint the bases separately.  But, really, if you’re going to have a 90° sight arc, you should probably be on a square base.)