BIG Holiday Tournament!

Twas the month before World Cup

And all through Vassal

All the players were cursing

John's latest rules hassle

You too will be able to own a hula hoop...

Hit the jump for the newest and zaniest plan!

Back in the days of yore, Eric and I used to play Warmachine.  I have many thoughts on the game, none of which are relevant here nor on an Armada blog. The important thing is every year they would have a tournament called "Foodmachine" where you could donate cans of food to a local food shelter and get extra rerolls, more broken rules, etc etc.  The rules took a backseat to fun and goofiness for charity, and everyone had a great time.  So, I mentioned this to my friend Cory up in the northwest and he ran a tournament IRL recently.

Luckily, no, above GIF! So we're bringing it online and it's time for the BIG Holiday Tournament of Questionable Legality! We're going to play a 3 round tournament online starting DECEMBER 11TH (it's been a busy November, I'm sorry) which means I need your fleet submitted by DECEMBER 10TH AT MIDNIGHT.  This point will be reiterated below.

Also make sure you've signed up for our Discord for match scheduling!

Rules: Malleable, but basically tournament Armada.  See below.

Fleet Points: 400....ish.  Squads are capped at 134 no matter what else happens.

We're doing this tournament for charity; specifically Heifer International. All your donations that you make are going to them, and the money you donate is going to translate in a 1 for 1 basis into "Cheat Points."  Each cheat point is either spent in Fleet-Building (max 30 Cheat Points) or in-game (no max; can re-buy between rounds if you DESPERATELY want to since it's all going to charity).

Each of the Cheat Points is going to break some fundamental rule of the game, but this is for charity and it's all in fun, so try to be cool about it?  Think of these like a menu, and pick the ones you want the most:

Fleets and Cheats (Fleet-building cheats, max $30, one exception)

Cost	Description	Limit
$1	Pitiful Little Band: You may increase your fleet point total by 1. This point may be spent or used as part of your initiative bid. Your opponent will receive your new fleet point total if you are tabled. Your squadron fleet point limit is not affected.	10
$4	By The Light Of Lothal's Moons: You may include one non-commander upgrade card normally restricted to another faction.	Unlimited
$4	A Friend To All: You may include one squadron from another faction.	Unlimited
$5	You Don't Need To See His Identification: You may include a second instance of a unique name. You may not include duplicates of the same card (you may bring Vader officer and Vader squadron, not two Vader boarding teams).	Unlimited
$6	Now Under The Control Of A Dark Lord Of The Sith: You may include one commander from another faction.	1
$7	One X-Wing? Great, We're Saved: You may include one additional squadron with defense tokens.	1
$8	Drive it Like You Stole It: You may include one non-flotilla ship from another faction.	2
$9	The Last Transport Is Away: You may include one additional flotilla of either type.	1
$120	Greedy Little Pig: You can include an Executor Star Dreadnaught in your fleet. You must send me an image copy of the receipt. This is part of Fleet-building but does not count towards the $30 limit.	1

Each thing you want is going to require some of your $30 budget.  If you're playing a Rebel fleet and you want Maarek Stele as your 5th ace, you'll need to purchase "A Friend to All" and "One X-wing? Great" together for a total of $4+$7.  All these extra units aren't FREE, for that matter.  If you want Luke as your 5th ace in the Empire, he still costs 20 points of your 134.  If you need that 3rd GR75, it's coming out of your 400-410 (depending on how much you spent).  But if you want to include 2 generic TIE fighters in your CIS fleet, it's "A Friend to All" and "A Friend to All" for $4+$4. If you want Mauler and Howl in your GAR as the 4th and 5th aces.... $4, $4, and $7.

It's Derby Eve, they're insulted if you DON'T cheat em.

If you DESPERATELY want to field an Executor, Heifer International gets a pig out of it (hence the name. You can also buy a sheep or goat or whatever.  But a pig level of money, individually, minimum).  You're then going to need to kick in at least $1 more to ensure you can equip a commander to it, of course.  But if you want Agate driving the Executor, that's "Now Under the Control...." combined with "Greedy Little Pig" and "Pitiful Little Band."  WAIT JOHN'S ALLOWING THE EXECUTOR WHAAAAAAAAT.  Hang on a minute.  Let's look at the unlimited cheats.  Each one can be played once, at the specified time.

Spend 'em if You Got 'em (unlimited, so long as you have the money for it)

Cost	Description	Limit
$1	Use The Force, Luke: While a friendly ship or squadron is attacking, you may play this card to reroll one attack die.	1 per attack
$4	Stand By Ion Control: Before the command phase, you may play this card. If you do, both players may place an ion cannon token anywhere in the play area, starting with your opponent. Before the next command phase, you may attack one enemy ship at Close or Medium range of your ion cannon token with a battery armament of 4 blue dice; your opponent may then do the same, but only at Close range of their token. Measure distance to the point nearest to the token; the hull zone containing that point is the defending hull zone; and the attacker is not friendly to any ship or squadron.	1 per game
$5	The First Order Was Only The Beginning: After any of your ships' Reveal Command Dial step, you may play this card to resolve a second Reveal Command Dial step. Your opponent may do the same with the next ship that he or she activates.	1 per game round
$5	In Alderaan Places: After placing obstacles, you may play this card to replace any stations with unarmed stations. After a station is destroyed, remove it and replace it with an asteroid obstacle in the same place. The new obstacle may not overlap any element that was not overlapping the station.	Unlimited
$6	That's Not How The Force Works: While a friendly ship or squadron is defending, you may play this card to cancel one attack die.	1 per attack
$9	You Don't Want To Sell Me Deathsticks: If you are player 1, during the Choose Objective step, you may choose one of your opponent's objectives and force them to discard it. If you do, they must choose a different objective of the same color. Then, they may discard one of their other objective cards.	Unlimited
$20	HYPERSPACE RAM!: After one of your ships is destroyed by your opponent, if no other player has played this card during this round, you may play this card, yell its name as loudly as you can, and destroy your flagship. If you do, you may choose and destroy one of your opponent's ships.	1 per tourney round

So if you REALLY want to run that Agate SSD, just pray you don't go up against the guy with money to burn and an itchy trigger finger (or his friend who will loan him money and would find it hilarious to watch you get shoryuken'ed like Guile on a bad day). I'll try to keep track of how much you're spending (it's going to be part of the post-game survey, so keep it in your head) and I will again point out that this is for charity, so, uh, don't defraud the nice company?

He will be sad and it will be your fault.

FAQ:

So how much is the entrance fee? $0 technically.  You can just show up to play, but come on dude, holiday season, charity.  Do I gotta get Cindy Lou Who to help your heart grow 3 sizes?

Can you sum up the spending amounts? Max $30 for fleetbuilding, max whatever for the in-game dumbness.  Most likely you're good to go with $50 spent (go higher if you wanna ram someone).

Why Heifer International? As Biggs said to me, "it just feels good to provide tangible goods to people that actively improves their lives.  Plus the added hilarity that you can ship someone BEES." It's a good charity that I've never had any issues with and it seems super great.  I'd love to have combined all our money and gotten a Gift Ark, but that would have required me to have put some better forethought into this and not be writing it up the night before I post it.  Here, take a look at the catalog.

This seems kinda pay-to-win... I mean, I guess? This is in the realm of "throw jello at the wall and hope it sticks?" I'm hoping I priced out some of the STUPID stuff here so the game doesn't break TOO hard.  But if it does, a good charity makes some solid scratch out of it, and we get to mock the try-hard.

Can I combine my gift with someone else's to give better? So long as you both put it on the Sheet Entry form, I'm cool with that ("Cory bought a pig for both of us; I'm spending 50 and he's spending 70").  I plan on totalling all the donations up end of the tournament and both reporting back to everyone what we raised and pointing out to AMG that "Hey, $50 sure looks a LOT like some of those old large based minis.  Be REAL nice if you put something out for us to buy, huh.  And John raised how much in a week you say?"  But look at me, wanting content for my game.  It's a Blissfully Ignorant Miracle!

Is there anything else I can spend the money on? Slash what if I wish to contribute but don't play Vassal? So, this time, yes.  I, because I make bad decisions, have decided to play in my own tournament (a lawyer who has himself for a client...).  But because we're going to make this interesting, I offer 3 modes of fleet-building.  Either I build my own list, Truth builds it for me, or Biggs builds it.  If one of them has the most money by next Friday, THEY get to design my list for me.  Truth has promised he's giving me the most cut throat and evil thing he can think of, so if you want to watch me pilot it like a drunken rhino doing a waltz, donate to him.  Biggs, I'm sure, is going to jank so hard that it's going to make me look normal by comparison.  Whoever you wish to send extra money to will ALSO be in the questionaire, so answer everything in there, basically.

Is there prizes for this? I'm working on it, basically? And need to get on THAT as well.  That's why I'm asking for your address in the questionaire, and I will NOT be transferring that over to the usual spreadsheet.  If you'd REALLY prefer keeping that private entirely, you know my email.  But I promise not to broadcast it.

What's the schedule like for this? New rounds as soon as possible, preferably starting each Saturday.  So, December 11th, December 18th, December 25th.  I can push them a bit, but we DO have a World Cup in January to start developing.... So, hopefully done by the New Year.  Which means...

FLEETS ARE DUE DECEMBER 10TH AT MIDNIGHT EASTERN I NEED TO MAKE THIS ALL FOR EVERYONE

Link to Fleet Submission and Entrance: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1C8sBAmWUNar81tThOYRbNrlghai-uKHqCwtPUkjeb9k/edit

Link to Game Submission form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/186opk58A637RHPeIUYD12MtAT8aPn4C8MxdwMCyhSBg/edit