Hi!
I’ll be forwarding you to my blog to take a look at our findings on two tools we used at the OstiLive tournament last weekend:
I short, it’s a great idea to give players some agency in scenario selection, and it didn’t hurt anyone to give extra impact on terrain pieces. Everyone enjoyed both in the overall successful event.
Please let me hear your thoughts!
I love the ideas, and that you use your own events to test them out. Back when 2nd ed was fresh I wanted to try out “mysterious terrain” as well since a few of the people who tried the game found the core rules too simple. my plan was to make a mold of a statue and cast resin copies of the statue and place a couple of these of each table and have an aura attached to them. But the guy who was going to teach me the casting process never had time, so the project fizzled out. 
glad you were able to do it, plus those are some very nice looking “aura markers”!
I’ve read through it and I must say I like the way you converted the game to your needs. Kings’ is a game that can be customized by TO’s and gamers and this is a prime example.
The terrain upgrades look grand. This is something I would love to use next time I’m gonna host a tourney, but I think the areas might be a tad larger. The effects, however, seem spot-on.
That said, I don’t think I’m gonna use the flexible scenario options. This requires my players to prepare even more and gives experienced players even more of an edge. In our tournament scene, we know who will win (the current Dutch champion) and the numbers two-five are usually the same people. I would opt for tournament rules that increase the randomness instead of reducing it to give less experienced players a chance.
Vince
I like both ideas. For mystical terrain, I would also add negative effects, like a frightful effigy giving dread, or a forest of angry critters dealing 1 dmg to all units in contact at end of turn.
Pick and ban system is also interesting, but I would like to reward players who build lists that can take all scenarios. Either pool similar scenarios like you suggested, or give a +1/+1 to rolls for choosing sides/T1, if you choose not to pick or ban for instance.
Great initiative and thanks for sharing!
Glad you (and everyone else) like them!
Negative effects were definitely on the table for the Monuments as well, but this time relegated more to the smaller pieces. Dread and even Cloak of Death were in the pool, but we used quite a bit of randomisation and we ended up with the more “positive” ones. Then again, is is that much more positive when your opponent gets to benefit from that Rampage (2) aura? 
For them, certainly - for you not so much.
Instead of positive or negative, I’d rather classify them as offensive or defensive. The former aim to remove units from the field, the latter help with staying power. Both are useful tools for introducing variety.
When you say you want people to build lists that have to take on every scenario, isn’t that happening with the pick and ban scenarios? As you say what scenarios you pool together has a big impact on this of course. But when you have, say, 3 rounds wihh set scenarios, the players would have much more agency in building their armies specifically with those scenarios in mind. With 3 sets of 3 scenarios to choose from, they will have to prepare for 9 different scenarios. Sure, they have agency in what they absolutely cannot handle, but the rest are up to the other player.
For example in our example event, I played dwarfs and could be prepared mentally that I would not be able to play a single game of Dominate because of the system. Other players could, if their lists weren’t as dominating in that scenario specifically, but considering the big picture, each player and army had a much more varied experience (and the playing field should actually be more even). This is also a consideration when thinking if good players should be given more agency. When a double one can dictate A LOT of a game (when both players are of rather equal skill level), isn’t it usually better to have people thrive on their own decision making?
If it’s about people having fun or not, that’s more of a code of conduct and gentleman-score issue, I’d argue. But I see the point though.
Anyway, I would very much like to hear everyone’s opinions and experiences if/when you do your own experiments!
Hi everyone!
So I started putting together a version of the Pick and Ban scenario pack, which I mean to have as the first example of how to use the scenario selection system so that it would be as accessible as possible. Of course TOs and players would and should make their own versions, but at least offering an example would maybe get people interested.
Please have a look at how I imagine it would look. I now only have the four Blocks mapped out as we used them in OstiLive, but I think having four more (for a total of 8, being able to be randomised with a D8) might be a a good idea. Six Blocks is of course an option as well for easy randomisation, but I’m afraid so few Blocks would become stale fast.
If anyone of you have any suggestions or ideas on contents of the Blocks, I’m all ears! We are now just passing the “idea” step into “brainstorming”, where there are no bad ideas. If you find this is interesting, what I’m looking for is either a thematic link between three scenarios, or a link that is more based on balance: which scenarios make for interesting decisions, avoiding redundancy, in scenario selection?
If you have any ideas, please let me know.
Now reading the instructions on how blog topics and threads should be handled on the KOW Forums, I have renamed the thread to better reflect the its contents.
Today I have (another) blog text of why the 1" rule (or control zones) are actually detrimental to the success of Kings of War and why the rule should, in my honest opinion, be removed from the rules post-haste.
I am really hoping the next Clash of Kings will address this, as it would clean up various inconsistent sections and interactions within the rules.