Kia ora! Mauri ora, mauri mate!

It is that time of year again as we in the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand) look to Vassal for winter sustenance. However, the involvement of non-Kiwis has grown steadily over the years and we are keen to open up our competition to any that want to get involved. Below is the information about our Vassal Tournament for 2015. Be sure to read through it if you're interested. When the Tournament kicks off, we'll start a thread in the Events page.

The New Zealand Vassal Tournament 2015
The New Zealand Vassal Tournament 2015 is a Star Wars Miniatures 200pt Tournament run using Vassal that begins Friday, May 4, 2015 (NZ Time). The Tournament hopes to bring together some of the best players from around the world to compete against our Kiwi players in the SWMGPA 200pt format, but will use run in a different format than in previous years. The NZVT will run through a Konrad-based round robin before breaking into a Top 8 knockout to determine our Champion! and will feature various goals and targets along the way for you to aim for while strive for SWM glory.

Here’s How It Works:
Players will have the next two weeks to register, then they will be randomly split into two Divisions of approximately equal number. From that point, the round robin begins with all players given a number of weeks to play as many people from their Division as they can (attempting to play all of them), earning points from wins using the 3-2-1 scoring system as per normal NZ Tournaments. During this and every phase of the NZVT, you will have the ability to choose your squad and faction for each game, regardless of opponent. In this way, you will have the opportunity to play a variety of squads should you choose to do so.

Darth Real-Life, however, has a habit of kicking a Jedi when he’s down – not everyone will be able to play all of their games against all of their opponents. This is where the Konrad-system comes into effect. The Konrad system allows you to play as many games as you can and to then take your best results, the number of which will be determined by the number of entrants. For example, say you had 8 opponents, the number of games you might need to complete could be 6. Once you had completed 6 games, you would have the required number of results – although, you may wish to play the next two if you could to improve on your record.

Once the required time for the Konrad-based round-robin phase of NZVT is completed, the Top 4 players from each Division will square off in a Top 8 knockout to determine an overall winner.

The Cool Stuff Along The Way
The NZVT provides you opportunities to play some of the best players in the world on your way to getting to that coveted Top 8 showdown, but there is plenty of other surprises along the way.

First: We want to encourage you to get your games done! At the halfway date of the round-robin phase, the players who are top of each Division will gain automatic entry into the Top 8, regardless of where they place at the conclusion of the round-robin phase. Get those games done early.

Second: For those that want a deeper level of competition, we encourage you to form teams of three based loosely on your geographic location (Team NZ, Team Tennessee etc.). Each team then scores points for their wins and, at the end of the round-robin, their total is added up and the Top Team becomes the Masters of the Force.

Third: At the end of the round-robins, we total up the most points by each player for each faction. The Top scoring player for each faction will then be awarded a title based on their faction - e.g. if you're the top scoring Republic player, you are titled Grand Master. If you're the top Mandolorian player, you become the Mandalore. etc. In this way, there will be ten awards available throughout the round-robin (as a player can also only be top in one faction).

Fourth: Once we hit knockouts, it will be 1A v 4B, 3A v 2B, 2A v 3B and 4A v 1B. However, unlike standard knockouts, the pairings will play up to three games and the winner will be determined by two criteria. First player to get a 3pt win is the winner of the pairing, regardless of the number of games. Second is that the first player to score two 2pt wins will advance.

The Result
What these extra elements seek to do is to encourage game play at deeper levels. You might find yourself out of the running for the Top 4, but still wanna gun for that faction award, or for your team.
The big result is: you have a big Vassal Tournament featuring a top players, an official 200pt tournament with restricted level maps, you get a Top 8 and eventually an NZVT Champion (of the Force?), you get teams competing alongside individuals aiming to become the Masters of the Force, you get individuals vying for 10 separate faction based titles, and everything is awesome. (although it's cooler if you're part of a team.)

The Technical Bits
1. Registrations start on the 25th April (ANZAC Day) and finish on 4th May (Something Day).
2. Once completed, the registered players will be randomly split into two Divisions as evenly as possible.
3. The duration of the round-robin will then be set. We will take the number of players in the largest Division and add one. This will be the number of weeks available for the round-robin stage.
4. All players will be required to organise their own games against all the opponents in their Division.
5. The number of games required for the Konrad system will be set based on the number of opponents available.
6. In the event that an opponent cannot play during the round-robin, the result will be ignored unless extreme circumstances prevail. It is our hope that people will endeavour to play as many games as possible, and any games that cannot be played will fall into the Konrad system.
7. Once announced, the knockout games will have a week per matchup (regardless of the amount of games required) to complete. Unless extreme circumstances prevail, if games cannot be completed, the higher ranked player (in terms of round-robin placing) will go through.

8. Squads will be 200pts, faction plus fringe.
9. You may use a different squad for each matchup should you choose.
10. Maps will be taken from the 4 Restricted lists.
11. Sets up to Warfare and Subterfuge (Vset9) will be legal, with the exception of C-3PO, Jedi Master. This character is still illegal in all formats of the game.
12. Time limits for Vassal games are 75 minutes.
13. The points will be awarded as per the 3-2-1 scoring system.

Ko Mauri Ora te awa, ko Save11 te iwi. Haere, haere, haere mai ki te NZVT!

I'm in.

I have three things to say:

1. Friday May 4 doesn't happen this year. Friday May 1 or Monday May 4.
2. I'm SO in!
3. Thanks for organizing this!

The cool thing about the NZ Vassal regional and the Vassal regional Thereisnotry hosts is that they are like if we had a global Gencon tournament, where all the best players in the world can get on and see who is the best in the world. On SHNN the guys talk about how cool it would be if the top NZ guys came to Gencon to play. Well this is the cheapest, most efficient way to do that. I am super stoked to see what squads do well in this tourney, because they will be a huge variety and it will be a good indication of where the meta is at. I encourage all to participate, even if you've never played on Vassal before. I think if we can get the top players in the US and the NZ in a tournament, then that would be amazing!

The Urbans are in, provided we can get a Vassal-ready computer up and running in time.

I know that im not even close to a competitive player, but ill throw my hat in for som minis, who knows, maybe jedi grandmaster diceroll will take my side this time :P

You should totally recruit Keith to join you and round out the team.

I was going to sign up, but in the month of May I will be on the Appalachian Trail.

As much as I want to play I don't think their is a wifi hotspot in the mountains :)

Will be looking forward to seeing results!

I'm in, how but team Moore?

Yes, you can officially count me in too.