Chaff and the Wheat

In keeping with the theme of coach control, your initial ranking was based on Team Value.  This had the effect of sorting coaches more or less by experience, though you could game the system a bit by cutting, bloating, or restarting all together.  Because, unlike a true Swiss-style system, the Kaiser system weighs your schedule when calculating your ranking, starting artificially low was going to grant you an easier schedule but a more demanding win record.  The reverse is true with starting high.  Two coaches started with serious teams, the Norse and the Wood Elves. 

The Norse were an unusual build even without the obscene number of +AG boosts.  They had played the most games, mostly draws and loses against me, which I like to think was educational.  The Elves had played mostly brand-new opponents, complete with the typical innocent rules mistakes, to the tune of a long string of 4-0, 5-0 shutouts with serious casualties.  This had the effect of granting their wardancers in particular, more SPP’s each than every player on every other team combined.  

Regrettably, while the players were doing extraordinarily well the coach wasn’t taking a whole lot from the matches and he went into his first real game with a very loose understanding of the rules.

It was his first loss, with his star wardancer fouled to death and his ST7 tree niggled.  He was understandably upset, and I was very concerned he’d drop out altogether, but he ended up restarting to Lizardmen and a quick ruling said he kept his old record and we move on.  Our second league game was a casualty fest, and the team restarted.  Our THIRD game was a clobbering, and the loser flirted with restarting before dropping out altogether.  At this rate there was not going to be a Week2.

 All in all, of the losers of Week 1 we had one stay on, 2 restart and 2 resign.  Putting the next week’s pairings together, if there was a next week, was going to be a major struggle.  Definitely did not want to put people through a game they were just going to get frustrated with, and I was beginning to think this was all a bunch of wasted time.