Dylan Gould

Ugh. Why do these two keep overlapping!!!

Because both are tied to the same holiday.

...are they ruining the game?

In my opinion, every edition so far has been an improvement.  That has earned my trust and a willingness to wait and see.

...all of the permutations of a 1500 point system and cram them into a 100pt system...

When everything is currently a multiple of five, it's really a 300-point system.

Shifting to the card system allows them to tweak the values to make up more granularity.  For example, separate numbers for assault/skill/remount as they do in Team Yankee rather than have everything tied into a single stat.  You don't need a half-point cost if you can tweak the value of the unit to make it a round number value instead of just rounding.

As usual, it works best for discussion if folks quote the rules they are referring to.

As to deployment, units can either deploy via their special rules (if they have them) or via standard deployment (which may or may not include reserves).  Establishing that point first clears up many special rule interactions.

This gives the possibility to win in three areas

Not quite...it makes Sportsmanship not matter unless you also dominate two other categories.  This is similar to the typical scoring, though there is nothing inherently wrong with staying with the typical.

If you want to encourage fun games, you have prizes for the funnest opponents.  If you want to encourage winning games, you have prizes for the top scorers.  If you want to encourage presentation, you have prizes for the best looking forces.

In short, you reward behaviors that you want to encourage.

How did you address unequal size teams?

That's what the secondary code for the team is...set enough aside to even it out (half the difference in team sizes), then do the main pairings, then do the remainder blue-on-blue using the secondary code to prevent the usual opponents.

For team win record, we only counted team-vs-team games.  For individual win record, we counted all of them.

I would recommend against doing full places...naming only the top of each team helps keep the focus on the team aspect, while still allowing for the highly competitive to have a shot at something.

Whoever is using the name Northwest Invasion for this go-around is free to run it how they like.  If I wanted to restrict the name/format, I wouldn't have recommended we use it for Flames a few years back.

The design document for the original Northwest Invasion was based on a few basic principles.  Have fun games.  Play different opponents.  Encourage a feeling of community.  If part of the structure didn't work towards those things, it wasn't included.  One core that remained unchanged for all iterations was the job of the Captain, which worked into all three principles.  For execution, I have always used index cards with various codes on them.

Different opponents:  the easiest of the three.  Teams were determined *mostly* by geographical area, with some shifting to accommodate folks that didn't play where they lived. This was the first code to go on the cards, a pair of color stripes indicating typical play area.  There was a primary and secondary code for each team, so if there was an uneven number of players on each team, players on the same team would still be playing new opponents.  Folks from

Fun games meant two things:  matchups would not be unbalanced, and casual lists (historical or interesting as opposed to optimized for competitive play) could do fine.  The Captains' job was to arrange the matchups so as to avoid blowouts due to force composition, scenario, or player experience.  One corner of the index card had A/M/I to represent type of unit, a number to represent player skill, and an asterisk if the list needed careful pairings (such as having no anti-armor capability for historical reasons, or being massively anti-infantry).  We first divided the cards by team, then looked at the scenario, then looked at the force composition, and shuffled the cards around until the pairings looked good.  As long as both captains were prioritizing fun, it works great.

Encouraging the feeling of community was the hardest to quantify.  Some things were easy, such as having a group lunch.  One year, we did a trivia contest during chow with semi-random teams.  Another year we listed a specific set of forces, and asked each team to have one of each of them, and ran it as an event-within-an-event; this also encouraged communication within each team, as folks needed to borrow units or re-arrange their TOE to cover vacancies.  Heck, just being arbitrary about the teams (geographically) helped cement the group.

For determining who got to keep the trophy until the next Invasion, we went with straight points, as the matchups were picked to keep them likely to be close, and only announced the team totals and the single member of each team that had the highest score at the end (which we kicked in a prize for).  Most years, the two team champs arranged for a final game at a later time for the bragging rights.

Anyhoo, that's the background for previous Invasions, Northwest and elsewhere.  I don't really Flames much nowadays, but I would be glad to chat with the organizers if they have questions.

What is the role of Captains?

For the earlier Invasions, I had the two captains get together to decide what would be the most enjoyable matchups.  It minimized mismatching for lists/missions, and let players go for more fun list building.

What y'all do...that's up to y'all.

Facebook event updated, I corrected the timeline to add an additional hour to the first round and pushed everything else to the right.

Talked to Jordan at OCC, the Facebook event is added to their page.  Jordan will contact Bill for further details, I recommend at least a start time and tentative schedule be provided.

https://www.facebook.com/events/101841723621332/

While I can't compete with the awesomeness of the preceeding Link, here's another:  http://topdownterrain.com/products/horizon-grid-mk-i

Was this the new building you were referring to, Panic?

Play for Oregon, so you are playing against new opponents.

Message the OCC facebook page.  They redirect messages from there.

OCC confirmed the date. We have a game site

You might want to talk to Jordan at OCC and have him add it to the Events list on Facebook.

How many are coming up from Portland/Vancouver?  I'd like to make sure food options are covered...

Are you coordinating terrain?  Registrations?  Haven't seen it on the OCC event schedule, either.

Who is the TO for this?  I appreciate Naked Panda linking to the page, but haven't seen anything else regarding the event, and I have a couple questions.

Can you post some photos showing the different stacking options?  I see the cutouts for an overlapping stack...

That's what I'm asking. The wording could be clearer. Seems like it may or may not be possible for a player to deny OP by tailoring a list with fewer possible Lt's.

The only restriction on naming replacement LTs is in the Loss of Lieutenant rule.  Per the scenario, Loss of Lieutenant does not apply, hence no restrictions.

SCENARIO SPECIAL RULES

REINFORCED TACTICAL LINK

In this scenario the rule Loss of Lieutenant does not apply.

In this mission, the identity of the Lieutenant is always Public Information.

If the player lacks a Lieutenant during the Tactical Phase of the Active Turn because this trooper was not deployed or because it is in an Isolated or a Null state (Unconscious, Dead, Sepsitorized…), then the player must name a new Lieutenant, without Order expenditure. The identity of this new Lieutenant is also Public Information.

... you nominate any troop that is not irregular or REM.  

As somebody mentioned, that restriction is part of the Loss of Lieutenant rule, which does not apply in Decapitation...

 I cant seem to find rules for adding the small unit of trucks.  It's a Divisional Support unit.  Can you just TAKE those?  Is that why that unit isn't listed anywhere in the army lists?

As near as I can tell, only the Hohei Chutai (Rising Sun p.24) can take a Divisional Transport Platoon.  The Infantry Support Platoons available to the Kokei list does not have access to transports.

What do you consider a good price on meltas and plasmas?

 Are you suggesting I just run the hose from my garage into the house?

Having the garage detached complicates things a bit, but is easily overcome...and yes, run the hose from the garage.

Get a scrap piece of pink/blue foam.  Cut it a couple inches wide, and the height of a window that faces the garage.  Drill a hole near the bottom of the foam large enough to fit an air hose, and place the foam in the barely-open window; the foam can collapse a bit to seal the window when you close it.  Run the hose through the foam to your work area, and voila!

Home Depot sells the air hoses in lengths up to 100'.

...that'd require drilling a hole in the floor...

If you have carpeting, the hose will fit under the door.

Run an air hose from the garage...best option available.