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I was asked to write and post this by Chris Woodward, the head of GW US Trade Sales (Da' boss uv da boyz whats running the 'ardboyz tourney thing). There's been some questions about the tourney rules, especially about how to apply Kill Points. Hopefully this clarifies things. If possible, this will be posted on the GW site. Feel free to propagate this out to other lists.

Mike Clark, owner of Showcase Comics, ..Imperial Scribe for a day.

‘Ard Boyz Tournament Clarifications

Here’s some extra clarification about the missions and scoring for this years ‘Ardboyz 40k event.

General:
•Table size is standard 4’x6’
•Ardboyz doesn’t mean throw out the rulebook. You don’t use Apocalypse rules, and can’t use superheavies. You still need to use the FOC (and just 1 FOC!), and need to make a legal army.
•Game length is standard, as per the 5th edition rulebook. Roll at the end of turn 5 and 6 to end the game, as described in the rulebook on page 90.
•Ardboyz is an open list tournament. Meaning that you should bring 4 copies of your list, and hand one over to each opponent if he wants one. Your opponent and you are both allowed to review each others’ lists, and ask questions, both before and during the game.
•Only one army list may be used during the tournament. Players may not adjust lists between games.

Scenarios:
•For Battle Point Modifiers in Scenario 1, replace ‘highest scoring unit’ with ‘unit with the highest points cost’.
•In scenario 1, ‘Reserves’ should be added to the special rules. (Can’t outflank or deepstrike if you can’t leave anything in reserve. )
•Don’t forget that missions 2 and 3 used ‘Dawn of War deployment’, and includes night fighting for turn 1.
•Under deployment in missions 2 and 3, the Note about deploying all troops and HQ choices does not mean you must deploy all your troops and HQ. You may still leave troops and HQ in reserve, as long as you still have at least 1 HQ and 2 troops choices on the table. You may leave units in reserve if you can legally do so. You may also leave them off the table, and not in reserve, to move on in turn 1 with the rest of your army, as per the scenario rules.



Killpoints:

KP for ‘Ardboyz are done differently than in the 5th edition rulebook. Instead of assigning KP by squad, they are assigned to each choice off the Force Organization Chart (FOC). If a choice on the FOC includes several parts, then KP are not earned until all parts of the choice are destroyed.

Example 1: An IG troop platoon of 1 Jr. command squad and two 10 man troop squads will earn a player 1 KP when all 3 squads are destroyed.

Example 2: A Space Marine Captain and his command squad will earn a player 3 KP when both the Captain and the command squad are dead.
Example 3: Three lictors taken as an elite choice will earn a player 2 KP when all 3 are dead.

Example 4: A space marine squad of 10 marines splits into two 5 man squads before deployment. Both 5 man squads need to be destroyed to earn the 1 KP they give up as a troops choice.

Example 5: A vehicle squadron of 3 sentinels taken as a fast attack choice is 2 kp when all 3 sentinels are destroyed.

Kill points per FOC choice:
HQ 3 Pts
Troops 1 Pt
Elite 2 Pts
Fast Attack 2 Pts
Heavy Support 2 Pts

•Dedicated transports do not provide Kill Points. They also do not have to be destroyed to earn the KP for the unit they transport. If the unit is destroyed, the KP are earned, regardless of the fate of the dedicated transport.

•Units that do not take up a spot on the FOC, such as Lesser Daemons and Chaos Spawn still count for KP. Check the relevant codex for how they are classified. In Codex:CSM Lesser Daemons are troops, Greater Daemons are HQ, and Spawn are fast attack.

•Some units can be used to create/spawn other models. Good examples are Biovores and Tomb Spiders. In these cases, ignore the created models as far as KP are concerned. Killing the swarm or sporemine is 0 KP. Killing the Biovore or Tomb Spider earns the player the KP regardless of what happens to the swarm/sporemine.

•Models with the ‘Advisor’ rule do not count for KP themselves. Consider them a squad upgrade for their assigned squads. If Commisars are taken under the IC doctrine, they count as an elite choice, and when all Commisars have been killed, count as 2 KP.

•Some units can be taken as different choices on the FOC. In this case, the players army list should reflect how they have been taken, and what they count as.

•Example 6: An Ork player takes an Ork Warboss as his HQ. This allows him to then take a unit or Ork nobz as either an elite or troops choice. If he takes them as an elite, they give up 2KP. If taken as a troops choice, they give up 1KP. In either case the nobz could take a dedicated transport of a battlewagon, which wouldn’t count for KP at all. .

Mike, can units that do not offer kill points still capture/contest objectives?

hmmm, need coffee.....

Any unit can contest an objective, that's basic from the rulebook and so shouldn't change.

Any non vehicle troop can hold an objective, again, basic from the rulebook.

So I guess the question is: Are there any non vehicle troops that don't offer Kill points? My assumption is that if there are, they would be scoring. Post an example if you can think of any.

yeah,
that's crazy, a LR dedicated transport also gives up no KP...

PAnic..

So then the armies to beat will be Guard who can play kill point denial now like nobody's business and Black Templars with 5+ Land Raiders. Fun.

This seem a bit unbalanced to anyone else or is it just me?

Just out of curiosity, how will this information be disseminated to the tournament locales? i.e. am I going to be stared at like some sort of bug-eyed alien when I show my organizer your clarifications at our store this weekend?

Wow--utter retardation with a GW-organized event, what a shocker. These aren't clarifications, he's completely rewriting the rules of the scenarios and opening up the tournament to insane abuse days before it's supposed to start. Awesome.

To further add to the confusion, another GW rep posted completely different rules clarifications in the other 'Ard Boyz thread.

So...check with your tourney organizer before the event.

"KP for ‘Ardboyz are done differently than in the 5th edition rulebook. Instead of assigning KP by squad, they are assigned to each choice off the Force Organization Chart (FOC). If a choice on the FOC includes several parts, then KP are not earned until all parts of the choice are destroyed. "
If true, this is pretty good for IG. Take a mechanised army with two full infantry platoons. Chimera with two main weapons, smoke and a heavy stubber costs exactly 100 points. Times 12 makes 1200. Ten infantry squads is 600 and their officers cost 80. Put lascannons on all the infantry squads and four meltas on the command squads and that's 330 points. Grab a command hq to make the army legal for 140 points, then find something to spend the remaining 150 points on. 2500 points, twelve scoring units in transports, and a total of five kill points.

Oh, and the whole thing starts on the board in 'ard boyz Dawn of War.

If GW doesn't publish this on their website, chaos will ensue (no pun intended). I don't doubt the veracity of Mike's post that it is coming down from Chris Woodward, but, as of now, there is no way to prove it. Anyone could go on this very message board and disingenuously post a message that begins, "Chris Woodward asked me to post this clarification: AC vehicle troop choices are scoring." It's a reasonable announcement, but there is no way of verifying or disproving it.

Again, thanks mikhaila for acting as Imperial Scribe, but unfortunately, altering the rules outside of "official" channels, such as the GW website, is only causing more problems, not solving them.

GW reps do not post things on forums. Something about not having the authority to do so

AND company policy forbids it as far as i know.

These look nice and neat... but I think the organizer will need to decide if these are the cases.

Moral of the story... don't believe everything on the net.

yep 5 killpoint mech guard for the win. only way to beat them in mission 2 is by wiping them out.

mikhaila wrote:
•Under deployment in missions 2 and 3, the Note about deploying all troops and HQ choices does not mean you must deploy all your troops and HQ. You may still leave troops and HQ in reserve, as long as you still have at least 1 HQ and 2 troops choices on the table. You may leave units in reserve if you can legally do so. You may also leave them off the table, and not in reserve, to move on in turn 1 with the rest of your army, as per the scenario rules.

Thanks for writing that up, Mike. Hopefully, it can be released in some way that is convincing to the stores down the pipeline.

I am actually more confused by the above, than by the original description. Which of the following scenarios is supposed to be legit?

A) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos enter on turn 1 from my board edge.

B) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

C) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my HQ & Troops begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

D) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my flying Hive Tyrant rolls to deep strike starting on turn 2, and my outflanking genestealers roll to outflank starting on turn 2.

Basically, is the mission attempting to override the "you can always put stuff in Reserve" rule, or not?

So what exactly would have been wrong with just using the missions in the back of the book? I don't like how kill points work in them but at least everybody seems to agree on how they work.

This is just a big mess. I'm glad I'm not planning on going though my friends that are will definitely need to call to see how the TO is going to be running the missions, especially my friend that is playing IG. His guard are either going to be a great choice or complete rubbish depending on how the store runs things.

This is actually a fall back to how KP used to work in the play-test PDF that was leaked. If anything it brings a bit of sanity back to KP like with Tau. There was no reason to be earning 2 KP off of each Dedicated Transport, you were just bleeding out KP. Also it was easy to bleed out KP with Space Marines split up into Combat squads.

Like other missions, bringing troops helps you win, and that's what these rules do.

Janthkin wrote:

mikhaila wrote:
•Under deployment in missions 2 and 3, the Note about deploying all troops and HQ choices does not mean you must deploy all your troops and HQ. You may still leave troops and HQ in reserve, as long as you still have at least 1 HQ and 2 troops choices on the table. You may leave units in reserve if you can legally do so. You may also leave them off the table, and not in reserve, to move on in turn 1 with the rest of your army, as per the scenario rules.

Thanks for writing that up, Mike. Hopefully, it can be released in some way that is convincing to the stores down the pipeline.

I am actually more confused by the above, than by the original description. Which of the following scenarios is supposed to be legit?

A) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos enter on turn 1 from my board edge.

B) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

C) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my HQ & Troops begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

D) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my flying Hive Tyrant rolls to deep strike starting on turn 2, and my outflanking genestealers roll to outflank starting on turn 2.

Basically, is the mission attempting to override the "you can always put stuff in Reserve" rule, or not?

It means you MUST deploy the required force but you MAY deploy all HQ and Troops or OPT to keep them in reserve OR have them come on First turn.

The book implies 1 unit from HQ 2 units from Troops. Which is why it was clarified.

frgsinwntr wrote:GW reps do not post things on forums. Something about not having the authority to do so

AND company policy forbids it as far as i know.

These look nice and neat... but I think the organizer will need to decide if these are the cases.

Moral of the story... don't believe everything on the net.

Dave Taylor and I both post on multiple forms, so it's all good

But you are right, usually do not believe everything you see on the net without checking other references first, especially when it comes to GW 'rumors'.

However, these rules, as posted by Mike, are indeed from the head of Trade Sales in the US, the team behind the 'Ard Boyz Tournaments and intended to revise, clarify, and update the 'Ard Boyz rules.

We are working on getting them up on our the GWUS website, and these should be distributed to the stores running the event by the store's respective account manager.

Chris Gohlinghorst
GWUS Community Development Team

Chris, I hope you guys take into account how unnecessary and how open to abuse this Kill Point schema is so that you never, ever, ever even consider using them again in any competition or tournament.

The only thing mitigating the effects of this terrible idea is the fact that you only gave us 2 days warning before completely changing the rules on everyone. The short window should help cut down on the number of people who will completely exploit the new system, at least in the first round of the tournament. Had you released this earlier you could expect to see pretty much all IG armies, horde Ork, and BT Land Raider spam in round 2.

odinsspear45 wrote:

Janthkin wrote:

mikhaila wrote:
•Under deployment in missions 2 and 3, the Note about deploying all troops and HQ choices does not mean you must deploy all your troops and HQ. You may still leave troops and HQ in reserve, as long as you still have at least 1 HQ and 2 troops choices on the table. You may leave units in reserve if you can legally do so. You may also leave them off the table, and not in reserve, to move on in turn 1 with the rest of your army, as per the scenario rules.

Thanks for writing that up, Mike. Hopefully, it can be released in some way that is convincing to the stores down the pipeline.

I am actually more confused by the above, than by the original description. Which of the following scenarios is supposed to be legit?

A) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos enter on turn 1 from my board edge.

B) I deploy a Chaplain, a marine squad, and a rhino. My other 3 squads in Rhinos begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

C) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my HQ & Troops begin to roll for Reserves starting on turn 2, and enter from my board edge.

D) I deploy nothing. My non-Troops, non-HQ units enter from my board edge on turn 1; my flying Hive Tyrant rolls to deep strike starting on turn 2, and my outflanking genestealers roll to outflank starting on turn 2.

Basically, is the mission attempting to override the "you can always put stuff in Reserve" rule, or not?

It means you MUST deploy the required force but you MAY deploy all HQ and Troops or OPT to keep them in reserve OR have them come on First turn.

The book implies 1 unit from HQ 2 units from Troops. Which is why it was clarified.

DoW (in the book) requires deployment of 1 HQ and 2 Troops...unless you put those required units into "normal" reserves. The question I have is whether or not the normal "reserves" rule is being intentionally overruled by the mission, or not.

Danny Internets wrote:Chris, I hope you guys take into account how unnecessary and how open to abuse this Kill Point schema is so that you never, ever, ever even consider using them again in any competition or tournament.

The only thing mitigating the effects of this terrible idea is the fact that you only gave us 2 days warning before completely changing the rules on everyone. The short window should help cut down on the number of people who will completely exploit the new system, at least in the first round of the tournament. Had you released this earlier you could expect to see pretty much all IG armies, horde Ork, and BT Land Raider spam in round 2.

Not that I particularly enjoy being on the receiving end of 'told-you-so's but let's see how it actually plays out on the tabletop before putting a bullet in its head.

I can't convince people to make changes based solely on theoryhammer, but I can help convince people to make changes once there's concrete evidence of what did and didn't work once the event has taken place and get those adjustments in place for the semi-finals.

Chris

Chris Gohlinghorst wrote:

Not that I particular enjoy 'told-you-so's but let's see how it actually plays out on the tabletop before putting a bullet in its head.

I can't convince people to make changes based solely on theoryhammer, but I can help convince people to make changes once there's concrete evidence of what did and didn't work once the event has taken place and get those adjustments in place for the semi-finals.

Chris

Good post. I think mostly it's just a case of overcompensating. People complained that Guard couldn't keep up in a KP mission without tabling their opponent. This prevents that, but also has the potential to make it almost impossible to score a full win against guard list in the KP scenario. Still just because something has the potential to be abused doesn't necessarily mean it will.

I won't get to play this weekend as I'll be out of town, but it will be interesting to see the reactions when I get back.

Like I said, the short notice on this revamp of the rules will cut down on the abuse in the first round because people don't have time to prepare. It's incredibly naive to think that people won't abuse this to the fullest in subsequent rounds though, particularly in a competitive event that specifically caters to, albeit whimsically, "power gamers".

What about Tau drones? Are they considered "spawned" or do they count for KP?

This is the best indication yet of how fail the KP rules are. Were VPS really that hard to add up?

I think either way it is mitigated somewhat by the first mission being only objective, and the second mission having winning/losing determined by objectives, with only the degrees of winning determined by KPs.

My FLGS manager has sent out an email containing the same clarifications that mikhaila reported, so it seems they are being disseminated.

Danny Internets wrote:Like I said, the short notice on this revamp of the rules will cut down on the abuse in the first round because people don't have time to prepare. It's incredibly naive to think that people won't abuse this to the fullest in subsequent rounds though, particularly in a competitive event that specifically caters to, albeit whimsically, "power gamers".

It's more naive to think that a nationwide event with thousands of people playing wasn't going to run into a case of needing something clarified. Remember, Trade sales is running the event, not rules design. While you can expect a degree of conformity with the GW norm, this is an independent/LGS event. A person will read things one way, while another reads it different. Players have been asking for guard to have a chance in KP scenarios, they do for this event, albeit in a potentially game abusing way. If the rules aren't to people's liking, they always have the option to not play.

"What about Tau drones? Are they considered "spawned" or do they count for KP?"

Tau Drones attached to Squads will count as part of the squad under this new (maybe it is maybe it isn't official ) rule set on KP for Ard Boyz.

For example, drones attached to HQ commander count as part of the HQ FOC and must be destroyed along with the commander.
Drones attached to fire warrior squads count as troops and must be destroyed along with the squad.
Drones attached to dedicated transports count as part of the dedicated transports and don't count towards KP.

In the rulebook, however, they are regarded as separate KP from the Devil Fish as they are an independant unit. I would assume that they would be considered a "retinue" for commanders (IC) and thus a separate KP. For firewarriors and elite battlesuits whom do not have an IC, then they would just be part of the squad and not a separate KP.

Haw, I can get 20 WG split them up into 4-5 man terminator squads and they are worth 2 KP ... ...Then I could give them each a LR that gives up...wait for it... 0 KP . That is 2000 pts and only 2 fricken KP (Yeah BT eat your heart out ) ...too bad you still need 2 troops and 3 HQ (or is it 4 HQ) !

Derek, I don't see anyone here arguing that the scenarios, as they are currently written, are crystal clear. Clarifications are good, complete revamps of the rules 2 days before the tournament is to begin, especially ones that are open to obvious abuse, are bad.

If the rules aren't to people's liking, they always have the option to not play.

There's also the option to express our dislike. Which option do you think has a better chance of creating change?

The kill points clarification is a little more reasonable and it seems a lot of the abuse comes from older Codicie i.e. Landraider transports?

at 250 points per landraider. I am simply not that bother. Anyone heard of melta or lance weapons.. Now if you start talking about monoliths becoming troop choices for necron warrior squads. Then you will hear me wailing at the walls.