Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Lately, I've been wanting to run a tournament locally.  At the same time, I've been trying to think up ways to build a tournament scenario setup in such a way that it limits the effectiveness of cheesy armies, giving under-used units or underpowered armies a chance of standing on an equal footing with the "better choices" in 40k.

So the idea I had was to come up with a standard template of a tournament scenario setup that could be adapted to fit any tournament setup.  I want to make it such that each specific "abusable army" is limited in effectiveness.  I want to make up games/scenarios that put Nidzilla at a disadvantage, Skimmer lists wouldn't be able to dominate in a scenario, podding marines would be limited, as would my own personal "Las/Plas+Assault Cannon Spam" style list.  Chaos lists will be limited by their new dex, but basically I want to make it hard for a one dimentional army to win it all.  Oh and I want to make sure that whatever is come up with doesn't just outright favor "Loyalist Marines" or any one army type either. 

There would be no comp score, it wouldn't be necessary if the above criteria are achieved. 

Sports score would be a checklist to prevent chipmunking but still limit those "choice" players from being jerks during a game.

Painting requirements would be straight forward: Unpainted armies or armies that do not meet the "3 color minimum" GT standard for painting will be unable to win overall, reguardless of battle score.  Armies that were not painted by the player can not win best painted, however they can win first place in the tournament.

Basically the tournament is about playing the game well but at the same time rewards hobbyists for painting or really nice armies as a side aspect of the tourny.

So here are the set guidelines I've come up with which I would really like to hear feedback on and any new ideas that could be used to limit it.

1.) Terrain setups for each game will be mandated and board setups will be fixed.

This will go a long way to building a scenario setup in such a way that is balanced for table sides while being built to limit abusable armies.

For example I could make one game Omega Recon, with the stipulation that if an army has more than X units in reserve they are made to go first.  If both armies are over this threshold, D6 as usual.  This combined with a good terrain setup should limit Nidzilla's ability to dominate the tournament since a straightforward Nidzilla list will struggle here if the terrain is right.  It also limits skimmer armies from being able to go last and zoom to an objective uncontested on the last turn of the game.

The key aspect is setting up terrain to not favor anything.  Don't put all the "cover" terrain features in the deployment zones.  Make people MOVE for cover.  Put some blocking LOS terrain in there to give people the ability to hide stuff, but not setup a nice entrenchment line for peoples shooty armies to deploy in and sit there. 

2.) Mandate that one or more games in the tournament be played using the Cities of Death Rules.

This right here should give an assault army a boost in potential, while at the same time rewarding shooty armies that don't rely on just sitting in their DZ all game.  It also limits skimmer lists since you can't capture objectives in CoD with a skimmer.  Shooty Nidzillas will struggle against assault lists with fists to get close enough to rip them up. My own marine lists will be hosed since the Las/Plas squads are near useless in CoD.

The key will be picking the best mission in CoD to use to not just give the game to assault lists and make it possible for a list like IG to get a fair shot at it.

So with those two guidelines, I think I've got something that can be used to limit cheesy armies.  The only problem is that I don't have one yet that can limit podding marines.  So if I can set up a third mission type that doesn't favor that army style I think I may have all my bases covered. 

The idea is to reward flexible armies and to force players to have to work harder to win instead of having their list do a lot of the work for them.

Any ideas on what I could do to limit podding marines? Are the ideas I put forward so far fair enough to all armies while making things tougher on the abusive ones?  Did I make things too hard on any one army type?

Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

After you nerf all the armies that you personally don't like then there will be a few new "cheesy armies" that will then rule your type of tournament. Trying to nerf armies by deciding who goes first and last and last and creating unbalanced terrain is a poor approach. If you want to run a balanced tournament do the following:

Have the terrain as listed by GW filling 25% of the board with a1/3 terrain hills, 1/3 level 3 area terrain and 1/3 level 1 or 2. This is where a tourney can easily go wrong with too little terrain. Make the pieces large enough that you have 6-10 per table. At the beginning of each game allow the players to set up terrain without knowing the mission type or still have them roll like you normally would for sides and who goes first. Allow the players (you said you wanted the best player to win) to hang or help themselves with terrain placement or deployment.

If you are playing larger points don't have restrictions. Realize that the various point levels favor different armies (IG is better larger as is necrons, Nidzilla really works at 1500, etc), so if you see one army dominate in your area try a different points level. Make sure you have enough time to play higher points levels because otherwise hoard armies will not be present so everyone will be taking high powered elite killing weapons, which is why you end up with Nidzilla and skimmers, low model count hard to kill armies that play quickly and are still effective.

I should stipulate a few things.

This is not about trying to hurt "armies I don't like". Go and read the opinion of the players here and you'll come to the conclusion that armies like Podding Marines, Nidzilla, and Mech Eldar (or skimmer armies in general) are better than the rest of the lists out there.

That's the sort of thing I'd like to try to build a scenario around to try and limit their effectiveness. The Omega Recon may be an extreme example, but I think Cities of Death would be a great limiter of at least 3 "overpowered" army types (Nidzilla, Skimmer lists, Gunline Marines).

The first point is more about setting up terrain, and yes I should have mentioned that there will be a minimum of 25% terrain, possibly more of varying types that do a better job of promoting "balanced play" with a good terrain setup:

No area terrain in deployment zones to give cover saves to "sit and shoot" army types like Nidzilla or Gunlines, but put blocking LOS terrain there to give hiding opportunities.

Put a nice piece of area terrain in the center of the board, and use smaller pieces of intervening terrain staggard throughout the board and flanks to limit overly good or wide fire lanes.

The idea of forcing terrain to be static for a mission type is exactly there to stop players from placing terrain advantageously for their lists. Not knowing the mission means very little when I know I'm playing a SAFH Marines list and I want nice clean fire lanes and terrain to hide in each deployment zone. I can very easily work to "strategically" place terrain to favor me regardless of mission.

Why not just ban the army lists you don't like?

- G

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 07/01/2007 9:26 AM
I should stipulate a few things.

This is not about trying to hurt "armies I don't like". Go and read the opinion of the players here and you'll come to the conclusion that armies like Podding Marines, Nidzilla, and Mech Eldar (or skimmer armies in general) are better than the rest of the lists out there.

That's the sort of thing I'd like to try to build a scenario around to try and limit their effectiveness. The Omega Recon may be an extreme example, but I think Cities of Death would be a great limiter of at least 3 "overpowered" army types (Nidzilla, Skimmer lists, Gunline Marines).

The first point is more about setting up terrain, and yes I should have mentioned that there will be a minimum of 25% terrain, possibly more of varying types that do a better job of promoting "balanced play" with a good terrain setup:

No area terrain in deployment zones to give cover saves to "sit and shoot" army types like Nidzilla or Gunlines, but put blocking LOS terrain there to give hiding opportunities.

Put a nice piece of area terrain in the center of the board, and use smaller pieces of intervening terrain staggard throughout the board and flanks to limit overly good or wide fire lanes.

The idea of forcing terrain to be static for a mission type is exactly there to stop players from placing terrain advantageously for their lists. Not knowing the mission means very little when I know I'm playing a SAFH Marines list and I want nice clean fire lanes and terrain to hide in each deployment zone. I can very easily work to "strategically" place terrain to favor me regardless of mission.

The point is that your opponent can do the same. You as a third party will place the terrain in a way you think is neutral but is not. This gives the opposing armies playing the game a chance to give themselves (both sides) terrain that could have been to their advantage, therefore neutralizing the advantage.

You are stating that you want to nerf three specific armies. That means you don't like 3 specific armies. You are intentionally trying to nerf armies you don't like, it doesn't matter how you word it. If you think the armies are overpowered then make restrictions on those armies specifically, but all that means is that a few armies will replace them as the best armies and then you would have to restrict them also. You can't get around that through terrain placement other than allowing the players to place it themselves to cover or stress their advantages and disadvantages. Then when the ork player leaves the center of the table without terrain it is his own fault for losing.

Or...instead of nerfing armies, you just make sure that everyone brings a cheesy list. Play it adepticon gladiator style.

I have done the same thing Voodoo wants for the Adepticon Gladiator, but in subtler ways. First the best way to 'penalize' certain army archtypes is by the scenario. It is the one thing you control the most and make it the scenario victory conditions to boot. Here is what I mean.

Skimmer lists are designed as VP denail lists and/or last turn objective grabbers. Deny them both of these victory conditions in one game. Make it an objective grabber, or grabbers, (no vp's) but count only the number of wounds touching the objective as a victory condition (scoring units have nothing to do with this). If I've got one Ork in a below strength unit on the objective and you've got 3 untouched falcons, I win because I have one wound. Let armored walkers with ar 12+ count as 10 wounds and ar 11- count as 5 wounds. Bingo the skimmer lists are in trouble.

Next scenario deny all MC's any cover advantage. Say the planet has very flimsy vegatation that won't give MC's cover saves. Another possibility is to combine Escalation with a recon type victory condition (bonus vp's for being in enemy deployment zone). Give all unit +1 to their reserve roll, but give MC's a -1 to all their reserve rolls. This will hurt walking MC's and not so much armored transports.

Finally for the podders have the planet undergo strong Ionic Storms which cause any deep striking vehicle to suffer an auto glancing hit and troops to suffer d6 wounds upon deep striking. If the pod is destroyed upon landing roll for everyone inside and they are pinned.

Don't put these all in the same scenario, but spread them out. Think of others yourself. I know the Las/Plas/assault cannon army, like yours, will suffer big time in a simple nightfight game. Have the entire game played under the nightfight rules and sit and shoot marines will be in trouble.

In the end these different changes to the standard scenarios will cause certain army archtypes a headache. A more balanced list will have an easier time navigating these scenarios and min/maxed lists will not. I believe 'cheesie' lists just take advantage of the scenario rules more than other lists do. If you chnage the scenario rules, the cheesie lists will have a harder time while a more balanced list will still do fine.

"Have the entire game played under the nightfight rules and sit and shoot marines will be in trouble."

Nowhere near as much as Imperial Guard. Marines are still pretty viable in close combat, but you've really manage to hose any Guard list that doesn't have a bunch of Grey Knight Terminator allies.

I'd never want to play in your tournament DarthDiggler. The scoring units rules make sense. Arbitrarily changing them to screw over armies you don't like is silly. It's about the same as having the map be 'Backwards Day' where BS2 troops hit on a 3+ and BS4 troops hit on a 5+ because you want to give Ork shooting a better chance.

If you don't want people to bring skimmer armies then ban them, don't have people show up and then tell them that there's lava bursts that cause a glancing hit every turn.

It has nothing to do with 'balanced lists' - unless you include in the tournament package a list of every possible 40K list and check off which ones are balanced and which aren't. There's nothing unbalanced about Eldar with a bunch of skimmers or Marines using drop-pods. Both are fluffy and fun ways to play the armies.

Also, judging by your nightfight suggestion, the entire Imperial Guard and Tau Codexes are 'cheesy' and not balanced and need to have scenarios made to thwart them. Why even bother showing up then?

Asmodai I am not hosing lists I don't like. I am trying to force people to bring a balanced list. If you have 7 skimmers, 20 dire avengers and Yriel, you will have trouble putting wounds onto an objective. Bring a more balanced list and you will be fine. Guard are not hosed in a Nightfight game unless you brought only footsloggers and minimal or no vehicles. Bring a searchlight or two and you should be fine. Put them on Chimaeras, use your vehicles to block the marines approaches and funnel them into zones where a Leman Russ, Demo Charge, Vet squad with plasma can unload on them. A guard list that is not balanced will not do well. If all the guard have to do is sit back and shoot across 36-48 inches they will not do well. Tau have the best nightfight accessory in the game with the blacksun filter. If you think Tau can only win by sitting back at 30+ inches and shooting you must be very dissappointed when they are forced to play anything but a Victory Point game. They must auto-lose all objective based scenarios since they are compelled to advance on the enemy, puh-lease.

It is not about banning skimmers. Why do so many people, when faced with something they don't like, resort to absolute extremes? Are these the same people who complain when GW 'banned' two assault cannons in Terminator squads instead of allowing people to take anything they want, but make it a little more painful to do so?

You don't want to play in my tourney? I don't care. I've run the Adepticon Gladiator for 2 years and helped write the scenarios again last year. In this tournament we do this very same thing. Balanced list will do well, extreme lists with no balance can still win (it's all about match-ups) but they will have trouble completing all the objectives if they can't do all things.

40k has the capability to do a lot more than sit back and shoot or drop 50 marines from pods into the enemy lines. Make each game have a 3 tier objective system (vp's can be one objective) and make it so an army must be able to accomplish a variety of objectives to be successful. An army must be able to deliver units across the table, they must be able to hold multiple posts (objectives), they should be able to shoot the enemy at range, hold off an assault, assault the enemy themselves, move through a dense terrain board, etc... and most importantly not rely on one unit replicated multiple times.

Why not just vary the scenarios enough that they will force players to reach a certain "balance"?

@DD: Quoted for Truth!

Capt K

I hate being surprised by special rules that neuter my army when I go to a tournament. Especially the special deployment rules (Only deploy the compulsory troops one...Non-stealer nids are screwed), or the old ones where elites start in reserves (Culexus and Vindicare are already gimped...Not being on the board is worse).

The key word is surprised. If I know the scenarios before hand, I can plan for the scenarios. Same as if I know how comp is scored in a comp-based environment.

Yeah, I really wanted to run this event in such a way that I didn't really screw with the missions any way that really messed with things (ie having Infantry count more as scoring than Skimmers, etc) or have really wierd deployment setups like reverse escalation and jazz.

I wanted it to be a curve ball, but something that you should be aware of happening, on a balanced terrain board. My initial thought on scenarios and special stuff like that is you really have two choices:

1.) Publish the info before hand - in which case players design around the scenarios and just redefine their meta-game.
2.) Not publish the scenarios and have it be dumb luck for someone to just happen to get the right matchups to win it and have half the players pissed cause they're playing a wierd style game that isn't like 40k that they play normally.

Not that those ideas are bad, redefining the meta-game makes certain lists go away, but at the same time can let someone squeek something by that you couldn't account for that now doesn't have to worry about the other "uber-lists" that would normally counter him.

I know that this is a very lofty goal and it's probably impossible to get it right. I got a bit of the idea from reading about how Adepticon does its setups and how the Colonial has special setups to try and limit extreme builds. I just want to see if I can use a set control setup for each mission to try and limit list abuses.

Posted By DarthDiggler on 07/01/2007 4:50 PM
Asmodai I am not hosing lists I don't like. I am trying to force people to bring a balanced list. If you have 7 skimmers, 20 dire avengers and Yriel, you will have trouble putting wounds onto an objective. Bring a more balanced list and you will be fine. Guard are not hosed in a Nightfight game unless you brought only footsloggers and minimal or no vehicles. Bring a searchlight or two and you should be fine. Put them on Chimaeras, use your vehicles to block the marines approaches and funnel them into zones where a Leman Russ, Demo Charge, Vet squad with plasma can unload on them. A guard list that is not balanced will not do well. If all the guard have to do is sit back and shoot across 36-48 inches they will not do well. Tau have the best nightfight accessory in the game with the blacksun filter. If you think Tau can only win by sitting back at 30+ inches and shooting you must be very dissappointed when they are forced to play anything but a Victory Point game. They must auto-lose all objective based scenarios since they are compelled to advance on the enemy, puh-lease.

It is not about banning skimmers. Why do so many people, when faced with something they don't like, resort to absolute extremes? Are these the same people who complain when GW 'banned' two assault cannons in Terminator squads instead of allowing people to take anything they want, but make it a little more painful to do so?

You don't want to play in my tourney? I don't care. I've run the Adepticon Gladiator for 2 years and helped write the scenarios again last year. In this tournament we do this very same thing. Balanced list will do well, extreme lists with no balance can still win (it's all about match-ups) but they will have trouble completing all the objectives if they can't do all things.

40k has the capability to do a lot more than sit back and shoot or drop 50 marines from pods into the enemy lines. Make each game have a 3 tier objective system (vp's can be one objective) and make it so an army must be able to accomplish a variety of objectives to be successful. An army must be able to deliver units across the table, they must be able to hold multiple posts (objectives), they should be able to shoot the enemy at range, hold off an assault, assault the enemy themselves, move through a dense terrain board, etc... and most importantly not rely on one unit replicated multiple times.

You are hosing lists you don't like. You haven't defined what a balanced list is, other than its a list that you, personally, don't like.

Apparently, Mech Eldar is unbalanced and foot Eldar army balanced, but Mech Guard is balanced while Foot-Slogging Guard is unbalanced. I don't see any rhyme or reason there. Especially since your suggestion is a Guard army heavily unbalanced towards HQ, Elites and Heavy Support (and the same unoriginal choices you see in every cookie-cutter Guard army) - but you cite an Eldar Army with the same composition mix-up as being unbalanced.

Are people supposed to read your mind if they play Orks to see if Orks are balanced when their mechanized or balanced when they're on foot?


"Are these the same people who complain when GW 'banned' two assault cannons in Terminator squads instead of allowing people to take anything they want, but make it a little more painful to do so?"

I don't have two Assault Cannons with my Deathwing/Blood Angels Terminators anyway. I don't quite understand what you're saying. How are they not 'banned'? The option doesn't exist in the Codex anymore. It's not possible to field them at all, no matter what. How is that not banning?


I've heard good things about the Adepticon system in the past - and having multiple objectives makes sense. Apparently the impression I received was mistaken. I had no idea that the missions were designed around helping whatever the committee decides 'a balanced list' is this week have an advantage. If you don't define what a balanced list is (and by your examples its contradictory and random) then its awfully hard for people to know what to expect.

I remember playing in a tourney with my Death Gaurd. First time I didn't take my Orks. There was a special mission where one player started sitting on an objective, and then the other deep striked his entire army onto your head. My opponent was play orks.
That was a painful game, which convinced me that a wargear item that allowed ork mobs to deep strike would be massively powerful.

I like the idea of very intelligently place terrain Voodoo Boyz- that level of thought is great in a tourney organiser.

What I can't believe I forgot was one of the cornerstones of the idea for the tournament, this should have been in the original post:

Setup a scoring system that doesn't just outright favor massacres.

Using level of victory based on VP's favors armies that get massacres, many "balanced" armies or lists that don't have cute little names like "Nidzilla" "Air Force" or "SAFH" really are going to struggle to get a Massacre off. The UKGT of the last season utilized this sytem and we saw a couple of non-standard armies placing well.

So you have the following for battle points scoring:

Win - 3 Points
Draw - 1 Point
Loss - 0 Points

Also, instead of going by a Victory Point differential to see who wins in place of ties, you go to the level of victory as the next delimiter. So if at the end you have 3 people who won all their games, you look through their records. Massacres Score 3, Major Victory scores 2, Minor Victory scores 1. IF you go through the system and still have a tie for score, then you finally go down to VP differential to see who the winner is.

The idea here is to reward the player who got say 3 Major Victories instead of two Minors and a Massacre. The points are setup in such a way that even if you get a Minor victory for one win, you can still get a massacre to counterbalance that to not take yourself out of the running.

I think this works best for GT like setups, 5 games. Unfortunately my first event will likely be 3 games due to the nature of local events (it needs to fit in an afternoon at a shop). Still, I think that this actually should work out really well if you combine it with say a mandatory CoD game and then one or two missions setup on tables that are designed to be "balanced" in such a way that it's not a shooty armies killing field, but it's not an assault armies easy option to just walk to assault unmolested.

At least that's the idea as it should have been posted in the OP.

My FLGS did a win lose draw system that awarded up to three extra points for achieving objectives like holding more table quarters, killing the enemy general, etc. and it worked great. The big trouble I've seen with awarding massacre points is that a person facing noobs gets a good chance of massacres while those unlucky enough to face more experienced players from the get go can forget about scoring as highly as the less skillful, but luckier player.

In the last RTT I was at, I was the only one to go undefeated, but all my wins were against well seasoned players who go to GT's and two that have have always scored well when they go. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place players for the tournament had the good fortune to face a noob Tau player that all were able to wipe from the table before turn 6, scoring 23 easy points.
With the massacre score, the winner of the tournament was able to take it with a 1-1-1 record, with me handing him his defeat in a narrow game and his tie coming from a player I beat in another narrow game in the same tournament.

I'm all about the fact that the person who wins all their games at a tournament should be the overall winner. Level of victory really shouldn't put someone over someone else who managed to get more "overall wins", at least in my view. Your experience really hammers that home for me.

I do like the idea of having "Bonus Points" for achieving objectives, serves as a better way of differentiating between levels of "Victory". Say controlling all the objectives in a Secure and Control game gives +1 Bonus Point to a score; or something similar.

There is a problem with matching up against newer players, but if you use the swiss system (I think that's the one where each round pairings are done based on the highest rankings, going down), this shouldn't be an issue after the first round. It's limited even further if you've got a 5 game tournament, though at a 3 Game event with a lot of players, this could present a challenge. Still basing the level of a "win" on the type of victory, with bonus points, should keep the best players/toughest lists playing each other after the first round.

Bonus points are also probably one of the better ways to prevent players from "holding back" on getting lots of decisive victories to keep playing "middle of the road" players and getting more wins overall.

I know you said you werent going to have a comp score, but, maybe it would help? Say 40% minimum spent on troops with at least 2 squads with maximum number of troop squad size (ex. 2 Space Marine Tactical squads with 10 marines in each squad), and then every other category 25% of total points max.

Not to sound like Skyth here, but such a setup merely favors playing Loyalist Marines. I want to make it such that every army has a chance of winning every game they play. I just don't want to see the "big lists" come in and dominate.

And I'm a firm believer in the fact that "comp" is bull****. It'll either get ignored anyway or set guidelines like that will be worked around for many a cheesy list (Podding Marines have no trouble filling that requirement and being stupidly good at the same time).

Right now my only hard setup is the fact that it's really tough to come up with a series of missions for 3 games that can put some of the "arch-types" of tough armies through a hard game setup. Podding Marines are actually giving me the hardest time actually.

@ Voodoo Boyz - This is all great and wonderful. With all these promises of yours I think you can take the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential elections!

- G

I hate you.

PS. I'm really bored.

LOL!

- G

KISS it Voodoo!  

 

*Make sure you have varied missions. Some require movement or movement denial, some are killy, some are more objective oriented. GW has multiple missions on the site, or you can tweak older missions to taste.

 

*Insure there is 25% - 30% terrain on each board. Make sure the terrain is fair from the perspective of either side in terms of LOS, cover, etc.

 

*COD is good for one game, if you can insure that everyone plays on that board once in the first two contests (ie in one of my first two games I’m going to have to play a COD board).

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 07/02/2007 11:23 AM
Not to sound like Skyth here, but such a setup merely favors playing Loyalist Marines. I want to make it such that every army has a chance of winning every game they play. I just don't want to see the "big lists" come in and dominate.

Hey...I'm famous

 

 

First off Voodo: As the tournament organizer don't be afraid/ashamed to do whatever the hell you want with your tournament as long as you publish what you're doing (and why) ahead of time. If you don't like Mech Eldar, Godzilla Bugs and Drop Pod armies by all means eliminate those army types from your tournament or give them massive penalties. Just make sure you let everyone know ahead of time so they can skip your tournament or bring another army if they still want to attend.


With that said, I agree with a lot of what has already been suggested. If your tables have an adequate amount of terrain, you ensure that some your missions include Escalation while some don't utilize infiltration/Deep Strike and make sure that your missions have varied types of objectives to go along with Victory Points (or even have a mission that is completely determined by mission objectives without Victory Points being used) you will go a long way towards balancing those powerful niche armies.

I also really like the idea of ensuring that all players will play at least one CoD game, but making that into a reality (without some players ending up playing multiple CoD games) seems rather difficult if not impossible.

I tried to do somethng like this at a tournement I ran, making players play one game in a jungle and one game in Cities of Death. My players unanimously revolted and refused to do it, so I shrugged my shoulders and gave them what they wanted- an unbalanced tourney.
I dunno why I keep agreeing to run that damn tourney, it's nothing but hassle and I get f all thanks.

Voodoo: I really like a lot of your suggestions, and I reckon they'd be good suggestions even if there were no power lists (I think a tournament organiser should set out the terrain beforehand in all cases).

Math comp does its job at curbing the excessive armies. It's not a solution for stopping people taking powerful lists, but it curbs the excessive armies. Math comp can be abused by players that are willing to play with the system, but it curbs the excessive armies. Math comp is a simple system that is less stress for the TO and easy to understand for the players, and it curbs excessive armies.

I recommend 10% using this freakin' easy system that will curb excessive armies (for 1500pts):

Q1. Does the army have at least 525pts in troops?
No = 0pts
525-599 = 2pts
600-674 = 4pts
675+ = 5pts

(The following is confusing but if you've played in tournaments you know what I mean.)

Q2. Does the army have no more than 450pts in HQ/elites/fast attack/heavy support?
No = 0pts (if any of them are over 450pts, that's cheesy and you get 0pts)
At least one category is 421-450pts = only 1pt
At least one category is 376-420pts = only 2pts
All categories are no more than 375pts = 3pts

Examples ALWAYS help confusion.

Example 1:
HQ: 90pts
Elites: 430pts
Troops: 600pts
Fast Attack: 0pts
Heavy: 380pts

This gets 1pt for Q2.

Q3. Does the list have at least as many troops choices as HQ/elites/fast attack/heavy support?

No = 0pts
At least as many = 1pt
At least one more = 2pts

Example 2:

1 HQ
3 Elites
3 Troops
0 Fast Attack
2 Heavy Support

This gets 1pt. To get 2pts with 3 elites or heavy support, you need 4 troops. To get 0 points, you need 2 troops and 3 elites or heavy support (or fast attack...)

This comp system will not change who wins the tournament, it will just curb the excessive armies. This system will not act as a handicap for powerful lists, but it will curb the excessive armies. Do you see where I'm going here?

No, stuff like that changes the excessive armies. It does nothing to curb Daemonbombs or Drop pod lists at all.

Yak - I don't want to be the guy who runs the tournament "that made it so I couldn't take my army". I don't like the Nanny style setup where you use a comp system or just outright ban lists. Part of it has to do with the notion that you get stuff like "Well I couldn't win because I couldn't take the army I'd normally use which would kill you".

The problem with "overpowered lists" is that most of the time, you require less work to win, or you go into the game with marked advantages or the ability to minimize a lot of risks to the point where what would normally impact a game has near zero impact on you (Zillas vs. Small Arms Fire, 3 Holofield Tanks vs. Damage in general, etc).

What I would like to do is make it so that you have to play hard to win no matter what*. I don't want the default power armies that normally dominate to do as they do and put others at a disadvantage.

* not that people who play hard lists don't have to play hard normally, but many times it brings you advantages vs. your "average army" and you really only work hard vs. other hard lists. Problem is out of all the armies in the game, only maybe 4-5 of them are that "hard" and it limits the game a lot.

*******************

Getting back to trying to work out specifics of how to actually pull this off: I really think that one mandatory CoD game really hurts a lot of the armies I'm trying to limit:

Skimmer Lists
Shooty Zillas
Las/Plas+Asscannon Marines

Those are the main ones I'm really trying to limit as that's what my most experience is with, and the Chaos armies that are excessive are about to go away or change drastically so I'm not considering them ATM.

Problem is limiting armies like Podders who can actually thrive in objective based missions and missions that would normally hurt other lists.

And doing this while making sure I don't put a hurt on armies like Guard is rather rough.

Terrain helps most horde armies since they generally want to assault, however IG needs to shoot to work, so tons of terrain is a bit harder to pull off to limit Shooty Marines/Chaos/Nidzilla while at the same time not giving IG a rough time.

CoD is nice and balanced enough that one game really changes things up. The problem is coming up with "normal 40k" games that work well like this.