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Ok, so I just volunteered to run a 1,500 pt 40k and 2,000 pt Fantasy tournament this June for PolyCon, our local gaming groups big school-year end event here in San Luis Obispo. Every year there is a theme and this year's is Cyberpunk/Steampunk (last year was Pirates or something like that). I want to include the theme in the tournament scenarios and this is where I need Dakka's help. No rules or anything like that yet, I'm just looking for ideas at this point and the rules will come later.

Skaven, Dwarves, and Empire are all pretty steampunk. So far for WHFB I have "Destroy the Steamtank" and "Lair of the Rat Ogre", and something with a dwarven airship.

For 40k I'm thinking Necromunda type terrain, archeotech hordes (like steal the bacon with loot counters), and destroy/defend the STC mainframe.

What ideas do you have? After this I'll come up with some scenarios and if any of you are interested in helping my playtest (since it will be hard to playtest with my gaming group - will give them too much of an advantage over out of towners). Also, any of you in the CA who want to come to beautiful SLO for a weekend of gaming are invited (I know many of you live in the bay area or Los Angeles area).

Thanks for you help!

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I've been thinking on this question for a couple days now, since you posted it, but hadn't responded as I wanted to come up with a usable scenario...

I think in a variety of ways, WHFB lends itself better to this theme than 40k because of the steampunk theme some armies already have.

For WHFB, what about a "Capture and Repair the Generator" (ok - it needs a better name...). You'd have a terrain piece that would be the Steam Generator and loot counters that would be cogs. You can say there was an explosion during the construction of the Steam Generator that spread pieces of it around the countryside. There are two objectives to the scenario and you need both to win a major victory:
1) Collect X Cogs
2) Take and hold the Steam Generator
By accomplishing these, you succeed in repairing and controlling the generator. Other scoring could be based off of your success with these objectives if neither opponent does both.

For 40K, I'm thinking of a data steal mission. There should be lots of tech terrain. The attacker secretly chooses a terrain feature in the opponent's deployment zone and writes it down after terrain has been placed, but before deployment. It is the objective of the attacker to take and hold that terrain feature (representing accessing the data).

It's not the most exciting scenario - but it has a little cyberpunk feel to it. You could also do an escort mission, as well...

I'm still working on 40k ideas on this. I'll see what else I can come up with.

I was thinking of a hidden loot counter idea as well for 40k. Several objectives, units move to contact to reveal whether it is the "real" objective or not. I can model up some cool computer looking things to represent the objectives and put numbers on the bottom that determine which one is real.

I figure only the last game needs to fit the theme so I can actually get away with one really interesting scenario and two decent scenarios.

Oh and an update, the Con is July 4-6. I'm not thrilled with the dates (I plan on being pretty inebriated on July 4) but if anyone wants to game, you are welcome.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

From what you’ve said so far about themed terrain, it sounds like you have the time and/or resources to do some scratch building for the tournament. Is that right? Is it just you, or do you have the support of a tournament terrain building group, like Adepticon?

If you do, I think you could make a really cool scenario which involves taking control of a rampaging prototype robot (maybe both players control it; each player can move, shoot, and assault with it in their own turn), or taking over remote gun turrets (which again, shoot at both armies).

Adepticon’s championship (RTT-style) 3 round tournament last year included cool resin objective counters in the first and second missions, which were kept by the player if he controlled said objective at the end of the mission. Capturing the objectives was only the tertiary objective for tournament points/winning the mission, but the objectives also had beneficial effects in the subsequent mission.

The objective in round 1 was a communications array. In the second mission players took turns putting three objective markers on the table, and had “Planned Reserves” as a special rule. You could voluntarily put any number of units into reserve. Units composed entirely of models with a Toughness characteristic also had the option to come in by Deep Striking directly onto the objective markers without risk of scatter. Possessing the communications array from the previous round allowed you to re-roll a reserve roll each turn. The objective marker in round two was an ammo crate. If you captured it, you could give it to one of your units in round three. Each turn you rolled a die. If you got a 4+, the unit could re-roll missed shooting attacks that turn.

Doing something like this, with the ability to capture gear/technology and benefit from it, could be a neat way to show the theme.

Hmm... that is interesting. It will be primarily me, but I'm pretty capable at terrain building; I may get some more help from a few others.

I really like the idea of the objectives helping out in later games, I may steal that idea.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias- I created and cast the objective markers that Mannahnin is talking about. Drop me an email at Chicagoterrainfactory at Gmail.com if you want to talk, or drop by my blog for resin casting information/WIP shots of this year's Adepticon counters.

I've bookmarked your site. I'll email or PM if I have any specific questions.

Thanks!

Ozymandias, King of Kings

If you want some scenarios that are well balanced and playtested, I would download Adepticon's scenarios whenever they become available (if they aren't already).

IMHO Adepticon's scenarios are always really good in terms of making sure everything is well balanced but still making each mission unique. They usually involve several different objectives so you can fail to capture the primary objective but still get some points by capturing the secondary or tietiary objectives.

You could always try to alter them to fit your theme (although that may screw up the balance), or perhaps you can find a scenario that with a simple 'theme swap' works as is. That way you know you already have a playtested and balanced scenario.

Thanks! Any chance of you coming up for the tournament? Umungaz has been itching to take on more people with his new KoS army.

Ozymandias, King of Kings