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Hey,

Apparently there's interest in a Warhammer 40,000 player's tournament, a tournament in which it's your skill, rather than your army composition, their army composition, or the terrain layout, that decides the game. Naturally this skill involves dealing with the dice. I suggest using Casino dice, but sharp-cornered dice should do (filled-in pips are better).

So here's the idea: Armies, missions, and board layouts are decided prior to the tournament. You know what armies will be there, when you will face them, and what you yourself will have to face them with.

First the number of players committed to the tournament must be decided.

Once the number of players has been decided, the organizers should decide how many games the players can fit in. This determines the number of games that each player will play, and thus put a combinatorial limit on the variety of armies and missions.

After all, if there is one build per army, and there are six armies, and three missions, then each player will need to play many games.

So let's simplify it, given time constraints and whatnot. The tournament should be about two different armies, facing off in a single mission on a single type of board. Think of it like a chess problem that you have some limited amount of time to solve.

I suggest going for a classic match-up, Space Marines vs Orks.

Actually I think I've prefer Eldar vs Imperial Guard, since these armies follow the basic rules more closely, but really it's up to whoever organizes the tournament to decide which armies require the most Warhammer skills to win through.

So if there are ten players, one mission, and one board layout, then five players need to bring units for a particular 1500pt Space Marine army and five players need to bring units for a particular 1500pt Ork army, to make sure that whatever the match-up it is always Space Marines vs Orks.

Here's something important: while it is up to players to bring the models, players will rotate amongst armies as well as tables, so that each player gets the experience of using both Space Marines and Orks. So make players must pledge to not only treat the armies like delicate gems (wash your hands you filthy grotz!), but must also make sure that their armies are well-painted so that nobody will be embarrassed having to use them.

At 1500pt games, there should be four games, two in which a player plays Space Marines, two in which a player plays Orks. Since players don't need to move their armies to a new table for each round, games should only take about 1.5 hours if played at a leisurely pace (but without time-wasting).

Each player should play half their games as Space Marines, and half as Orks.

So the tournament organizers need to determine:

1. Standardized Army lists (which armies, which points)
2. Standardized Mission
3. Standardized Table Layout
4. Scoring

I would posit a further simplification action. Battlebox or some comparable marine force vs. same.

Yeah, I was gonna ask who would be building these lists. Jfraz kinda answers that question, but I wonder if that would be satisfactory to many people. The battleboxs are good, but not terribly competitive. I'm not gonna be there, but I'm still interested in the results, hence my question.

The tournament organizers would be building the lists, as well as figuring out what terrain will be used with the mission.

The problem with armies in a box would be that they're rarely the same actual utility (as measured by points values), although if GW sold specific tournament army boxes or packages then that would be something.

However, I think it would be important to the painting/modeling side of things that everything in the list be something that one can put together from some combination of GW packaged products: so if no model x, then no unit x in the army.

Sorry, I mispoke. I meant marine battlebox vs. marine battlebox. That puts everyone on exactly equal terms and takes list making out of the equation. Then the game may be focused on the artsy fartsy part, and the generaliship.

Or, of course to make it more interesting, everyone gets the same non-marine battlebox. Identical armies, identical lists.

There's a problem with everyone playing the same army, however, which is why I proposed half take one army and another half takes another army. Essentially it's about symmetry, particularly the inexact symmetry of points values.

Ideally each player would be able to play all missions with all armies against all armies. If we're concerned with putting generalship to the test, then the generals concerned need to be able to command a variety, the minimum of which is two types of army.

Maybe calling it a chess-like experience was wrong. Perhaps I should have called it a "Thud-like" experience.

So each person would bring two armies? It adds that variability back into the equation but could be ok. It would have to be agreed upon lists of the same strength (ie cheesy vs. cheesy or fluffy vs. fluffy).

No, each person brings one army. Half the players bring Army A, and half brings Army B. They switch for half their games. Think of it like musical chairs: if there are ten players, then there are five tables laid out with five identical board and ten identical (for the purposes of the rules, hopefully wildly various for the purposes of painting and converting) armies. Depending on how the tournament is set up, people get mixed around the table depending on their results, and which army they had already played.

Part of switching between armies is to make sure that if there is an imbalance, then that imbalance is shared by all of the players. If the Orks army is weaker than the Space Marines, and those are the only two armies, then each player had to show their ability from both the position of advantage and the position of disadvantage.

That makes the organizers' job easier, and leaves them with more wiggle-room with regard to how they want the tournament army lists organized.

In particular this format allows the tournament organizers to employ lists broadly considered sub-optimal, since the true test of a general is winning with the hand they are dealt.

Rated G wrote: The battleboxs are good, but not terribly competitive.

That's the thing though, the lists don't have to be competitive, they just have to be equal. The whole point (or at least a lot of it) is that they are looking to remove army building from the outcome of the game. They are making fixed lists for people to play so it hardly matters if they lists are top teir or competitive since they will be going up against another list designed to be an even match for it.

I think a good way to go about this (which would eliminate the problem of people using other peoples models) would be for the organizers to just write up a balanced list for each base army (marines, IG, Eldar, Nids, necrons, dark eldar, tau, etc.). Base each army list off of roughly what is in the battle force (with adjustments made as necessary to balance the list) and then just make it so that when players show up, they have to play one of the pre published lists. While it does mean that it won't be quite as simple as orcs vs marines all the time, it should play out fairly well since (assuming the organizers made good lists) everything should be well balanced.

That's another problem that my proposal was designed to avoid: the ability of organizers to determine what armies will be equal given the missions involved. By reducing the choice to two armies and having players play half the tournament using one army and then half using another army, we can avoid that problem.

I guess there's that, but it does have the problem of requireing everyone to have one of the two armies you decided to play with.

I don't really see that as a problem. People can buy armies. It's not as if people don't buy new armies for tournaments.

I think that it would be a really good idea, hard to organize, but a good idea.

Questions though:

1) Would the match ups be random between the two armies? I understand that it would be one race Vs another, but would one army always play another regardless of player?

2) If not, would the matches be completely random? With not only players changing armies, but armies changing as well?

3) What kind of lists would there be? If there were optomized lists and scenario 2 took place, then an ork player using an army w/o AT weapons would be arbitrarily up stool's creek. Also, if scenario 1 took place, then one army would continuosly beat down another until there was nothing left but a tear stained deployment zone on one end, with the corpses of the unoptimized list on the other.

Again, I think its a really good idea, but some things are unclear and/or need tweaking.

So basically, you're proposing the equivalent of a Contract Bridge tournament. That's not a bad idea. Just keep the points down so you have good chances to ensure that the players can bring the correct complete armies.

Shrike78:

Let me answer in the order that you have posed your questions.

1. As I conceive it, the game would be a set-piece between Orks and Space Marines. Every round of the tournament, every game, one player takes the role of the Space Marines and one player takes the role of the Orks. So the army lists, mission, and board configuration would not change from game to game. What would change would be the players.

The idea is that by using the same tools, by starting from the same position, one player can prove himself to be the best player at that tournament.


2. The army lists set for each game, or iteration, would not change. The players will know beforehand what the army lists will be, what the missions will be, and how the board will be set up.

3. My concept of these tournament is players competing to win a single scenario with pre-defined parameters. The variables will, of course, be the dice themselves and the other player involved.

Part of the job of the tournament organizers will be to make sure that the armies, mission, and board layout combine to test the key elements of Warhammer generalship, such as a keen eye for measurement, an ability to maximize the position of models for maximum effect, and to wield diverse elements effectively as a whole.

I definitely think that the organizers will need to device a scenario wherein a turn 1 win is possible, but highly unlikely where moderately able players are concerned.

You know, with identical armies, it makes *no* difference whether the armies, scenarios, or whatever are balanced - only that they are the same.

On any given board, you aren't competing against the guy on the other side. You're competing against the half of the room who played the same army on the same board as you. If you bang out a Massacre, when the rest of the room is scoring Major Victories, you score a "top" for that table. OTOH, if you eke out a Draw, then your opponent probably scored a "top".

So it's easy to have the tournament go like this:

A group:
P1: SM table 1, Orks table 2, SM table 3, Orks Table 4
P2: Orks table 2, SM table 3, Orks table 4, SM table 1
P3: SM table 3, Orks table 4, SM table 1, Orks Table 2
P4: Orks table 4, SM table 1, Orks Table 2, SM table 3

All of the players in A group (P1, P2, P3, and P4) are playing against each other. The B group on the other side of the boards is playing against themselves.

In this kind of game, there will be 2 winners, one A player, one B player.

JohnHwangDD:

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that my proposal accounts for this problem you seem to imagine.

In my proposal the players switch up armies for half their games. One half of the games are played from the Space Marine side, and one half of the game are played from the Ork side.

This has the advantage that if the scenario is not perfectly balanced, that the tournament itself will be balanced because the advantage drawn from playing the side with the superior position will be countered by the disadvantage drawn from playing the side with the inferior position.

All of the Space Marines armies would follow the same army list, and so would all the Ork armies. But since each game would be a contest between a player using Space Marines and a player using Orks, and the players switch up, we need hardly worry that players will be competing solely against their fellow Space Marines or fellow Orks.

Nurglitch wrote:Shrike78:


Part of the job of the tournament organizers will be to make sure that the armies, mission, and board layout combine to test the key elements of Warhammer generalship, such as a keen eye for measurement, an ability to maximize the position of models for maximum effect, and to wield diverse elements effectively as a whole.

Would you care to post such an army?

@Nurglitch,

Apparently, you're totally ignorant with respect to how Contract Bridge Tournaments work.

That is what you're replicating.

The problem is that you believe that having players "switch up" automatically makes the A and B groups equal.

You are completely, totally wrong.

For whatever reason, the particular terrain / special rules / scenario of their tables might give the A group a 10% edge over the B group.

For example, on table 1, the SM might have the edge, and the Orks might have a 15% advantage on table 2.

So the A group has a solid advantage over the B group based on those two tables. Playing duplicate, that is a huge gap to make up.

So don't bother trying to make it up. Simply declare 2 winners, one from each group.

JohnHwangDD:

I'll certainly admit to ignorance where Contact Bridge Tournaments are concerned. Where my proposal is concerned however, I'll simply admit confusion.

I don't get how you divide the tournament players into these two groups you mentioned. Could you please describe how we tell these two groups apart?

Let me give a more concrete example:

Table 1, has minimal cover, favoring SM (A group)
Table 2 has heavy cover, favoring Orks (also A group)
Table 3 is lava boards, favoring SM again (again A group)
Table 4 is Night Fighting, favoring Orks (wow, A group)

You're saying that A group switching back and forth between SM and Orks makes that even?

I don't think so.

But it's important to note that every A player has the same advantages. So they are comparable.

Every B player has the same disadvantages, so they are also comparable.

@Nurglitch, dividing the groups is at random. As long as you have an even number of players, then it's easy.

Table 1 SM has a card saying "Next game: Orks on Table 2"
Table 2 Orks says "Next: SM on Table 3"
Table 3 SM says "Next: Orks Table 4"
and Table 4 completes the cycle.

This defines the A movement.

Then the B players have a rotation that ensures that they each play 4 different A players.

In effect, the A players replicate an ACBL N-S pair movement, while the B players replicate a E-W pair movement.

It's all very easy.

Okay, except in my proposal all of the tables are the same. Same terrain, same layout, same mission, same opposing armies.

If there are four games, each player plays two games as Space Marines, and two games as Orks. Essentially they play both sides of the same game twice.

JohnHwangDD:

But the whole point of the tournament is that there is no one group right? The whole point is for the assessment of personal capabilities. So its not like one group might get lucky and have all of the best circumstances, as the divisions between A group and B group last for one match, before being dissolved as players randomly move from one army/board/opponent to the next.

Or am I completely missing your point?

@Nurglitch: Doing as you suggest has two big flaws:
1. you only get 2 scenarios
2. you know more in the replay - if the scenario has any inherent advantage, the one side will be able to exploit it better because they've already seen it.

With a duplicate bridge approach, you can have 4 completely different scenarios and it all works out.

@Shrike: the initial assignment is totally random, but after that, you go to proscribed movement.

This totally works, BTW.

In duplicate bridge, it is easy to determine the top NS and EW pair out of dozens or hundreds of pairs.

NS?

EW?

I'm sorry if these are acronyms I should know, but...

JohnHwangDD:

Should I take it that you consider playing the Space Marine side one scenario and playing the Ork side another scenario?

I'm still confused as to why you suppose that one side in the scenario having the advantage is a problem. It will be an advantage that each player will get in equal amounts. No player will be disadvantaged by playing a round as Orks, because half their rounds will be Orks and half will be playing Space Marines.

I'm unconcerned with the fact that players will have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes as the tournament goes on. Since the tournament package should include the two army lists that the tournament will use, the mission that will be played, and the board layout for that mission, one would presume that players will have the opportunity to prepare for the tournament on their own time.

I mean, I still don't recognize my analysis in your criticisms, so it's difficult for me to accept your criticisms as relevant, let alone valid. Please give me a hand and explain how your criticisms relate to my proposal.

The sole problem that I have with this hypothetical tournament is that people are often better at one aspect of the game than they are at others, whether movement, shooting/CC, deployment, distance control, etc. Naturally, some armies will favor one of these aspects over another, and though a commander may be very good at one aspect of the game, the focused could be on one of their weakness' instead. This, however would be a difficult problem to solve, and would serve to be a test for generalists, and adaptation, which may indeed be a good thing. I just wanted to point out that there were differences, both stylistically and intellectually, in tactics from player to player, problems that will be difficult to address in this format of a tournament.

I think I explained what I meant, but it came out awkward so I'm not really sure.

I think that problem can be solved by the tournament organizers when they plan the army lists, the mission, and the board layout.