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Assuming one of my buds don't flake out, I'll be playing my first 3-player 40k tomorrow, with all players at a 1000 points for time's sake. Any special rules/scenarios/etc work better with 3 people?

Thanks in advance!

Here's a question actually: if its a 3-way free for all, CAN you fire into a melee if your own force is not involved? I mean, its the smart thing to do, and it makes sense, but... by RAW on page 16 "ah, they're in close combat, you can't, period"...

i'm assuming you can't because it's just TOO damn smart, and would encourage turtling. Who wants to get into those sweet, sweet CC assaults if the third party gets to pick you both off? For reasons of both fluff and practicality, I'm thinking you can't. I'm more concerned about the practical stuff--third guy (AKA welcome to the middle, MOFO!) getting toasted on the basis of placement alone.

I find that the best solution is to come up with something like, you can only attack the army from the player on your left.

What usually happens in a three way fight is two people gang up on the third and once they have been removed from the picture, fight it out between the two remaining sides.

Its never anyone intention to do this, but its what happens. Why take on a full squad when you can wipe out that half squad your opponent left behind.

Its also saves player #3 from getting two people getting first turn shots against them before they even get to start.

It makes players have to think about both offense and defense. How does one go about attacking space marines, when they have to defend against Orks.

I have not tried it before, but the rule book includes rules for a three-way battle (Broken Alliance, in the hobby section). It sounds like a lot of fun, but so far I have never had a day there there was an odd number of players (amazing coincidence, really).

Yeah I find Broken Alliance fun but it also kind of turns out to be who has the strongest HQ because IIFC the HQ's have to start in the center. Other than that there is also random turn generation which is quite nice for 3 people games. A word of advice after many 3 player games a good game type is to just have 5 turns 6 objectives and let the madness start.

Emrab wrote:Yeah I find Broken Alliance fun but it also kind of turns out to be who has the strongest HQ because IIFC the HQ's have to start in the center. Other than that there is also random turn generation which is quite nice for 3 people games. A word of advice after many 3 player games a good game type is to just have 5 turns 6 objectives and let the madness start.

Yes HQ's starting that close never ends well for somebody. Usually me. I really enjoy 3 man games with random turn generation becasue it changes up the tatics. I would strongly suggest avoiding KP as it will just turn into whoever can cherrypick the most wins. Perhaps an added twist would be night fight for the first turn, that way each army is on more even footing when turn 2 starts.

However if you don't like that mission layout, or don't own the hardcover rulebook, I would either suggest a 5 objectives game (that way ties are harder to come by). Either that or a 2v1 game where the 1 has double the points.

As to the shooting into CC question I would say roll a d6 on a 1-3 opponent 1, 4-6 other guy.

Yeah trust us. Casper and I have played plenty on 3 person games. Avoid Kill points and just play objectives.

I find that objective based missions work better than annihilation since it's slightly harder to team up and you would want to grab both objectives instead of just getting KP from the larger/smaller army.



-Orkishly

Just use the Broken Alliance rules save for the deployment restrictions. But I also agree, KP is garbage in 3 ways... definitely objectives or some such.

It is usually not very fun, the rules break down in 3 player 40K.

I used to do play eldar in a three person battle... it was usually.

Eldar vs Tau vs Tyranid or

Eldar vs IG vs Tyranid

Unfortunately the Tyranid ended up getting shot to heck very early on in the game.

Back in 4E we used to play weekend long 5 or 6 people battles that resulted in all kinds of fun!

We each would set up a troops and HQ anywhere at least 18" away from opponent, roll off for who goes first - > last. The rest of your army would then be in reserve and move on a random board edge (number the sides 1,2,3,4 with 5 and 6 you choose!) or of course deep strike. Troops fall back towards the nearest board edge, only being in crossfire when they are very tightly cornered (otherwise you 90% of fallback moves result in instant death!).

We used victory points, keep track of each model killed, and each vehicle damaged (damaging a vehicle counted as half VP). Upgrades bought for whole units (not models in the unit) were divided amongst the units models evenly.

Bonus points, most often about 10% of the army list points cost (so 100 in a 1000 point game) was given at the end of each game turn to the player who held the middle, if it was contested then the points were distributed evenly rounding up. This GREATLY encouraged a massive scrum in the middle to try and claim the points, and countered the obviously better off shooty armies.

Turns would go around the table as usual, it was surprisingly rare that someone was dead by the time their turn came. The guy who came last often had the advantage of being able to send something to the middle last minute to gain the points, while the guy who went first would often avoid it but be better off in other obvious ways!

This results in a VERY random game, that can also be VERY maths heavy, so perhaps to simplify you could use number of models instead (KP's don't really work since one guy can demolish a squad down to one figure and another guy steal the whole KP), or some other easy to track system. Always make sure the middle objective is worth it, otherwise turtling becomes an issue. You want games where people fight for kills and objectives!

The deployment and reserves seemed the most even part of the game, as you often had to deal with your units being on opposite sides of the table. In 5E I'd say using deep strike and outflanking units would add to the mix!

We played a couple 3-4 player games like this that lasted much less long, but were no less enjoyable! So I'd say it's a good system

Nova wrote:Here's a question actually: if its a 3-way free for all, CAN you fire into a melee if your own force is not involved?

Pg. 273 BRB, last paragraph.