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I was asked recently by my flgs owner to try to make the bi-annual tournament a little more exciting/different from the past years. I live in a college town and he wants to even up the playing field between rich suburbanites from out of town and poor college kids trying to have a good time.

Disclaimer: Not to bash tournament gamers by any means, he just wants to encourage local participation which has been lacking recent years and to boost business which has been really bad during the summer.

I have been bouncing around an idea for a scenario based tournament with fixed armies for each scenario. The store has a couple house armies and between armies being sold wholesale at the store and the personal collections of the owner, I and a few of the local players I thought this might work. Even so I had a few questions

1: Should everyone play the same scenario each round or should could I have players play different scenarios. (balance? vs need lots of multiple armies+terrain)

2: What points level given a single day tournament starting at 9 or 10 and finishing by 7. I was hoping for

3: overall opinions on this format. Any Advice, Horror stories


To give you an idea of the kind of scenario I was planning here is an idea

Gologotha
Orks vs IG

When the world of Gologotha was conquered by the orks, Commisar Yarrik's personal Baneblade, The Fortress of Arrogance was left behind. As a morale move the Imperium wants it back to lead the final push for Armegeddon...read the book "Gunheads" by the BL its pretty good. Anyway you have retieved the wrecked Baneblade but the lander cant set down in such rough terrain and you must move it to a landing zone. You coax the much abused machine spirit to start the machine and your off. However Warboss inset name hear, wants the baneblade for himself and has sent his armoured klaw after the retreating IG.

Deployment
The IG deploy 12" in at one short edge of a 6x4 table and the Landing pad is set in the middle of the board 24" in from the opposide and scattered d6 inches. Orks start in reserve and can deploy anywhere on both long edges at least 12" from the IG depoyment zone. Orks have the first turn Game lasts 7 turns. The Baneblade can move that is it!

Special rules
Hard-packed Desert
All flat areas count as roads
Feel the Power
Ork mekboys have fiendish boosted the engine on the old Baneblade increasing movement to 6' from d6 thus 12" from roads.
Delta six inbound, over. T-5minutes and counting
The baneblade must remain stationary on the landing pad for one full turn to be picked up
Will of the Administratium
the weapons of the orbiting fleet are at your command. IG hq gains the Orbital Bombardment power from SM chapter master listing

Secondary Objective
Fragmentary vox signals indicate that high ranking members of the imperials have been shot down near the escape route save them if you can
1 vinalla CCS and 1 techpriest w/2 gun servitors both hidden behind the crashed aquila lander terrain piece will deepstrike into the game following the normal reserve rules. The IG player can move units around by 2" to provide maximum cover. The CCS will have its deepstrike centered on the center of the lower left table quarter and the techpriest will be centered the center of the upper right table quarter.
This objective is claimed by the orks if the squad is killed or by the IG if they can place a model within range of orders and issue a successful order.

Rewards are as follows
Orks
CCS killed--squad of lootas deepstrikes anywhere on the field subject to the normal deepstrike rules
Techpriest killed--looted leman russ immediately advances onto the field from the landing port short edges and is available next turn

IG
CCS Contacted--remaining squad members board a Valk and are available to move and shoot THIS turn
Techpriest Contacted--Leman Russ Executioner immediately advances onto the field from the landing port short edge and is available to shoot this turn.

Scoring
IG
Major victory
Retrieving the Baneblade and claiming one secondary objective

Minor victory
Baneblade not destroyed and claiming both secondary objectives

Minor loss
Baneblade destroyed and claiming one secondary objective

Major loss
Baneblade destroyed and no secondary objectives claimed

Orks
Major Victory
Baneblade destroyed and claiming one or both secondary objectives

Minor Victory
Baneblade destroyed

Minor loss
Baneblade not lifted but not killed, one or both secondary objectives

Major loss
Baneblade safely lifted

I'm at a bit of a loss here. How many people do you expect to have at the event? How many games would you have being run at the same time? How many tables can the store honestly have up at the same time? Multiple scenarios to give players a running total of points? Would you play the game, then switch sides and play the scenario again?

6 tables, each running a different scenario, would allow you to have 12 players. You can then cycle them between the different tables to get more points. Seems like a fun idea, very different, with a lot of prep time required for the store if it's all fixed-army with the models being supplied.

razorlead wrote:I was asked recently by my flgs owner to try to make the bi-annual tournament a little more exciting/different from the past years. I live in a college town and he wants to even up the playing field between rich suburbanites from out of town and poor college kids trying to have a good time.

I have been bouncing around an idea for a scenario based tournament with fixed armies for each scenario.

1: Should everyone play the same scenario each round or should could I have players play different scenarios.

2: What points level given a single day tournament starting at 9 or 10 and finishing by 7.

If you want to flatten the playing field, keep the points down and tighten the FOC to have less flashy stuff (Heavy / Fast). Make all scenarios objective / goal / mission based, rather than KP / VP based.

Everybody should play the same scenarios, but with different roles depending on the winner. For example:

Round 1, neutral KotH scenario to grab one objective. Most Scoring units on Objective wins.

Round 2, winners place & Defend 3 widely-dispersed Objectives with 1 Elite, 2 Troops against attacking Losers; remaining Defenders in Reserves. Most Scoring units / non-contested Objectives wins.

Round 3, losers place & Defend 5 Objectives with full army in Dawn of War against Attackers coming in from Reserve.

The scenarios are designed to keep winners on their toes with asymmetrical missions, and you can dress them up how you like with extra special rules. Winning all 3 rounds is designed to be difficult, and you should go with a points system rather than a pure Swiss system because the structure is different.


In general, I like smaller points because there's need and room to maneuver. I'd suggest 1500 pts maximum for the regular FOC, but consider 1000 pts with a special FOC (1 HQ, 1-3 Elite, 2-4 Troops, 0-2 Fast, 0-2 Heavy). The smaller armies will struggle more to capture / control objectives on a full-sized board.