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This is an idea that I've been mulling over for some time now, and thought it might be interesting to get some feedback on it...


The core of the idea is to let players duke it out to see who is the best, not at list building or rampaging about with their army of choice... but with whatever army they are given.

So, you have a limited place tournament (number of places available = number of different armies currently in the game... double, triple, whatever if the interest is there to fill enough spaces), with the TO providing all of the armies, with pre-determined army lists.

Army lists would be built not so much to give the most effective, math-hammered army of doom, but simply to ensure that each list is relatively balanced against every other list in use. Being reasonably 'fluffy' would be a bonus, but not essential... any army currently possible in the codexes can be explained with fluff if you try hard enough.

Ideally, each player would play a game with each army list, but that would take forever (although would work in an ongoing campaign-type setting, rather than a 2 or 3 day tournament), so I think the way to go would be for each player to be allocated a random army each round, ensuring that they don't get the same army twice (and perhaps where possible ensuring that players receive a mix of army types, so nobody ends up playing each round with just a different flavour of Marines).

Give players 10 or 15 minutes before the round to refresh themselves on their army's special rules, and provide summary sheets on the tables listing all weaponry and important special rules for each army (or perhaps just include a special rule summary on the back of the army lists given to the players).

Missions would need to be either standard (so everyone is trying to accomplish the same thing, for the sake of balance), or tailored to specific armies (so each army is given a mission suitable to the list and/or background).


Obviously, the logistics of it would be tricky (and potentially expensive)... but I think it would be do-able. Particularly given the ever-growing range of plastics which makes army building quicker and easier (especially if the army builder is capable of converting more expensive options from cheaper boxes...)

So ignoring the practicality of it all for the moment, what's the view from the player perspective? Is it an interesting idea? Is it worthwhile? And would it just be a complete shermozzle of players trying to get to grips with unfamiliar armies and doing it all wrong?

Well, sounds like the kind of thing I've been putting out there whenever the topic of composition scoring comes up...I just always thought it was ludicrous, though, that no one would actually take it seriously and design an event where all the participants are basically given an army that the TO approves of.

The only way it would work is if you provide the armies, and that's so impractical as to be almost impossible.

And I guess it doesn't need to be said, but I also disagree with the notion that list building isn't important. It's a part of the game just like painting the models, but for some reason everyone just blows it off, claiming it takes no "skill".

I have thought about doing something like what you are talking about. I had an idea to have a tournament with the army lists pre-made, and you could select the complete list that you wanted to play.

The problem comes when balancing all of the many armies that are out there. It you have one list that is more powerful than the others, everyone will gravitate to that one list.

But what you are talking about is having everyone play each army at least once which is a good equalizer for having a few lists that are weaker or better than some of the others, but the problem will come is getting all of the armies (figures) necessary to run an event like this.

You can have everyone bring an army and place them out on a table, and people get assigned to tables and have the play the armies that are on the table. The problem is that a lot of people would not like people playing with their models.

Sidstyler wrote:The only way it would work is if you provide the armies,

That was what I was suggesting, yes.

And I guess it doesn't need to be said, but I also disagree with the notion that list building isn't important. It's a part of the game just like painting the models, but for some reason everyone just blows it off, claiming it takes no "skill".

I never said that list building wasn't an important part of the game. It's just not the focus of this particular tournament format.


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Blackmoor wrote:... but the problem will come is getting all of the armies (figures) necessary to run an event like this.

Again, I realise that the logistics would be awkward.

What I'm looking for is opinions on the format from a player perspective. Is this something that people would actually be interested in playing in?


Because logistics can be sorted out. But there's no point in doing so if people aren't interested in playing.

The club The Old Farts of Warhammer has already done this for fantasy. Sounds sweet. I'd love to participate.

http://www.oldfartsofwarhammer.com/wfb_files/GenChall.htm

Their member Marty (AKA "Mr. Clean") has been one of the major organizers of the WHFB side of Adepticon for a while, and is a great guy who runs great events.

Hmmm, I think I actually have 2000-4000 points of each army for fantasy painted and in my display cases. Lagging on 40k. Son is repainting his tau, and I haven't got Dark Eldar. And need more showcases. More store actually..hmm...

Not to chime in as a "Me too" but I swear AshAxe and I were just discussing this a few weeks ago. I think that if you did this however, you couldn't do random army pairings. If you are looking for symmetry and equality to find the best 'General' (Minus the luck of rolling dice)...

You could setup each table with a selective pairing (two armies) and scenario. Everyone will play on the table as both armies (Once on each side of the scenario).
Have multiple tables with different armies.

Pros of this style;

It's much easier to balance two specific armies on a specific scenario. Since this will never change, you will never have bad 'army matchups'.
Scenario bias for a particular army would be eliminated. Since players play both sides of the scenario (and all players play at this table), you eliminate scenario whining.
Logistics! Handing out an army to move around and hope you don't 'lose' pieces will be much easier when the army is static to the table it is played at.
You could pre-post the scenarios/armies of each table to eliminate confusion. People could be familiarized with each specific army and the units of the list before arriving to the tournament.
Less time between rounds. Since each player will play on both sides of a scenario (and army) you essentially get two games from each table/army with little player movement.



At least those were my ideas on the subject....

It'd be a brilliant tournament, and players like myself would leap at it. If you had a club with enough long-established players who didn't mind others using their armies, it wouldn't even be that hard to set up, on at least a small scale, 8-12 players or so.

List design is a skill in 40K and Fantasy. That doesn't mean, however, that making a good list takes skill. In truth, making an effective list is not hard, especially at higher point levels. GW rules and units are not optimised for balance, and never will be - it is not part of their game design philosophy. It's the main reason arguing over the very specifics of army design and nit-picking precise wordings in the rules will always be somewhat silly, because the game has never been designed to be played in such a precise manner.

A tournament like this takes that meta out of the hands of the player. There's a lot of motherhood statements thrown around on forums like these about 'good players' doing this, or that, or having this or that. A tournament like this would allow the 'good players' to stand out much more, I would think.

I personally like it, though I would run it where the enemies had the same armies... ludicrous I know, though it shows more skill in my opinion. Something along the lines of marines with one of each unit...

Honestly I feel this is a bad idea, and one I would not be for at all, but I am not sure if this is because I am a bad general, or just slow on the uptake. 15 minutes would not be long enough for me to familiarize myself with an army. I really don't have a good "feel" for an army until I've played a game or three with it. Maybe the ability to learn an army on the fly is something you think makes a good general, but I would disagree. Just my tuppence.

List design is a skill in 40K and Fantasy. That doesn't mean, however, that making a good list takes skill.

...um...so you're saying it takes skill to build a good list, but it doesn't take skill to build a good list.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting idea, but I think it's lacking in the execution of it. The biggest problem I see it running into is even if one person designed all the lists, they are not truly going to be balanced as each army has its own quirks that gives it the whole rock, paper, scissors idea.

Instead of doing that, you might be better off running the same list vs. the same list. Then it is a true challenge (Or dice screw you over to the best general there. Make several lists so that the first round might be, Mech Marine given to everyone. Next round give everyone a horde ork army. I think you get the picture.

By doing it that way no one can claim that their list happened to play against someone that had the right equipment to beat them. If you want to find the best general, let it go 5 rounds, and everyone plays the same army. Then it all comes down to strategy and the luck of the dice.

Great idea. For people who want a competitive "who's best at 40k" tournament this is the only way to tell.

This came up in a previous thread which went along the route of 'painting shouldn't be marked in tournaments because of the chance that someone ELSE has painted it means people can cheat easily"

The logical extension is that, although list-building is an important part of the game, it's very easy to ask the forums, ask friends, and play well-known effective lists, therefore 'cheating' in the same way as above.

How can we be sure? Remove it from the competition.

I completely agree that the idea isn't to build the most math-hammered doom list, but one that is balanced. The only thing I'd suggest is that you attempt to make them representative of the army in choice. If there's only one IG army, for example, it should be a 'standard' IG army, rather than a ValkVets or MechVets or Armoured Company list. If there's only one SM, it should be a balanced force, rather than Vulcan-and-meltas, LotsODreads, etc.


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Sidstyler wrote:

List design is a skill in 40K and Fantasy. That doesn't mean, however, that making a good list takes skill.

...um...so you're saying it takes skill to build a good list, but it doesn't take skill to build a good list.

I think you could read this as

"Building a good list is a skill, but running one isn't, since you can ask lots of people what to do"

Unlike, say, painting, where you can ask lots of people how they did it, but you still have to spend time learning that particular technique.

Elnicko5 wrote: 15 minutes would not be long enough for me to familiarize myself with an army. I really don't have a good "feel" for an army until I've played a game or three with it.

I was seeing that 15 minutes as more of a refresher, really. This sort of format would really be aimed more at people who are relatively familiar with a range of different armies to begin with.

AgeOfEgos' suggestion of making the lists available before the event would also allow people to kick the tyres as much as they want before the event. Would also help to remove the need for secrecy when designing the lists... which allows for the lists to have more people involved, would would only be a good thing in my book. One person designing all of the lists is always going to cop a lot of flak for this list being unbalanced or that list being boring to play. Allowing community involvement in the design process wouldn't remove that entirely, but would cut it down by being able to discuss the reasoning behind any given choice, and allow for others' input into getting the balance right.


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AgeOfEgos wrote:You could setup each table with a selective pairing (two armies) and scenario. Everyone will play on the table as both armies (Once on each side of the scenario).
Have multiple tables with different armies.

I could definitely go with that, although if each player isn't going to get to play every army, there's no specific need to play both armies on a given table. You could as easily fix each army to a given table, with players paired off each round, ensuring that nobody gets the same army twice.


Although for that to work, you would probably need a couple of extra tables, as by the end you're going to have more trouble pairing people and giving them a table with neither of them winding up with an army that they haven't used before.


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Mannahnin wrote:The club The Old Farts of Warhammer has already done this for fantasy. Sounds sweet. I'd love to participate.

http://www.oldfartsofwarhammer.com/wfb_files/GenChall.htm

Very cool. And looks like pretty much exactly what I had in mind...

Sounds like a good idea, I'd probably play in one of these if I got the chance.

You could solve the logistics side of it by giving every player in the Tournament an army list for their army, and then, once they have arrived with the balanced armies, distribute the whole lot around the tables. Then players get assigned a random table and everyone plays.

Honour system would be in effect to stop people stealing mini's (perish the thought), but if each person came with a detailed roster of which miniatures are thiers it shouldn't be a problem.

Sidstyler wrote:

List design is a skill in 40K and Fantasy. That doesn't mean, however, that making a good list takes skill.

...um...so you're saying it takes skill to build a good list, but it doesn't take skill to build a good list.

No - list building is a skill, but making an effective list doesn't necessarily require that skill.

Cooking is a skill, and an art. Making an edible meal does not take skill, not with frozen dinners and hamburger helper.

I've been suggesting this for years, but most people have rejected the idea because it "restricts" their choices. The example I have always held up was Star Fleet Battles where they had special "tournament" designed ships that were supposedly balanced against each other.

You could do the same thing with warhammer. It would take a lot of playtesting and time to come up with a few different options for every army but in the end it would solve a lot of the comp complaints.

GG

I think it's a great idea.

At the same time there are going to be lots of people who raise objections to the idea.

Well, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

It won't completely solve the Comp problem, but it is a valid way of running an interesting and fun event even so.

Go for it and you will attract the people who want to play

Here is a thought: Everyone and their dog has a marine army right? or can borrow one from someone if you have a good community locally.

What you do is, the TO sets up the marine "master' list. that EVERYONE will use. Everyone still brings in their own stuff, so you dont have to worry about using other people's models, but if you make the list very generalized enough so that virtually anyone can put it together, then everyone has the same list.

Then, you have the players fight it out over the course of the tournament, on tables with as close as possible to the same set up on every table. So you wouldnt have one row of tables be sparse, another row filled with urban terrain.

Lets say to do this you go with 1500 pt marine list, and lets say for example in the master list is 2 predators, but I only have one, but have a whirlwind. Since the lists are the exact same, the WW could 'counts-as' the pred, since everyone has the same list, you know theres obv no whirlwind.

I think this way, it manages to get everyone on an even playing field, using the same list, with the least amount of hassle. heck Chaos players could play, just their stuff is spiky, and can borrow non chaos stuff like a speeder from somebody.

Locally, Ive suggested this as a tourney late last year, but it didnt generate enough interest for me to go ahead with it, perhaps for one of you guys it will.

Matt Varnish wrote:Here is a thought: Everyone and their dog has a marine army right? or can borrow one from someone if you have a good community locally.

What you do is, the TO sets up the marine "master' list. that EVERYONE will use. Everyone still brings in their own stuff, so you dont have to worry about using other people's models, but if you make the list very generalized enough so that virtually anyone can put it together, then everyone has the same list.

Then, you have the players fight it out over the course of the tournament, on tables with as close as possible to the same set up on every table. So you wouldnt have one row of tables be sparse, another row filled with urban terrain.

Lets say to do this you go with 1500 pt marine list, and lets say for example in the master list is 2 predators, but I only have one, but have a whirlwind. Since the lists are the exact same, the WW could 'counts-as' the pred, since everyone has the same list, you know theres obv no whirlwind.

I think this way, it manages to get everyone on an even playing field, using the same list, with the least amount of hassle. heck Chaos players could play, just their stuff is spiky, and can borrow non chaos stuff like a speeder from somebody.

Locally, Ive suggested this as a tourney late last year, but it didnt generate enough interest for me to go ahead with it, perhaps for one of you guys it will.

That would solve the logistics part of the tourney quite nicely, but I wonder if it isn't too generic. Although it would indeed go a long way to proving who was the best general - fighting the exact same army on exactly the same table several times over isn't the sort of thing I would want to do.

It's an interesting and practical idea, but I don't think many would want to play.

Imagine the fuel it would put on Marine Haters whinging fires as well - "oh look, now there's a tournament just for marines! And for the Marines with spikes too! Hurr..." etc...

Yeah, while it might be interesting (at least on paper) to see how everyone would go with them all using identical lists, I think in practice you would get very little interest in an event that just had everyone using the exact same Marine list.

I like the sound of this, although the preperation required almost demands it be more than a one-off.

So, if I understand the concept, you arrive at your table and the scenario is already laid out? You randomly decide who will play which army, and the mission is built into the table itself?

It would also require experienced players who have a good grasp on the majority of 40k armies - not a real common thing. Regardless, I can see there being interest in this.

Finding good players would be a nice start, and convincing them to 'donate' their armies would also be great. I can imagine this being done well in a 10-player format with a single TO. The TO is responsible for making 10 fairly balanced armies available (probably the most challenging concept!) based on the models he has access to, or players could provide an 'inventory' of available minis.
This would only require 5 tables with static terrain, and everybody plays on each table against a different opponent. Randomly generating table sides seems fair, but if someone arrives at a table with 'their' army on it (assuming the armies are donated), it might be appropriate to have them play against their own.

I might mention this to some people around the Lismore club, it's a good idea.

I might add that in addition to the players involved requiring a good overall knowledge of the armies in the game, I think a small group would be good because if people are donating armies they would always be close to their precious models and feel a little more secure letting them be used for the event.

Yeah, I think asking people to supplu armies is only going to work in a small group, and preferably with people who all know each other. For a more open competition, it would have to be models supplied... There's no way I would expect people to trust complete strangers with their armies.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:So, if I understand the concept, you arrive at your table and the scenario is already laid out? You randomly decide who will play which army, and the mission is built into the table itself?

I'm a little split on that one. Yes, armies are doled out randomly... but I'm not sure whether it would be better to have table-specific scenarios, standard random missions, army-specific missions, or the old boring 'Just kill each other' style play.

I think at the very least missions should be simple affairs, to avoid tipping the balance where an army gets a mission that gives it a wild handicap against a particular opponent.

I do like he idea of table- or army-specific missions, though.

While this might cause an even further act of balancing, perhaps you can make
it a round robin event where players move from table to table where the armies matched
up against each other are set in stone and each table has its own set of victory conditions?

Insane, I know, but you are insaniak after all.


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Oh, and make the championship table:

"Orcs and Goblins vs. Chaos Daemons"

Chaos Daemons: Objective is to not lose a model.

Orcs and Goblins player: Survive 4 turns.

Go!

This proposal looks familiar...

Maybe have a five round tournament, where each round, you play one of five different armies, against an opponent with the exact same army.

If you had four of every army, that would support 20 tables playing at once. Six of each army would boost that to 30.

Whether the armies were balanced against each other wouldn't even enter into it. You'd be playing mirror games, so it really would be about who could best use what they had. And, who could adapt the best to each force presented.

Of course, the next logical step would be to remove the randomness of dice. Perhaps have a calculator at each table and figure the mean for dice rolls rather than physically rolling dice....

Actually is you keep track of the dice rolls, it's easy enough to adjust scores for bad luck.