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Hi. Me and my friend were going to run a 40k tournament but with the following changes. (In the Cambridge area of the UK if anyone is interested).

We ran one before with some of these changes, we also messed with deployment and introduced weather rules. This tournament however is designed to be more about a clean competitive game that is black and white not grey, and encourages gaming ability over good luck.

The idea is to make the game less random, cleaner to play and more about playing ability than army list selection. Much like warmachine.

Please tell me your opinions.

It shall be 5th edition.

No seize the initiative.

Terrain now blocks line of sight from the edge. You can see 6 inches in and out. Like 4th. Terrain shall cover around 20% of the area of the board.

Two lists can be taken, you can decide what list to use after seeing your opponents list but before knowing anything else.

Kill points are replaced with victory points.

The tournament shall be 2,000points. Or if this proves not popular it will be 1,500 but no duplicates can be taken of HQ, fast attack, elite or heavy support.

Front side and rear arc for tanks is done by 90% not corner to corner.

6 games shall be played, so two of each deployment and mission type.

7 turns. No random game length.

Games are 2d. No going up in buildings. You can place them on other floors for convenience but measured from where they would be on the bottom.

Infantry do not block line of sight. Things with a amour value or monstrous creatures are infinitely high.

Multiquote time!

GhostfaceKillah wrote: The idea is to make the game less random, cleaner to play and more about playing ability than army list selection. Much like warmachine.

Fair enough, but why not just run a warmachine tournament in that case? Randomness is part of what makes 40k the game it is.

No seize the initiative.

Any reason for this? It will possibly affect the way people deploy their armies.

Terrain now blocks line of sight from the edge. You can see 6 inches in and out. Like 4th. Terrain shall cover around 20% of the area of the board.

I not quite sure I follow what you mean, are you talking about area terrain? ie: I can see a bit into that foreset, but I cant see though it?

Two lists can be taken, you can decide what list to use after seeing your opponents list but before knowing anything else.

Who has to decide first? Are both lists required to use the same codex?

The tournament shall be 2,000points. Or if this proves not popular it will be 1,500 but no duplicates can be taken of HQ, fast attack, elite or heavy support.

No duplicates will break alot some armies (ie: Dark Eldar, Necrons), most people will want redundancy in their lists

Front side and rear arc for tanks is done by 90% not corner to corner.

Can you post a picture of what this will look like? I think I get it, but not sure.

7 turns. No random game length.

Thats going to take alot of tactical decisions out of the late game, especially in objective missions.

Games are 2d. No going up in buildings. You can place them on other floors for convenience but measured from where they would be on the bottom.

This could just as easily be solved by not using any multi-level terrain.

Infantry do not block line of sight. Things with a amour value or monstrous creatures are infinitely high.

This basically means that Vehicles/MCs can never at any point get a cover save, except from KFF or similar.

I sorta see what you are doing with some of these, but I'm not entirely sure why.
Changing the rules to make things "clear" often doesnt work, because people essentially have to learn new rules.

del'Vhar wrote:Multiquote time!

GhostfaceKillah wrote: The idea is to make the game less random, cleaner to play and more about playing ability than army list selection. Much like warmachine.

Fair enough, but why not just run a warmachine tournament in that case? Randomness is part of what makes 40k the game it is.

No seize the initiative.

Any reason for this? It will possibly affect the way people deploy their armies.

Because it is a Russian roulette roll. A one in six chance that your opponent completely screws you over seeing as you will have deployed to go first. It is far too punishing imo. Not only have you set up first revealing to him where everything is you also have had him go first. Seeing where everything is and then deploying thus so then getting first turn is too strong.

Terrain now blocks line of sight from the edge. You can see 6 inches in and out. Like 4th. Terrain shall cover around 20% of the area of the board.

I not quite sure I follow what you mean, are you talking about area terrain? ie: I can see a bit into that foreset, but I cant see though it?

Yes, think 4th ed.

Two lists can be taken, you can decide what list to use after seeing your opponents list but before knowing anything else.

Who has to decide first? Are both lists required to use the same codex?

Same codex yes. And yes people decide then reveal.

The tournament shall be 2,000points. Or if this proves not popular it will be 1,500 but no duplicates can be taken of HQ, fast attack, elite or heavy support.

No duplicates will break alot some armies (ie: Dark Eldar, Necrons), most people will want redundancy in their lists

I can not see too many armys having problems. It is unfortunate that some books have less good choices. I think overall things are better this way. The intention is to stop gimic lists and make the game less paper scissor stone. Perhaps letting certain armys take more points like is done in the european championship. But tbh I cannot think of a codex that cannot make a strong list.

7 turns. No random game length.

Thats going to take alot of tactical decisions out of the late game, especially in objective missions.

It is because I find almost all games are decided by the random turn roll. I don't think the game should be decided by one roll. This way people know what they are getting and can plan accordingly.

Games are 2d. No going up in buildings. You can place them on other floors for convenience but measured from where they would be on the bottom.

This could just as easily be solved by not using any multi-level terrain.

Yes that is true. Either way works.

Infantry do not block line of sight. Things with a amour value or monstrous creatures are infinitely high.

This basically means that Vehicles/MCs can never at any point get a cover save, except from KFF or similar.

Yes. From other vehicles or terrain, think in 2d. Which reminds me, a vehicle or creature will get cover if it has half or more of its base in terrain.

I sorta see what you are doing with some of these, but I'm not entirely sure why.
Changing the rules to make things "clear" often doesnt work, because people essentially have to learn new rules.

True. I have tried to keep things to the minimum. This tournament is designed for people who perhaps miss 4th edition so a lot of it should be ok I think.

Questions:



Do I pick a list upon seeing my opponents army, both of his army lists, or one of his army lists. Can I show my opponent an army list that I know will make him choose one to counter it, and them chose one to counter that myself? For example can I show my opponent a foot guard list, forcing him to take an anti-infantry list, and then take mech guard instead?

All terrain now blocks LoS. Does this include hills, rivers, ponds and other things that you can usually see accross? Is the 6" sight like a band around the terrain or is it subjective to the firer. For example, I am trying to see a model that is one inch from the edge of a forest, but it is 7" away from the edge of the forest that I am closest to, and my line of sight goes no deeper than 6" into the centre forest at any one point, can I see him or not?

If there are no KP, why should I bring an ork or nid list, which lend themsleves to large expensive units, over a MSU space wolf or BA list, which offers the same VP, but allows me greater flexibility?

Infantry do not block LoS in 5th edition, so do you mean that there are no cover saves from shooting through infantry?

Does the 90% arcs for tanks apply only to tanks, or to other vehicles as well? Do you mean when shooting at a tank/vehicle you fire the arc which you can see 90% of? What if I can see 90% of two sides, do I choose which to fire at? What if I can only see 10% of two sides, can I fire at the tank/vehicle at all?



I think what you are suggesting will leave your tournament full of very similar MSU MEQ armies. A lot of your changes seem arbitary, but that may be because you have given no explaination for them. I can understand the terrain thing to a degree, but TLoS solves a lot of problems about what you can and cant see through. It also makes the game go faster in that you dont have to measure for every individual unit to see if they can see through terrain.

The moving up and down in buildings thing makes no sense to me. You will get a greater standard of play if you give your participants more tactical options. Good players will know when to mov up into buildings to take advantage of the higher position, where as bad players will not. Similarly the removal of random game length makes it much easier for bad players to go for the last turn objective grab, rather than planning for it in advance, which is the mark of a better player.

You also seem to be serverely limiting some armies. There is little reason to take nids, orks, necrons, dark eldar, eldar over guard and all of the MEQ factions. Redundancy is essential to some armies, as is the knowledge that they have an advantage in KP missions, even if objective ones are harder.

As it currently stands, I would not attend your tournament.

Kill points are far superior to victory points, for the simple fact that some armies with a lot of small units will run around without sacrficing any more than a massive horde of units. Why take 3 large blobs of orks when i can take 6 small ones?

It actually punishes orks more then lots of other armies, since they have an inbuilt incentive to have large units. It will massively encourage Mechanization and MSU though, one of the reasons cheap transports are balanced (somewhat) in 5th is Kill Points after all.

I actually think the rules above might favor Tau most of all.

Jack

What's with the being able to choose another list when you see your opponents...

You see your opponents list is an Infantry list, so you take a list with flamers and such.

But your opponent does this on purpose and he instead chooses his other list, an ARMORED company...

I'm assuming he means choose a list once you know what codex they're using, since he said both players had to pick at the same time. Basically gives folks a chance to go anti-horde or anti-MEQ to me, will be tough on Tyranids I think since it means folks can bring those plasma heavy lists that the mechanized meta-game otherwise keeps in check.

Jack

Regwon wrote:Questions:



Do I pick a list upon seeing my opponents army, both of his army lists, or one of his army lists. Can I show my opponent an army list that I know will make him choose one to counter it, and them chose one to counter that myself? For example can I show my opponent a foot guard list, forcing him to take an anti-infantry list, and then take mech guard instead?

You both see both lists. Choose both lists at the same time. Then after this are told what deployment and mission you will be playing.

All terrain now blocks LoS. Does this include hills, rivers, ponds and other things that you can usually see accross? Is the 6" sight like a band around the terrain or is it subjective to the firer. For example, I am trying to see a model that is one inch from the edge of a forest, but it is 7" away from the edge of the forest that I am closest to, and my line of sight goes no deeper than 6" into the centre forest at any one point, can I see him or not?

Rivers and ponds perhaps will be difficult terrain but not block line of sight.

It is done for each individual model. So no you can't see him. 4th ed.

If there are no KP, why should I bring an ork or nid list, which lend themsleves to large expensive units, over a MSU space wolf or BA list, which offers the same VP, but allows me greater flexibility?

I do not know that that is correct. Both orks and nids have multiple units that in the current Kill point system are unusable or weak. Single man deff copters units, big gun units, trukks, those new carnifx's that create a gaunt unit every turn.
Yes more units are more flexible, however the reason to take big units is for orks to stay fearless for longer and for nids to be able to trail back into synapse range.
The same as for marines bigger units allow the use of heavy weapons.

The entire idea of kill points is the 2nd worse thing about 40k for me after true line of sight. It is a clean rule and you know what your getting, but it makes too many things useless. If I kill a land raider for the loss of three ork buggies it should be me thats winning not him.

Infantry do not block LoS in 5th edition, so do you mean that there are no cover saves from shooting through infantry?

It works the same, I was just clarifying it. However making them not give cover could be an option since it stops the whole 'meshing' tactic of letting two big units give each other cover.

Does the 90% arcs for tanks apply only to tanks, or to other vehicles as well? Do you mean when shooting at a tank/vehicle you fire the arc which you can see 90% of? What if I can see 90% of two sides, do I choose which to fire at? What if I can only see 10% of two sides, can I fire at the tank/vehicle at all?

No. Sorry I said tanks but I basically meant vehicles(I can spell tanks without useing a spell checker ), ie anything with an armor value.

No. You are thinking of it as more complicated than it is.

It works exactly as it does now.

But instead of arcs being drawn from the corner of the tank to the corner. They are simply 90% each way. There is no "seeing an arc", there is only "being within an arc". Exactly as the rules currently are, apart from the arcs are the same for all vehicles.

Currently longer vehicles get a smaller front and back arc. Ie predators get a bad deal and rhinos get a good deal since their side armor is the same as the font anyway. Plus the main factor is that I want things to be standard regardless of how the model is built. Another factor is where exactly is the 'corner' of a falcon?

I think what you are suggesting will leave your tournament full of very similar MSU MEQ armies.

Remember armys have more to put in a list than the troops. No kill points opens up a lot of viability for all armys.

A lot of your changes seem arbitary, but that may be because you have given no explaination for them. I can understand the terrain thing to a degree, but TLoS solves a lot of problems about what you can and cant see through. It also makes the game go faster in that you dont have to measure for every individual unit to see if they can see through terrain.

I have played 4th to a top table level and I have played 5th to a top table level. Checking if something is within 6 of terrain is not an issue. For me what is more of an issue is:

"I think my guy cannot be seen"

"I think your guy can be seen".

In this instance the nice guy who backs down first loses. This is unplayable imo. Plus how the model has been built should never effect the game.

The moving up and down in buildings thing makes no sense to me. You will get a greater standard of play if you give your participants more tactical options. Good players will know when to mov up into buildings to take advantage of the higher position, where as bad players will not. Similarly the removal of random game length makes it much easier for bad players to go for the last turn objective grab, rather than planning for it in advance, which is the mark of a better player.

The going up and down in buildings is for the sake of a clean game. Too much grey areas arise with it. I also don't like the idea of someone happening to have a huge advantage just because they happen to have a big building on their side and a devastator squad to put up on it.

I find at this point in time random game length favours the last turn objective grabber since he can bomb it turn five and win with a lucky roll. With set turns both players are aware of what can be doing what when and plan it accordingly.

You also seem to be severely limiting some armies. There is little reason to take nids, orks, necrons, dark eldar, eldar over guard and all of the MEQ factions. Redundancy is essential to some armies, as is the knowledge that they have an advantage in KP missions, even if objective ones are harder.

I cannot see why. I think making min sized units viable opens the game up more than closes it down. Min maxing was fixed when they made only bigger units be allowed a heavy weapon.

Kill points are far superior to victory points, for the simple fact that some armies with a lot of small units will run around without sacrficing any more than a massive horde of units. Why take 3 large blobs of orks when i can take 6 small ones?

Because they stay fearless for longer. Plus overall you get more guys since you are paying 40 points extra a unit for the nob with power claw and bosspole.

Under the current rules things like a single land speeder, a min unit of tau gun drones, an attack bike are all completely worthless.
Remember in my system there are also no duplicates. So you will not see every single unit split into smaller ones.

I am bad at explaining things in type form and I have a lot to say. I will make a youtube video explaining things better.

Just because there are no duplicates that doesn't mean that one can't use multiple small units. For example, I could have at least three or four Tactical Marine Squads all configured with Melta/Lascannon/Combi-melta, with the only differences between them being whether they have a locator beacon, meltabombs, or some combination of such things. That means I could have four of the squads with the same weapons but with only marginal differences in wargear.

In the case of things like Tau, these types of list parameters can have very bad ramifications for them. They need to have redundancy with their suits in order to be effective at taking down units, which is shown by the popularity of the plasma rifle/missile pod configuration. Tau can be very effective, but they need to be able to trim away all of the excess wargear in order to do so, and in this case they'd have to take in order to remain effective.

MEQ has alot of customizability, with few options that scream to be taken over others. That means that they can easily pull off multiple small units.

A single Land Speeder in each squadron isn't a bad idea. One can configure them with two multimeltas and various other weapons, but the fact is that being unable to use some of those options to their fullest in multiple units drastically reduces their effectiveness. If one had three Land Speeders, they'd probably need a configuration that would go something like MM/HF, HF, HF/HB. While you would be wasting many points, the fact is that only one of those units can really root out things like Guardsmen Blob Squads in cover with 2+ cover saves, while the rest are pretty ineffective at anti-infantry. This is not a very good configuration since it only has one melta and is prioritizing anti-infantry over everything else. Not being able to take multiple units of MM/HF Land Speeders makes them a very poor unit choice over all.

I like the way that MarkingLight approached this issue. You as the Tourny organiser will get some of this, if you let it slide then some of the players who weren't smart enough to read between the lines will complain if you shut out the players that do this kind of thing then it won't be as interesting. I would just drop that restriction on duplicate entries, it surves no purpose because there is already a 'unique' or 0-1 attribute associated with certain units in the game.

@ OP: Have you ever run a straight 40K tourny? You mentioned that the last one you hosted had some changes in it to. I'm just asking because a lot of players read the book and immediatly decide they can do things better without giving the core game a shot.

If your doing this tourney for the people who miss 4th, why not run a tourney using 4th rules? Personally, I think 5th has a very good rule set. At the moment your trying to turn 40K into chess or checkers by removing things that make the game interesting.

It seems your just trying to force your views of things on people. If you want my advice, play 5th normally or run a 4th ed tourney for the older gamer, and you'll run a great tournament. Make up your mind and stick to it.

wizard12 wrote:If your doing this tourney for the people who miss 4th, why not run a tourney using 4th rules? Personally, I think 5th has a very good rule set. At the moment your trying to turn 40K into chess or checkers by removing things that make the game interesting.

It seems your just trying to force your views of things on people. If you want my advice, play 5th normally or run a 4th ed tourney for the older gamer, and you'll run a great tournament. Make up your mind and stick to it.

Exactly.