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So, I'm tempted to field the 180 boyz, 60 commandos, 18 rockets, KFF mec and Gazzgull army next 'ardboyz.
The only thing holding me back (well, aside from being about 120 orks short - I figure thats what friends are for...) is the nightmare of such a slow playing army. Keeping all the figures organized is horrid in and of itself, and I feel its actually not fair to your opponent since its almost a guaranteed boring, 2-3 turn draw.

BUT - perhaps movement trays could help. The ordinary, LOTR type ones won't cut it - they don't actually save that much time, (since they are gone after your first assault), don't play well with terrain, or with templates and cost money.

What I'm thinking is home made trays, each holding 4 figures who each in base to base contact with one figure with a 1" gap between them. Like this:

O O <--- The 1" gap is between the 2 bases. The front and back rows would be touching.
O O


Since they are base to base, you could essentially treat them as a single figure most of the time - they would all make the same assault move in most cases (except when you didn't have enough figures to base everyone in the target squad), could take advantage of terrain, etc. You would often be able to remove whole trays at a time, thereby keeping the figures organized. And you could color code the bases. When you deployed them you would generally place them 2" apart, giving you a not unreasonable level of vulnerability to templates.

By my very rough calculations, most hits from an ordinance template would hit one cluster plus a couple figs in another, although a perfect placement could nail 8. That may seem like alot, but with your opponent needing to kill 40 orks a turn to table you, its not so much. Flamer templates couldn't get more than 8, and often only 6.

The concept works better without the 1" gap, but that increases your vulnerability to templates a great deal.

Could it work? Would it play fast enough? Would opponents object? Does anyone know how to roll 960 dice really quickly?

I wouldnt object, I hate playing against horde cuz their movement/run assault takes forever

kestral wrote:Does anyone know how to roll 960 dice really quickly?

There are plenty of dice rolling programs out there. But, if you want, just use excel.

In cell A1 put =RANDBETWEEN(1,6) Then, fill that down to cell A960. Then, in cell B1 put =COUNTIF(A:A,1) in B2 put =COUNTIF(A:A,2), etc to 6. Then, any time you refresh the cells (say, by changing an empty one), you roll 960 dice!

Yeah, the excel was more complicated than I initially thought. Find a dice rolling program!

I think something like that would help. You may want to have a larger tray that can hold the smaller trays to help speed up deployment. May also wanna explore using magnets instead of slots on the tray that way you have some flexibility when deploying or moving through terrain.

The only rules issue I can think for moving is to avoid rotating your trays, since that does add extra movement to some models (could be exploitable for ranges on shooty models and other similar issues).

Now assault I think you'd have to start abandoning the trays to properly make your assault moves. But at that point they've already saved you a good deal of time. Terrain is also gonna cause some problems and force you to leave the trays.

For dice, I had the idea of creating a tray out of balsa wood that was just deep enough and sized to just hold a set amount of dice (like 20 probably) or groups of that amount. You can accomplish the same thing with the box the dice came in I guess (see ork players doing that alot) I just tend to need less dice then that. Beyond that it just takes time.

Not a fan of number gen programs or similar btw. Friendly game I wouldn't care but a stranger at a tournament I would say no way (and as a TO would not allow it). Easily hacked or modded.

Movement trays can be ok but sometimes are more trouble than they are worth. First, because of the rules around assaulting it is actually impossible to use them to charge or recieve a charge. They also make your force extremely inflexible when moving through terrain or trying to group up in cover.

Having experimented with this idea with my Guard platoons I came to the conclusion that its better not to bother. Just practice moving your units quicker and moving the front and back models of a group and just filling in the rest of the squad.

Really you need to think about how you want to play your army. If you think moving and shooting that many models will be a nightmare then maybe it is not the right choice for you. Nothing can be more demorilizing than playing an army you don't really like moving and thinking that you are just annoying your opponent. That's why I moved away from infantry Guard towards a more hybrid russ/platoon list. I am having much more fun playing with more managable squad sizes and easy to move vehicles, maybe with a few transports every now and then.

I think that the Tournament Moderators would have a problem with it. And some players would have a serious problem too, thinking you are doing it to gain some advantage. I would contact the organizers for 'Ardboyz and ask about it. If you can get approval before hand, then it would give you a much better case.

Most players would encourage it, since it would speed up your turns (not as likely that you will run out the clock at a tournament due to long turns). I can't think of a reason a T.O. would disapprove, as long as it doesn't unduly interfere with the game. As long as you measure your corner models in the tray correctly, I can't see it causing a problem.

Obviously it could make for a pain when navigating through terrain, but it could be a dream for moving a big mob through open ground. Just imagine moving 30 models six inches in the time it takes to move two or three, and keep them all in coherency, all organized, and not accidentally making an exceptionally good target for Blast weapons. I suppose some players may have a problem with the last part, but always double-check that it doesn't really bother the player.

This article is a pretty good read for making sure that you don't waste other players' time at tournaments, so I'd recommend taking a look at it:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Playing_a_Horde_Quickly