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From this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/350082.page

I propose that 40k would be more interesting if instead of filling your army list people kept some points back to bid on missions and first turn. Basically in a 1500 point game you'd take 1400, or 1300 or 1495 and then use the remaining points to bid against your opponent to get a mission and game that plays to your strengths. Someting like this:

Choose Mission
Choose Deployment type
Choose table side
Choose who deploys first
Chose who goes first

We could even add other things like set up 1 terrain item (or even all terrain), reroll for last turn etc.

This could even be used in a tournament without needing to rewrite the rules.

So you're suggesting the guy who has 1 fewer point in his army automatically picks the mission, deployment, and goes first?

Just detailing out what you suggested:

For example, choose mission: Player 1 says he will spend 10 points to choose the mission. Player 2 says maybe 15. Player 1 then has the option to put up a higher bid or step down.

Then you go to deployment type.. and start the bid over...

The only question is: once these choices are made what happens to the left over points? In other words if I held 100 points back but for whatever reason still had 50 points left: do I get to "buy" more little guys or are the points just gone?

----

I could see reasons for and against participating in this.

DarknessEternal wrote:So you're suggesting the guy who has 1 fewer point in his army automatically picks the mission, deployment, and goes first?

No, no, no!

If it's a tie you die off, and you have to submit secret bids before deployment.

So if I come in with 1495 and bid one on everything, and the other guy has 1450 and bids 10 on everything, yeah, he wins it all for less than the price of a Chimera. But he's taking a chance that the next guy won't come in with 1400, or 1300...

To make it work you need people who put thought into the bidding game.

Maybe another way to make it work would be to just give everyone 100 bid points to divide among the 5 options but I really like the idea of people handicapping themselves to get a mission advantage.

Maybe make a 1550 tournament where the 50 MUST go to bidding but you can add more by taking less stuff?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

clively wrote:Just detailing out what you suggested:

For example, choose mission: Player 1 says he will spend 10 points to choose the mission. Player 2 says maybe 15. Player 1 then has the option to put up a higher bid or step down.

Then you go to deployment type.. and start the bid over...

The only question is: once these choices are made what happens to the left over points? In other words if I held 100 points back but for whatever reason still had 50 points left: do I get to "buy" more little guys or are the points just gone?

----

I could see reasons for and against participating in this.

That's a different way to do it. I was thinking more of secret bids, so if you hold back 100 points you can overpower someone who only kept back 50... but the 50 point guy can still try and put everything into 1 or 2 key factors.

With live bids we could let people spend remaining points on in-game stuff, like 10 points for a reroll token.

The entire point of the random missions is to make sure that armies such as, for example, mechanized IG do NOT get the mission they want all the time! You're not SUPPOSED to be able to cherry-pick specific missions, unless both players agree to it of course, as it's a fundamental balancing point on all armies!

Except depending on how many points were held back for bidding, the IG player might NEVER get the mission or deployment they want. This adds another pre-game level of strategy, which I think is a great idea. I like the idea of secret bids more than an open bidding process.

How about this? For 100 points each you can do one or more of these:

Choose Mission
Choose Deployment type
Choose table side
Choose who deploys first
Chose who goes first

If both players paid the 100 points you roll off.

You can also drop 200 points on one item and have 2 tokens, beating out the player who only paid 100 points.

So for 500 points you have a reasonable chance to pick everything in a game. But you'll be 500 points down.

25% to 33% of your force for strategic supremacy?

Sound like a balanced option?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Choose Mission
Choose Deployment type
Choose table side
Choose who deploys first
Chose who goes first

i think your system seems overly and unnecessarily complicated and requires prior agreement to use the system as it effects points available for army lists (which most people write prior to showing up to play), etc.

I think a simpler system that would still give the same effect would be to do a straight d6 roll off at the beginning (re roll ties)

The high roll has "Strategic Advantage" and decides one of the things you listed above, then alternate until all five are decided.

Thus the player with "strategic advantage" ultimately picks three of the five (his opponent two), but can't know which three he will control.

This simulates some amount of planned strategy and choice of battle zone, but keeps it random enough to make it hard to totally plan for any particular combination of factors.

Meh. Maybe? I can definitely image everyone always picked "Go first" 95% of the time (unless your list calls for reserves or some other such special reason). I like the idea of a die roll controlling it even less, but ultimately I'm bidding almost everything on "Go first" and almost nothing on everything else.

Maybe other people see sufficient reason to pick others over that one, but in my group, I sure don't.

it seem like a good like but i doubt it would actually work. ill still give it a try though