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I've had this idea for a tourney bouncing around in my head for a while now and would like to get some ideas on it before proposing it to my FLGS:

The Worst of the Worst:
Each player makes an army that is WYSIWYG with no painting requirement.
The idea is to make the army as weak as possible, huge bloated squads with too many upgrades, necrons that are super easy to phase out, etc.
The points level is probably going to be fairly low due at most 1000 points or so.

At the tournament, the army that you created is played by your opponent and you play the army that they made. The person who wins with the bad army gets the points for that round.

This type of tourney would be aimed at fun rather than hardcore gamers. It would also be a way to see parts of armies that are never seen on the table due to how bad they are (even if they have really cool models)

Thoughts? Ideas? suggestions? abuse?

I've been wanting to run a tournament like that for years now, but I have only managed to get so-so support for the idea. Now that I'm spending more time at the better local FLGS with a solid club organization, I might give it another try.

I would gladly play in. I am not sure how many people would do it though, since you are paying to use a horrible army. I think someone has posted this before in general or some other place.

I would rather play in an 'boster draft' style tourney. Making armies that are explicitly crap and trying to lose seems like a waste.

I would rather see people build maybe ten 250 point 'detatchments' and every game is 6 of the detatchments randomly selected. Then you would have to make due with what you got. Booster drafts for card games are fun.

It would be an extension of the sideboard model. If you want something 'different' it would be different and I think more productive than 180 grots on the table.

I like your idea, the only thing that worries me is how ridiculously short the games could end up, an idea we had for a tournament here was a General strategy tournament, the tournament had 2 winners.
The idea was- each person brought a 1750 list, wysiwig that had to be designed to be both easy to use and good. Then, all the armies (10 in our case) were put onto a table and you drew a random lot, which dictated which army you got EVERY game, so over the 5 games, you could use 5 different armies. then you would have the regular win sheet (your games would be fixtured you vs a person not an army) but you put down the winners name AND army number. This meant at the end, the prizes went to the people who wrote the easiest to use, but also good list (as the idea is you will get so many different skill levels and familiaritys, that it was well designed) and also the person who won most games, as usual- but the idea being that had done so with different armies.

The reasons this was good were because it was a true measure of skill, in our opinion, as you had to pick up an army you perhaps had no idea how to use and make it work, but also it meant that that person who always uses the same deathwing list and wins is forced to use something else and ended up mid table

Just an idea

I like it hlaine.larkin, but I can see people gaking bricks over the idea someone else will touch their models. I would think this would need to be a club-style event where armies are provided by members of the club.

I think there is merit in trying to shake up the metagame at least from a 'bordeom' aspect. I have also seen events where you end up having 3 side boards. Every game you must CHOOSE 1. The issue is if you use it one mission, next mission you can't have it. So the goal is to make 3 diverse sideboards that are designed for opponents/missions and you choose accordingly. But this also requires hidden missions which people claim locals are cheaters... I like hidden mission events where people cannot necessarily game the missions.

Yes definately, this is why we had a 'low' turnout, we usually draw 20 or so, but we made sure in the rules that it was 1750 of stuff other people would use, with a sense of common decency- i.e if you break something, you tell them and fix it or provide them with things to do so. we were lucky in that there were no breakages.

Another idea you could toy with to add in the 'random' aspect is the idea of in-house strategem style cards.
these could work in one of 2 ways, either each player gets one for the tournament, or a week in advance by random or you get 6, one for each game.

For example...

Elite Army- This army is considered 'elite' and thus Elite units count as scoring units for this game

Mechanised-All vehicles receive a free 15 points of upgrades if they have a transport capacity (this may not be spent on upgrading weapons, with the exception of hunter killer missles, i.e may not be spent on extra sponsons etc)

Hero-This army is joined by a hero, nominate one independent character- for this battle, the leadership of this character is increased by one (to a maximum of 10), additionally all models within 12 inches may use this characters Ld for all tests. If this is used on a character who is already Ld 10, increase this to 16 inches.

Veterans- Nominate one troops unit, this unit receieves +1 Ws OR Bs for this battle (this is done BEFORE blobbing/combat squadding to stop abuse of 50 man guard squads at ws4)

Fast Deployment- Any unit which counts as a 'fast attack' choice may ALWAYS outflank in this battle.

Lay of the Land-All units in this army have been extensively briefed on the terrain for this battlefield, and thus may roll an extra dice when moving through cover.


These are just some suggestions, what you then do is say that each general may have 6 lists associated with each strategem and may use each list one time (you must number each list and put on the game card which list you use) What this means is people have to think about the missions (which would also be specially written) and decide which strategem to use.

What this does is a number of things
1/ people bring along a variety in lists- without having to bring 6 different armies with them, as ideally all these armies will be similar, with just minor tweaks, i.e in a meq list, you may see an extra squad of guardsmen, because the 4 chimeras who had bought extra armour are now cheaper, or people will squeeze an extra elites unit in, because they are scoring-but the fundamental structure stays the same.

2/ brings in a third dimension (the first 2 being battle plan and luck)

3/ people have fun because they are doing things they may not do, and can engage in the fluff of their army

4/ this may sound contrived, but i am big on fluff, hence my entire 2500 catachan army is owned by Dakka members who each 'own' one model, but one thing that strikes me about 40k is that the armies often seem so small and insignificant, this way, if you add together the 6 armies, as they would theoretically be different contingents, it would look good.

5/ and lastly atleast 1 person will bring seperate models for each list, and this will look awesome.

again, ideas i am coming up with.


as for hidden missions, i think the tournament host should be counted as a trusted figure who wouldn't let people in on the missions, as i think knowing the missions before hand does remove a tactical and fluffy element.
i always had an idea for a mission where one player would be an 'ambusher' and the other a 'defender' the defender would have a certain amount points more than the ambusher, but the ambusher would be given nothing, and would label his/her units with numbers, then on a diagram of the board, label a piece of terrain for each unit to be put in, which would pop up as reserves on a regular roll, but act normally. this would be played on a long table, as in from short edge to short edge, and operate on a 'kill points' system, except the ambusher is awarded kill points for the amount of units they kill and deducted one for every unit that makes it (with atleast 25% strength) to the other board edge, then say +/-3 points = minor win/loss etc etc

some random musings, which have gone on far too long, i am in tourney making mood now