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does anyone have any alternate ideas about the random turn sequence for 3 player games

Can you enlighten me as to what random game sequence is? I am assuming everybody rolls a die and the highest goes first this round etc. But that seems a bit odd so I'm just wondering.

3 way games (and for that matter 4 way or any more than 3 or 4) are a bit chaotic, often will end up being 'un-fair' as well.

The only 'fair' way to do the turns, is by rolling off at the start, highest goes first, second highest goes second, third goes third. And keep it like that. If you start switching turns around during the game, you will end up with having 2 turns in a row, or someone not getting a turn for 4 turns etc etc.

Best advice i can give you (not very helpful albeit) is either do 2 vs 1 or 2vs 2. I've only played two games were it was multiple people against each other, and both ended up with someone being wiped out first (very quickly), not necessarily planned, but it just happens as the first guy might think he can split his army off equally and hopes the other players do the same, or even sends the whole army off at one player, and then gets hit from both sides by two whole armies.

Ive done two 3 way battles a long time ago first game was my second evey game my khorne berzerkers where in assult with some terminators the third player dropped a vindicator shell on us as they ruled if the person shooting into the combat wasnt in it they could but everyone inside would get cover. Failed every cover save and lost entire army in one shot. Second time was tougher was at a 2k lvl with the two others getting corners of the board and I got the middle of the other side. guess who got teamed.... it was an awsome fight however. I had my entire army rush the better player while my oblits slowed down the other player in the end i was tabeled but not without knocking both enemys down too a few badly damaged squads. in the end 3 ways never end well games with multiple players always end up teaming someone its generally more fair to start it as a team battle then the guy getting teamed knows and has the same points. As for the random game turns for both of mine stayed the same every turn to stop confusion but the best way to do it would probally roll of to see who goes first each turn as then the player getting teamed up on wont always have to endure both players attacking him without him getting a swing and has a chance of getting two turns in a row.

I personally prefer 2 v 1 than 1 v 1 v 1 ... it just seems like 1 players gets teamed up on. Various reasons but the outcome is still the same.

Unfortunately we have a lotta guys in our group who are keen to play right up till planned day, so we end up playing a three way. Last time this happened my guard had to deploy third in a very restricted deployment zone, as a result i reserved my whole army, the result was good for me. Unfortunately sometimes you could go up to 30 minutes without throwing a dice

2 friends and I played a 3-player 1500 pts game a few months ago and it was really fun & seemed reasonably balanced - needs some play testing to make sure.

battle set up was:
Player 1 gets 1500pts, players 2/3 get 1000 pts each
Scenario: Capture & Control, each player placed 1 objective
Deployment: based on pitched battle. Players 2 & 3 rolled-off to choose short table sides & deploy 1st & 2nd within 12" of their short table edge. Player 1 deployed 3rd within 12" of the centre line, and the long table edge within the 12" either side was designated Player 1's table edge for reserves & units failing morale to flee etc.

Turn sequence - Player 1 automatically gets Turn 1 due to the disadvantage of being stuck in the middle, BUT we decided to allow Players 2 & 3 to try to Seize the Initiative. Didn't happen, and not sure if that would nerf Player 1 to make the game unfun for them. Something to playtest. Players 2 & 3 then followed based on the order they deployed in.

All up the game was fun. Player 1 as Necrons, Player 2 IG, Player 3 (me) Wolves. Final score was IG with 1 objective, necrons/wolves with 0 each (but contesting). The 12-18" between armies at either short-edge & the centre did tend to favor assaulty units, but the extra 500pts, deploy last, shoot first for player 1 (which is similar to several Battle Missions) seemed to balance by helping alpha-strike threats early. Might have to hunt for pics...

Its a lot easier instead of say 3 people taking 2000 points and having a free for all for two people to take 1000 points and team up against a 2000 point list. Its pretty much the same as playing the normal game, goes alot smoother and makes for some interesting match ups like combining 1000 points of in your face tyranid MC's with a crap load of tau shooting. Some armies work surprisingly well together.

Giving each army a goal that involves attacking another army works out quite well. So, army A needs to get x KP of army B, B, needs to get x KP of C, and C x KP of A. Makes for a nice balance, as you need to try and deny your opponent kill points, whilst scoring your own kill points. If two players gang up on one it's a guaranteed loss for one of them as they'll lose a lot of their KP to their temporary ally.

leonhard wrote:2 friends and I played a 3-player 1500 pts game a few months ago and it was really fun & seemed reasonably balanced - needs some play testing to make sure.

battle set up was:
Player 1 gets 1500pts, players 2/3 get 1000 pts each
Scenario: Capture & Control, each player placed 1 objective
Deployment: based on pitched battle. Players 2 & 3 rolled-off to choose short table sides & deploy 1st & 2nd within 12" of their short table edge. Player 1 deployed 3rd within 12" of the centre line, and the long table edge within the 12" either side was designated Player 1's table edge for reserves & units failing morale to flee etc.

Turn sequence - Player 1 automatically gets Turn 1 due to the disadvantage of being stuck in the middle, BUT we decided to allow Players 2 & 3 to try to Seize the Initiative. Didn't happen, and not sure if that would nerf Player 1 to make the game unfun for them. Something to playtest. Players 2 & 3 then followed based on the order they deployed in.

All up the game was fun. Player 1 as Necrons, Player 2 IG, Player 3 (me) Wolves. Final score was IG with 1 objective, necrons/wolves with 0 each (but contesting). The 12-18" between armies at either short-edge & the centre did tend to favor assaulty units, but the extra 500pts, deploy last, shoot first for player 1 (which is similar to several Battle Missions) seemed to balance by helping alpha-strike threats early. Might have to hunt for pics...

Now why do players 2 and 3 only get 1000 pts as apposed to player 1's 1500?

JustWeaver wrote:

leonhard wrote:2 friends and I played a 3-player 1500 pts game a few months ago and it was really fun & seemed reasonably balanced - needs some play testing to make sure.

battle set up was:
Player 1 gets 1500pts, players 2/3 get 1000 pts each
Scenario: Capture & Control, each player placed 1 objective
Deployment: based on pitched battle. Players 2 & 3 rolled-off to choose short table sides & deploy 1st & 2nd within 12" of their short table edge. Player 1 deployed 3rd within 12" of the centre line, and the long table edge within the 12" either side was designated Player 1's table edge for reserves & units failing morale to flee etc.

Turn sequence - Player 1 automatically gets Turn 1 due to the disadvantage of being stuck in the middle, BUT we decided to allow Players 2 & 3 to try to Seize the Initiative. Didn't happen, and not sure if that would nerf Player 1 to make the game unfun for them. Something to playtest. Players 2 & 3 then followed based on the order they deployed in.

All up the game was fun. Player 1 as Necrons, Player 2 IG, Player 3 (me) Wolves. Final score was IG with 1 objective, necrons/wolves with 0 each (but contesting). The 12-18" between armies at either short-edge & the centre did tend to favor assaulty units, but the extra 500pts, deploy last, shoot first for player 1 (which is similar to several Battle Missions) seemed to balance by helping alpha-strike threats early. Might have to hunt for pics...

Now why do players 2 and 3 only get 1000 pts as apposed to player 1's 1500?

Because isn't player 1 sandwiched in between the two other players thus meaning he probably will be teamed up on just for convenience sake?

me and my brother and my friend used to do alot of 1v1v1. it sucked, it would always be two people fought it out hardcore while one stuck back and fired at everyone else, and once one of the armies died, the one that hung back would just do cleanup. We definitely had some good battles, but that was the way it usually went.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
it usually turned into a huge CC brawl in the middle with about 6 different squads ll in CC at once in a little circle in the middle.

If you have the big rule book, there is rules for a 3 way game. Basicly if you go first on turn one, then you go last on turn 2, and it rotates like that. Note sure exact page number.

We have been playing with the big rule book scenario, minus the bit where you place a hq, each, in the middle, not good for IG players, tyranid players love it. We are going to try keeping the player turn sequence in the same order. We will have one objective in each deployment zone, I am also going to propose some secret missions (bonus points apply) eg. kill, randomly determined, one opposing players HQ. Kill, randomly determined, one opposing players highest points unit.

Another thought was to roll to see who deploys first. After player one deploys players two and three will then roll off again to determine who deploys next. After deployment we will then roll off to see who goes first, rolling to seize the initiative, after player one finishes their turn players two and three will then roll off to see who goes next. The turn order will then stay the same.

At first it may seem convoluted, but I am hoping it will make the game less predictable in the first turn, as you will be unsure after the deployment what order you will be playing in, and who will be going next. I will let you all know how it goes.

The way that we've been playing 3 person games is to use a modified version of killpoints.

Each player has a running total of the kill points they've scored against both enemy players. At the end of the game, only the lower of the two scores counts.

It encourages players to divide their fire instead of just curb stomping one player. It doesn't do you any good to have ten killponts from one player if you've only scored three from the other.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:The way that we've been playing 3 person games is to use a modified version of killpoints.

Each player has a running total of the kill points they've scored against both enemy players. At the end of the game, only the lower of the two scores counts.

It encourages players to divide their fire instead of just curb stomping one player. It doesn't do you any good to have ten killponts from one player if you've only scored three from the other.

Woo ! That's a nice idea ! I never thought about that. I will give it a try, thanks !

It usually works pretty well, but sometimes it can get unbalanced too.

Armies with only a few killpoints might have a problem when both the other players have already scored several killpoints off each other. It can devolve into a race to see who can grab the last kill points from the elite army.

ive played a nice one with friends, 800 points of ig vs tau and on a turn that player 3 rolls a double or triple from 3 dice 1500 points of nids ds in, the ig and tau then ally together, turns from gun lines to a mental melee

Do you think that most of these issues stem from playing a 3-way on a rectangular table? What about playing on a round, or even triangular table surface? Each team in a face or a corner, so none of the armies are closer or farther from each other.

My flgs has a hexagonal table. It works great for 3 player battles.

I built a hexagon table for 3 players games also. The flat sides are 5" across. It works out really well for putting each army away from each other.

We play that you keep the turn sequence the same, if you start first then you go first each turn.

The biggest problems for us was trying to not make it a 2v1 at any point, and how to deal with outflankers. We ended up making a table for rolling for outflankers, but because of the nature of the table, they came in very close to the deployment zones. Meaning if you had your long fangs chilling, the genestealers coming in were almost guaranteed to be able to assault. There wasn't much we could do about this though.
As for the 2v1, first we tried a centralized objective to force people to go forward rather than circle around. This still caused problems because assault armies were better off due to the proximity. Also there was way way way too many draws.
Next we tried KPs, but it came down to mooching. Player 2 kills player 1's squad down to 2 guys. Player 3 cleans up and takes the KP... So we did VP's for every model we killed. It worked a bit, but still it came down to who went after who.
I wish we thought of the KP/VP for each enemy and take the lowest, that would have worked nicely.

Since it was friendly games, it really came down to not taking sides. Everyone knows splitting your armies and going after two fronts is bad, but if you don't then a 3 person FFA is never going to be much fun or fair.

we avoid 1v1v1 where i play, basically if odd number of players one player fields double the points of the other two. generally based on whoever has enough models to pump thier points high enough. if this isn't possible to double the points value by any of the involved player either the player will proxy to get it up or the two opponents will have to cut from thier lists. the team with 2 players moves together, shoots together and assaults together

my way of doing 3 way battles is like that:

Drawed objectives (with a normal deck of cards, remove the jokers)
1) Assassinate an HQ (roll to know who)
2) Assassinate all HQs of one player (roll to know who) (2x points)
4) Hold at least 50% of the map objectives on the board (2x points).
5) Hold a map objective that is not in your deployment.
6) Hold a map objective that is in your deployment.
7) Receive the most KPs in the game.
8) Hold Half of the table (any 2 quarters) (2x points)
9) Hold your table quarter (no enemy units must be in said quarters to get that)
10) Kill half of a player army in kill points (roll to know who)
11) Kill the most costly unit of a player (roll to know who)
12) Capture the deployment zone of a player (map Objective in the deployment zone) (roll to know who)
13) Totally annihilate (table) one player (roll to know who)(2x points)

**Hide your drawed cards, write the obj, then put the cards back in the deck

Drawed objectives point value (calculated at the end of the game):
Primary = 5 points
secondary = 4 points
tertiary = 2 points

Rolls to decide against who
Roll on a sheet what objective you have and vs who (Roll a D2 if it is against a specific player)
EX: P1 has to roll, he writes on a sheet what the D2 rolls means
1-3 = P2
4-6 = P3
Since everyone does his own rolling chart and hides it (if you don't you deserve to lose) the other players will not know against who the objectives are

Map Objectives points calculating:
1 points each (5 objectives on the map (3 per deployment plus 2 outside) => these objectives are independent from the card drawed objectives.
At the beginning of your turn (except for turn one) you count the number of Map objective you have

Setting the map and starting the game
Basically, when setting the map, make sure every deployment zone has a map objective in it and put two more somewhere on the map. Try to place the map objective that are out of the deployment zone as faire as possible. Now, every player draws 3 card from the deck (J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13) and writes their objective. There is no 3 (accident on my part) so if you draw a 3, just put the card back in it and re draw, you can change that if you find a way to put another objective in the game. After everyone has their objective, roll for deployment zone and who goes first. When deploying, the player can move his map objective in his deployment zone to fit his needs.

Certain drawed objectives are worth more because they are harder and ask more commitment then the others (ie: controlling half of the map, kinda hard and will need most of your army to do that).

I did that since we had a ganking problem when we were doing our FFA (I was ork and 120 ork boyz seemed scary to them, lol). This allows the game to be fair since there are more way than one to win. If someone holds 2 map objective during a 5 turn game, he will have 8 points from that and does his tertiary objective, he will ahve a total of 10 points which will be more than some one who has done his primary and secondary objective. The rolling and general drawed objectives remove a lot of chances of ganging up *(except for unlucky dice rolls, lol). Me and my friends have played this type of game 3 times and we ahd 3 different winners, I once won with 6 ork boyz and a bigmek on the field only because I held my eplyment zone objective long enough. This type of games also forces the players to not go all in on one objective since they might get flnaked by the other playes that has bobjective against them.

Self quote below. I wrote this3 player scenario a while ago. I never got to try it out.

(note: based on that most famous piece of fluff from the Blood Angel Codex, but you can run it with different races. I had this posted in General 40k, but no one said anything, so I re-posted it here)

Deployment

Blood Angels and Necrons deploy for a pitched battle.


All Tyranid units are in reserves.

Instead of entering the board normally, Tyranid units MUST outflank.
Instead of Outflanking, Tyranid units roll to see which long board edge the enter on (1,2 BA edge, 3,4 Necron Edge, 5,6 Tyranid Choice)
Any outflanking side re-rolls apply to both of these.

(basically normal reserves => outflanking. Outflanking => long table edge outflanking)


Turn Order

The Tyranid player always takes the third turn.

The BA and Necron Players roll off to see who gets to deploy and go first, the other player deploys and goes second.
Infiltrating and scout moves are made as normal

You may seize the initiative as normal. Tyranids still have the third turn in this case.

Victory Conditions

There are 3 objectives placed on the board. One is in the center of the table, The other two are placed between 12-18" away from the short table edges (one on each edge, not two on the same side). One is placed by the BA player, the other by the Necron player. They are deployed during that players deployment.

At the end of each Tyranid Player turn, the BA and Necron players get one point for each objective they control. Normal rules for taking and contesting objectives apply.

The Tyranid player gets one point for each unit they destroy or force to fall back off of the board. (kill points essentially)


At the end of the Game, add up the point totals for each player. The player with the highest point total wins.

========================

The idea here is to have a 1v1v1 game where it feels like any of the players could win. The biggest problem with 3 player matches is that most people want to wait for the other players to go after each other, and then mop up what is left.

The general idea is that the BA and Necron players want to be in the middle of the board to keep away from the tyranids, but then they will run into each other. You could play it the "classic" way of having the BA and Necrons team up, but then they are still fighting over the objectives, especially the center objective.


I know that the Scenario is probably not balanced, and will never be fit for tournament play. However, I would like it to be as fair as possible. As such I have the following questions.

1) What do you think of the deployment? Do Tyranids gain too much of a bonus, especially to outflanking units? Do Tyranids suffer by having a random element to their deployment?

2) How often should the BA and Necron players gain points from objectives? once a player turn (including or not including the tyranid turn), or the current system?

3) Should the game last longer than normal? ie. roll on turn 6 1,2 ends, turn 7 1,2,3 ends, turn 8 is the very last turn possible. (Simply so the Nid PLayer has more time to kill stuff, BA and Necrons have more time to take objectives.

Any other suggestions or ideas would be welcome.

svnedrex, if you allow me, I'll try it. Having a horde army always outflanking can be funny, lol.

I'll copy that and put in a word document for further uses with permission.

Serder wrote:svnedrex, if you allow me, I'll try it. Having a horde army always outflanking can be funny, lol.

I'll copy that and put in a word document for further uses with permission.

Not a Problem. Tell me how it works out for you.