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Fellow Dakkanauts,

I need some advice on running a monthly tournament at my FLGS. The owner has agreed to set a day or two each month for a 40k tournament, and he has mentioned getting GW involved with prize support.

I'm looking for...

Basic tournament info like missions I should run, be it my own, Nova/Adepticon inspired or out of the BRB.

Entry fee that I should charge, even if GW doesn't send prize support what would be a reasonable price for entry of a small tournament (8 people minimum).

How you determine pairings, software? Dice roll?

Any and all advice is welcome and will be taken into consideration.

-Pat

A few thoughts, from past experience running similar events:

1) Variety is your friend. You don't need to go crazy every month, but play with the point levels and/or board sizes from time to time, and you'll keep interest up. Also, smaller point levels encourage newer players to give your event a shot. You could go quarterly: 1000 pt in month 1, 1500 in month 2, 1750 or 2000 in month 3, then reset.

2) Missions shouldn't be too wacky, unless you're doing an intentionally wacky tournament. Rulebook missions are a good start; you can grab other tournament missions for variety.

3) No more than $10. There's a real mental breaking point there for some people. My local gaming store charges $10, provides GW's $120 or so in prize support, and gives back most of the entry fees as store credit.

4) I do round 1 pairings randomly (you're in a game store - find a d8/d12/d20 as appropriate, and roll it up!), then random pairings within brackets.

5) Don't make painting mandatory (shrinks your pool of available players), but do give some prize for best army. I prefer to let people vote, and use my own discretion as a tie-breaker.

Janthkin wrote:A few thoughts, from past experience running similar events:

1) Variety is your friend. You don't need to go crazy every month, but play with the point levels and/or board sizes from time to time, and you'll keep interest up. Also, smaller point levels encourage newer players to give your event a shot. You could go quarterly: 1000 pt in month 1, 1500 in month 2, 1750 or 2000 in month 3, then reset.

2) Missions shouldn't be too wacky, unless you're doing an intentionally wacky tournament. Rulebook missions are a good start; you can grab other tournament missions for variety.

3) No more than $10. There's a real mental breaking point there for some people. My local gaming store charges $10, provides GW's $120 or so in prize support, and gives back most of the entry fees as store credit.

4) I do round 1 pairings randomly (you're in a game store - find a d8/d12/d20 as appropriate, and roll it up!), then random pairings within brackets.

5) Don't make painting mandatory (shrinks your pool of available players), but do give some prize for best army. I prefer to let people vote, and use my own discretion as a tie-breaker.

Thank you!

The question to ask your self is what is your 40k community like in your area? It is important to cater to your community to create a sucessful event.

My guess you want this to be a fun tournament that some of the mroe competative players still attend as a tune up for larger events.
If that's thecase i'd recomend the following: 1500 pts (large enought that list building matters, and games are complex enough to engage more experienced players, small enough that newer players likely have enough points, and the games are manageable for 2 hour time limts), $10 entery fee, at this amount most people will pay it as for 3 games its cheaper than going to the movies, Prize support from GW is great but if you wanted to do $60, $40 $20 store credit (taken from the entry fees) thats fine
Allow unpainted armies but enforce WYSIWYG, I'm meh painting awards (because my guys are painted but will not win an award) but if your community is into painting then why not. I would have it as a seperate consideration from scoring who wins the tournament though.
For missions I would recomend you take standard missions and give them a slight twist, like instead of simple anialation ad a twist like every unit has counter when a unit is destroyed the killing unit gets the counter (so in a unit that destroyed another now has 2, if that unit gets destroyed the killing unit would get both counters, ect) basically youa re still playing anihilation kill points but now there is some strategy about how you wipe out units (if my long fangs finish off 2 units maybe next turn I should run them out of sight/hide) be creative but keep them close to the purpose of the mission they are based on, (for capture and controle you could play king ofthe hilll 1 objective in the middle if you hold it you win, secondary kill point ect)
On other thing I would say about missions is have the missions assigned to tables so when the players arrive all they do is pick sides and who goes first.
Finally do random pair for the first round and then do seeded pairings top v top for the next 2. This will usually produce the best player as the winner