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Got an idea today.

Get together with a buddy, bring the units you never use, but tailor them to be exactly 150 pts. So, Grey Hunters in a Rhino for 150 pts or whatever. Bring 7-8 of these things a piece. You could bring HQs that are 150 pts, tanks, anything, from any codex.

Then you draft the units, one by one. Obviously you're going to have to get over the idea of A) having a coherent fluffy army B) having your models touched by others.

Once drafted, you try to work out a 1000 pt list, with the units you have. You at least need an HQ and two troops, so you'd have to make sure that enough of these are brought. If something counts as a troop in any codex, then it can count as a troop in your army, so long as you have the necessary unlocking character, if required.

So, Wolf Guard couldn't be a troop in your army (unless you had logan), but Dire Avengers could.

If you don't like the Fire Dragons, keep them in your sideboard.

Then play the game with the units.

Obviously you'd have to discuss some of how this would work, and with a bit of finessing it could be figured out, but the units should be small enough and the effects minor enough that they wont absolutely break the game. It could be a way to get some mileage out of stuff you bought and never used/used once.

Is this already a thing?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And obviously, you could raise the ptsper unit to 200 or more.

I've never heard of doing this before, but I love the idea. When my friends and I first started playing 40k, we would often mix armies because we just bought whatever models looked the coolest and went from there. So it wasn't uncommon to see Terminators teaming up with Necron Immortals to take out an IG tank squadron led by the Emperor's Champion.

As for points, maybe change the rules so that the units must be between 140 and, say, 160 points. That would give you a little more flexibility. Then just set a limit on number of units chosen and play. I think the beauty of this is to have as many choices for units as possible, so that armies can be outfitted to face any opponent. And besides, this will finally give me a reason to get out my old Aun'Shi model!

You could always draw more parallels with the CCG format; Have a number of 300, 200, and 100 point units so that you have 'elite' 'uncommon' and 'regular'-type units to mix and mach with, with each player still limited to the 1000 point limit.

I like the idea of tiered units. 300 pt rare units. Each person brings 2-3, then 3-5 200 pt and 5+ 100 units.

I liked the idea, and we just did a spin off of it.
4 players, each were told to show up with at least 2 HQ choices, 4 troops and up to 7 other units.
Bring models you don't mind other people playing with.

Army selection:
All units* are pooled, and players take turns selecting. The first three choices must be HQ, followed by 2 troops.
Players alternate selecting** until everyone has at least 7 choices. At that point, everyone keeps alternating until the pool is empty, or any player calls it "done". At that point, the current round of drafting is completed and a single last draft is selected by each player.
You are limited to 3 HQ, 4 Elite/4Heavy/4Fast and 8 Troops and up to 2 fortifications.
Players use what they have drafted and battle it out.

*A unit, and it's dedicated trasport all counts as a single choice. If the slot is several units (such as an IG platoon) than you get all of them with the single draft.
**The order in which people draft is set by the point cost of what they bring. Whoever brought the most expensive unit drafts LAST. Whoever brought the 2nd most expensive unit drafts second to last; and so on. This way, if you show up with 10 paladins (~700 points), you're basically handing them to your opponent.

Made for a really fun game. I ended up with something like 3000 points of marines and guard and paired off against tyranids, eldar and guard, with 2 fortresses (closer to 2000 points). I had a few very high point units that you'd never see in a normal game (Squadron of 3 Vanquishers, battery of 3 griffons).

Any how, if you want to try a draft, try tossing points out the window. You don't want to bring anything too broken, because odds are very good, somebody else is going to be using it.

-Matt

Is it just me, or does it seem like this was inspired by MTG? Anyway, this sounds like an excellent idea, and I just may have to try it out with my friends.

Magic: the Gathering *may* have started it but realize that *most* card games are draft-able in some way. Add on top of that the entire new genre of drafting games and deck building games. Just want to get that out in the air there. We're good people, we're good.

I'm really interested in the idea. Hell yeah. Being a long time Magic player, like I'm sure some of us are, it is intriguing. Here are some thoughts I've been brewing:

If you wanted an easy time of it, go back to I believe second or third edition core rule book for 40k. One of the core books had basic versions of army codices in an appendix toward the back of the book in which most units were in easy to figure point systems and limited equipment choices. That way you could keep power swings to a minimal.

For fluff purposes, you could want to limit the available races to choose from to say something like just Imperial armies this week. It's a civil war with many factions, constantly changing battle lines, and constant allegiance shifts. Or just Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Chaos Marines or Daemons another week. For a secret war of corrupting souls and survival. *If you want consistency* Which you probably all thought of any way. My name is Captain Obvious. Nice to meet you.

For points and adding in tough decisions, you could have all units start at 100pts, and move up in 50pt increments. This way you might come to a point where you have to choose taking that awesome unit to finish the strategy you want and taking a Aegis Line to fill out the rest, or just taking two other units. Or some other post-draft/pre-play dilemma.

Lastly, I write down each of my squads on note cards that have everything I need to know about them right there. How they move, how they shoot, stat and weapon profiles, special rules and corresponding page numbers, etc. etc. I do this because I'm a noob. However if you used the same method, you might streamline your play for people who might be unfamiliar with a certain army or indeed new to the game. Better yet of course is that you would have draftable cards and the secrecy that comes with Magic-style drafting. Perhaps your already doing this too, and I'm just being my Cpt. 'O' self.