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Considering that myself and my friends generally play 1v1v1, i was looking for ideas to make the game more fair.

The first game we tried, the table was far too big, and we didnt really get into close combat before we had to call it. Then the next table was too small, and was in close combat on turn 2...

What would be the best table size, and shape? And any kind of recommended special rules?

There is no even way to play 1vs1vs1. Someone will always be sanwiched between the other two. 2vs1 is the way to go.

yea, last game i was in the middle and my orks got sandwiched between black templars and csm :(

You guys are too close minded, sure there is a way.

You just need to bend the rules for it to happen, and need much bigget table.

First option is to have a triengular table, with 84' long sided, with "your deployment" being 24' away from your corner.

Second option is to have a hex-shaped table, with each side at 48', having three edges as "player edges" and the ones between them as "neutral" edges.

I would have drawn you a graph but my computer is deal and doing on through my playstaytion is rather impossible.

I've played a 1v1v1 and it was a lot of fun. You just need to go into it knowing that someone is going to get eliminated first by the other two players. In the game I played, it was still 5th Edition and I played as Tau and packed my list with as many stealth units as I could so they couldnt just all try to kill me because they couldn't even see me! Good times.

Good idea about the triangle table too. Sounds fun.

Given a standard 4 foot by 6 foot table try the following deployment - numbers are player numbers zero is neautral

100222
100000
100000
100333

it is slightly less sandwiched and gives a fairly even balance.

I think at 1500 points and above 1v1v1 probably needs an 8x5 to avoid too much cramping in the deployment zones, though the deployment suggested above is probably best for 6x4

so if every digit represents 1'x1' then:

22200333
22300333
00000000
00000000
01111110

I'd also suggest Relic as a good book mission because it then leads to natural ganging up on whoever has the relic, or most chance of grabbing it at any given moment.

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:
I think at 1500 points and above 1v1v1 probably needs an 8x5 to avoid too much cramping in the deployment zones, though the deployment suggested above is probably best for 6x4

so if every digit represents 1'x1' then:

22200333
22300333
00000000
00000000
01111110

I'd also suggest Relic as a good book mission because it then leads to natural ganging up on whoever has the relic, or most chance of grabbing it at any given moment.

I would have thought that as standard table would be OK up to 1250 a side though (equivalent to 2* 1850 points on a standard table)

Relic should be good - could also do 3+d3 objectives (rather than 2+d3) or the variable point objective mission should work for 3 as well

What about a circular table? You would draw an imaginary triangle and deploy in an arc from those points. The scenario could have one "king of the hill" objective in the middle and each turn whoever in not in combat and on the objective can raise their flag. Whoever's flag is currently flying scores points. Most points at the end wins.

1v1v1 is a bad idea for a game . the dude that is less of a friend gets always nailed first. samething if you make a good army. the one with the most up to time build gets nailed first .
It is impossible to make a three side game balanced.

How about team A gets victory points from killing team B, Team B gets points from Team C and Team C from Team A

How about you run 2V1 instead of a free for all.

One person controls two primary detachments (Including allies for each list) at whatever points you set for each army, and the primary detachments can not effect each other (so no riding in transports, no rules bleed over etc.)

The other two players each get one primary detachment (Including allies for each list) at whatever points you set for each army.

So basically you have 2 people on a team each with a 1250 point list and one guy with two 1250 point lists.

Then play the two 1250 point lists against the other two 1250 point lists.

It works out really well, and it is as balanced as a regular game of 40K.

Unfortunately, the way the turn order is set up it is not balanced for free for all play.

Whoever goes last in the turn will have a distinct disadvantage.

And 3 ways almost always turn into 2 players ganging up on another, or 1 player waiting for the other 2 to slug it out before he zips in for the kill.


You can still have fun playing like this, but it won't be a fair fight.

Me and my friends play 1vs1vs1. it has never once been fair. 2 will go head to head and one waits. Even splitting your forces don't work since its half your army vs his. The only real way I can think of is making 2 army lists per player and splitting the board into 6 sections and everybody gets 2 squares. So each square is 1000 Pts or 500 Pts. It's all one army just split into 2 smaller factions(to avoid hq spam)

If you have/still have the big rulebook for 5th Edition there were rules for a 3 man free for all in the back (although I never played it, so I can't be certain of how well it worked). But if you are looking to go for just a generic 3 player FFA, I'd try setting up either a circular, triangular, or hexagonal play area (either a custom table or playing on the floor will be necessary). Additionally, I would probably advise against playing annihilation games, instead focus on objective games, and I would also consider changing up some of the secondary objectives to be more about keeping your stuff alive opposed to killing your opponents stuff. For example, instead of getting points for killing the opposing warlord, you get a point if you keep your warlord alive, and a second point if you have the only warlord remaining on the table. Instead of getting a point for being the first one to wipe out an enemy unit, get a point for being the last one to have a unit destroyed. Instead of linebreaker, have it so that you get a secondary objective for keeping the enemy out of your deployment zone.

My final suggestion if figuring out how to deal with certain situations such as shooting into a combat of 2 or more opponents or charging into a combat of 2 or more opponents. For shooting, I suggest the following. When shooting at a combat that consists entirely of enemy units, declare which "side" of that combat is your primary target. Then, for each hit, roll a D6. On 4+, that hit is allocated to your primary target, and on a 1 - 3 it is allocated to the opposing models. Divide the hits into 2 pools, one for each target, and then allocate each of those pools to the relevant unit the pool (and all wounds that stem from that pool) have been rolled for. For combat, I just recommend treating it as charging into an existing multiple combat.

I actually like the idea of 1v1v1; and think you overlook some possiblities by thinking in killspoints scenareo:

If you play objectives, either many or a few/one very pricy one; there is no need for killing 2v1; any teamups will be functional to stop the dominant player from winning.
Unreal Tournament 99's domination mode comes to mind, which basicly was hold the objective, and played 1v1v1v1.

But then again whichever player can hold reserves as long as possible has some advantage as the other two are weakened down, given he is mobile in deployment (deepstrike are those beeming-in necron fliers).

if you play a 4 man free for all one army will be dead before its turn even starts.

Also, one more thing, if you are playing with more than 2 players, find some way of alternating turns so that even though going first is still a disadvantage, it is not as much of one. One way of doing this is to make it so that the player turn order of every game turn is reversed, so if Jimmy, Timmy, and Bob are playing a 1v1v1, and Jimmy goes first, then Timmy, then Bob, Bob would get the first player turn of the second game turn (so the play order would be J, T, B, B, T, J, J, T, B... etc). A slightly more complex way of doing things would be to make it so that either player turns are randomized at the start of each game turn, or they alternate in a more complex but fairer fashion (ie, at the start of each game turn, the player with the first player turn is the player to the left of the player who started in the previous game turn, so the game order would be J, T, B, T, B, J, B, J, T, J, T, B, T, B, J, B, J, T).

Actually it depends how the players view what's basically a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma.

Say 3 players A, B and C each with fairly well mayched armies. A will have first turn, B will have second and C third.

We'll assume that each army has the capability to destroy 20% of an opposing army in one turn if at full strength and proportionally less if depleted.

Say A attacks only C. A is now at 100%, C at 80%.

Who should B attack?

The 'moral' choice is to attack C as A did not harm B and if the two combine against C, C's threat will be neutralised. I suspect this often happens.

But the rational choice is probably to attack A.

Let's presume he does so. Now we have A at 80%, B at 100% and C at 80%.

C's turn. Rationally now he must attack B and so reduce him to 84%.

And so turn 2 swings around and A, logically, should now attack B as B is the greatest existing threat.

But because people don't think rationally, they think in emotional terms of reciprocation, the first scenario where both A and B attack C is most likely in reality -- B honours a tacit alliance with A simply becasue A did not attack him.

That's why 1 vs 1 vs 1 will always be hard to balance unless you somehow force everyone to attack everyone else (the idea of A only scoring poinst for eliminating B and B for C has merit).

There is actually a special mission (broken alliance i think) in the back-end of the 5th ed book made for 1v1v1.

Also, you could divide/create a board around an equilateral triangle. The triangle should be something along 2' per side and have a 2' by 2' "deployment zone" in each end. Count the table edges as blocking LOS and impassable. here is an extremely rough idea of what I mean.



I remember reading something in the 5th ed book (think it was in the broken alliance mission) but in order to score a KP in a 1v1v1 game, you must kill 1 unit each from both opposing teams. To help prevent literal attempts of ganging up on someone, you could implement something like the "One eye open" rule + the old "Target Priority" rule. Just change it so it is something like this:

"If a unit attempts to shoot or assault an enemy unit belonging to opponent(A), but opponent(B) has models which are visible to theattacking unit and are closer to the attacking unit than opponent(A), the attacking unit must roll1d6 before shots are taken or overwatch is resolved. On a roll of 1, that unit cannot shoot, assault, or move for the rest of the player's turn. This test is only taken once per unit per turn. Eg: If a unit has already passed this and fired at an enemy squad, it does not need to pass this again in order to assault. If a unit fails to charge after declaring its target due to this rule, overwatch is not resolved. "

Another simple Pic:


EDIT: Forgot about the random turn structure. At the start of the game, players roll 1d6. The player who rolled the highest goes first and the player who rolled second highest goes second. In each subsequent game-turn, the player who went first in the previous turn goes last. The other two players roll 1d6. whoever rolls higher goes first and the other second.

It seems like a fair bit of the problems could be solved by doing objective based games. The semi-random turn structure is nice though too. I especially like Haniths idea as it randomizes the turn structure enough to keep everyone on their toes without allowing ay double-turns.

One scenario I was thinking about that might help you would be along the lines of:

A. Psyker is hidden amongst various objective markers and highly sought after by two of the three factions. These factions must grab the Psyker and return them to their deployment zone for evac. These two factions may not shoot at the opposing faction's unit which currently holds the Psyker and may only engage in CC. The third faction must kill the psyker at all costs.

This would encourage more movement and less immediate combat. When coupled with the modified table arrangements and revamped turn structure, objective based games of this nature may help restore some balance to your games.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Unfortunately, the way the turn order is set up it is not balanced for free for all play.

Anybody remember the old 5 player Mutant Chronicles board game? Random turn sequence has been around a long time. When my 5 buddies and I would play 40K free for alls, we came up with having all remaining players roll off after every player turn each game turn. The player who went last in the previous game turn was not eligible to roll to go first in the next to prevent any one player from taking two turns. Worked out great.

Another possibility is to have 3 separate boards where

A plays B
B plays C
C plays A

You could have warp gates in the enemy deployment area which allows units to move from that board to anywhere in the deployment zone of your other table.
If you syncronise the turns there will be less downtime as you will be all moving on one table at the same time.

Me and some of my mates have been able to work a 1v1v1 before now though they were 750-1k size games on a 6x4 board.

We used a deployment similar to RFHolloways using a 12" radius quarter circle in 2 of the corners then a 12" radius semi circle in the middle of the opposite side for the other player.

Scouring work's quite well as a scenario as no one knows who owns the high scoring objectives until the end. We also played that once you'd claimed an objective you could move off it (kind of like the DoW control points) just so that people didn't just grab the nearest one then ignore each other and hope they'd got the high one.

I thought you revel objective value in scouring right after deployment?

 BoomWolf wrote:
I thought you revel objective value in scouring right after deployment?

Yes you do.

I don't think having them unrevealed would actually make much difference to how people behave as regards ganging up, though it's an interesting twist anyway.