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So, me and a couple of friends have decided to duke it out in a three way objectives battle on Sunday because , well why not? We tried a 2v1 against another buddy (1500+1500 V 3000), but we beat him bad because of our superior tactics . So now my problem begins. I don't really see how three armies can deploy on one 6x4 board easily and without anybody getting off any lucky first round charges or anything cheesy like that. Have any of you played a game like this before? Is it fun? these are the wuestions I want answered. Also I am on the fence on wether to bring my crons or CSM. I will be facing Orks/Marines on one side and space wolves on the other. Feedback?

My friends and I tried a three way game in 5th edition with Tyranids, Necrons, and Orks. We maxed out at 750 points a side and it made things extremely interesting as it was just enough points to fill the board with action but not so many that we stepped all over each other during deployment. It was a total blast and I would highly recommend you try it.
It was chaotic and random and totally entertaining. Do objectives and watch the alliances get made and broken and everybody have a great time.

Three way free for all 1500 points Relic game type is fun. For the 5+ years i've played ive done mre 3way matches than anything else because somebody always can't make it lol. Easiest way i've found is divide the table like a Y. the sad thing is, is that the person who sits back usually wins due because if two people duke it out all you have to do is mop up the rest.


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you could also make it so everything is deepstruck kinda like Daemons for a little more chaos.

 Khorvahn wrote:
the sad thing is, is that the person who sits back usually wins due because if two people duke it out all you have to do is mop up the rest.

Usually when I play with friends we don't wait partly because of that but I was thinking if you put more points of First Blood and Slay the Warlord and then stagger VPs for anything else based on the turn you should be able to get people diving in because the odd man out might be to late to make up enough points as long as an eliminated player can win by points. Not entirely stock rules but the game isn't entirely set up for odd sides, but it's doable.

3-way games require either a triangular board, very loose deployment rules (like crusade of fire's multi-team games), or for two players to be on the same team. Otherwise, it eventually becomes a 2v1, or worse, a 1v1 where the third player shows up at the very end and claims victory.

We did a 2v2, 1500 pts each team for a 3K vs 3K.

We used a 4x8 board, it worked perfectly for everyone's troops (IG, Ork, Marines and CSM)

Alternating turns just doesn't really work well for 40k.

One person will get beat up by the other 2, Or one will hang back and let the other 2 beat each other up till the third person swoops in and claims victory.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:We did a 2v2, 1500 pts each team for a 3K vs 3K.

We used a 4x8 board, it worked perfectly for everyone's troops (IG, Ork, Marines and CSM)

Yeah that's not a three way battle. It worked because it's a two way battle.

Grey Templar wrote:Alternating turns just doesn't really work well for 40k.

One person will get beat up by the other 2, Or one will hang back and let the other 2 beat each other up till the third person swoops in and claims victory.

I agree. Three way battles are awful and don't work with the 40k rule set.

To OP: Either drop one player or gain one player. Otherwise it's going to suck.

Actually there was a mission in the additional rule book in 5th edition. Shouldn't make a difference between editions. How it worked was that the player that went first the previous turn went last and the other two players would roll initiative again. And it would keep changing who went next. It made the game very fun and very challenging. I think there may have been some other rules too. I wish I could find that book

Well thanks for all of the feed back guys, I didn't think I would get so many replies so quickly. To prevent one player from being ganged up on we have set the following rule:You cannot attack the player that the previous player attacked in your turn. Also there will be one objective in each deployment zone worth 3 points and one in the center worth six. Hopefully nobody will just camp in the back and come in at the last second. Another problem is that my friend will be bringing one or 2 units of biker nobz, any ideas on how to deal with that, and with what army.?


Thanks again for all of the feedback

Nevie wrote:
Actually there was a mission in the additional rule book in 5th edition. Shouldn't make a difference between editions. How it worked was that the player that went first the previous turn went last and the other two players would roll initiative again. And it would keep changing who went next. It made the game very fun and very challenging. I think there may have been some other rules too. I wish I could find that book

That seems like it would work well. We always just do random turn order. Roll three dice, highes goes first, then roll a d6, 4-6 is clockwise, 1-3 is counter clockwise. That also semi solves the issue

The only thing that is still complicated would be the deployment because we don't have a triangular board like someone else pointed out earlier. I'll try to get some pictures and make a batrep after the game is played too.

I made a google doc of some 1v1v1 rules I've come up with for our group. They revolve around using an NPC "4th" player that is guarding what everyone is going after. This helps to alleviate some of the teaming up issues that can occur. So far they've been really fun

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nJLcLWaMUHL4SV8IvnRoPtBH2YZjAJifvgV7ksQmXGo/pub

The atlernating first turn is kinda fun.

Wow, that is really comprehensive and amazing, thanks! I'll be sure to email that to the rest of my buddies because that is jsut amazing. Did you make those rules yourself?

Yeah! There was a previous threada bout 1v1v1 and it got me to thinking about how to make it work. That + playing with the BAO scenarios and playing a kill team back in the day with secret objectives is what led to this.




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You can do a triangular board on a 4x6, you just don't start in the usual spots, ill have to draw it out at some point

He's bringig Nob bikers? You might as well just quit now.

Yeah I played one of these, Tau vs Sm vs Chaos.

It was truly hilarious. I murdered the chaos player who was in turn murdering the space marine player who was in turn murdering me. It ended with a tau victory because I cast caution to the wind and ran through some terminator blood-feud to claim the only non-contested objective in the middle of the board! Highly recommended.

Sigh... Nob bikers are truly tough to take down, and yes we just expect this to be a game for fun so hopefully it will be filled with fun and laughs.

We've always had fun doing king of the hill type battles with triangular deployments with two in the corners on the same side of the table, and the third in a triangular setup in the middle of the other side of the table.

Another fun way to play that we have tried, is to switch armies every turn. Everyone rolls a dice and the high player gets army 1, second gets army 2 and so on. This way, you never wanna slaughter any one army, since you might get it next. Also, armies accumulate points towards victory, so you may get lucky and have someone else do well, and then you benefit from it. There are plenty of shenanigans that go on through this style.

My thought on a 3-person game: Divide the table into 6 2'x2' squares. Roll off for deployment. Highest roller picks a square. Second highest roller takes a square that touches a corner, but not a side, of the first person's square. Lowest roller takes the remaining square that touches a corner but not a side. Then, place an objective in the center of each unoccupied square. From there, proceed as normal.