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So I was approached yesterday by the club president with an offer (or request?) for me to run an event sometime in the near future. If I do end up running this, it will be a very casual event, where I'll be looking to incorporate cool rules and effects. Right now I'm thinking 1k doubles, with limits on fliers, allies, and unit spam, and relatively high points awarded for Painting/Sportsmanship/Army Fluff & Composition categories.

One element I've been thinking of including is "Strategic Assets". Each player gets 3 Asset Cards, and before any battle can opt to use one (which uses up the Asset). At a cost of perhaps 30 points each, a player may opt to have additional assets. The assets may be selectable or perhaps randomly drawn.

Some ideas for assets below;

Night Assault; Attacking in the dead of night, your troops benefit from the cover of darkness. The Night Fight rules are in effect for turns 1-4. On turn 5 and onwards, dawn breaks on a 5+, ending the Night Fight effects.

Dig In; Your Infantry begin the game in pre-prepared foxholes, recieving a 4+ cover save as long as they do not move at all from their starting positions.

Ambush; 1D3 Infantry units in your army deploy via Infiltration or recieve Scout moves.

Delaying Action; Do not roll for 'random game length' until the end of turn 6.

The other major change that I had in mind was perhaps allowing, just for this event, units to assault from Reserves/Deep Strike/Outflank etc. Perhaps with some penalty, such as treating it like difficult or dangerous terrain.

Would be interested to see what Dakka thinks of these ideas, and also open to any suggestions about these ideas or any others you might have in mind

I would take a look at the Strategems from Apocalypse, Planetstrike and Cities of Death. Obviously some of them will not be worthwhile, but there are a few good ones.

I would also suggest making a few army specific .

The first thing you need to do is define exactly what your goal for this tournament is. "Cool rules" is way too broad. What is the objective of these rules? Is it to re-balance the game? Is it to create missions that represent the events from a story you have in mind? Etc. The answers to your questions will depend heavily on what you have in mind for the event as a whole.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Right now I'm thinking 1k doubles, with limits on fliers, allies, and unit spam, and relatively high points awarded for Painting/Sportsmanship/Army Fluff & Composition categories.

I would strongly suggest not doing this. Painting scores (in the main event, not as a separate painting contest) are an easy way to create controversy because each person has their own subjective preferences about what good models look like and you're almost guaranteed to have people unhappy with your judging decisions. Some people just want to come play some games, they don't want to have their hard-earned victories negated because the TO decided to hand the top prizes to people based on their preferred painting style. And comp scoring is even worse, nobody has ever come up with a fair and balanced comp system so essentially what you're saying is that people show up and then you tell them who wins and who loses.

As for limits, don't do that either. People don't want to be told that they can't play with their army, and blanket bans/limits on flyers that apply equally to Helldrakes and Nephilims are not even close to reasonable.

The other major change that I had in mind was perhaps allowing, just for this event, units to assault from Reserves/Deep Strike/Outflank etc. Perhaps with some penalty, such as treating it like difficult or dangerous terrain.

This is way too powerful. GW has deliberately removed those abilities for a very good reason, and including them is going to make it worse for "casual" players, not better.

I want to run something different from your usual BRB missions, and to see armies and strategies that vary from the usual "spam top 3 units in your codex". If there is the potential for some dick to run three Helldrakes or three Riptides or whatever in his list, then it won't be an event that I'll invest my time and effort into running.

The last event I went to was 1k, no fliers, no forgeworld, no allies, no duplicates outside of troops, and it was good fun.

And I know what your going to say; changing the rules will simply allow a different set of units to become 'optimal' and be exploited by powergamers. If that happens, then at least we'll see a little variety in our spam lists for once.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I want to run something different from your usual BRB missions, and to see armies and strategies that vary from the usual "spam top 3 units in your codex".

What you have to ask here is whether "different" is the same as "better". If your entire goal is to make things different it's very easy to screw up the game even worse than GW has.

If there is the potential for some dick to run three Helldrakes or three Riptides or whatever in his list, then it won't be an event that I'll invest my time and effort into running.

If you can't run a tournament without calling someone a dick because of what army they picked then you aren't qualified to be a TO. The TO's job is to be objective and keep the event running, not to judge everyone's choices.

The last event I went to was 1k, no fliers, no forgeworld, no allies, no duplicates outside of troops, and it was good fun.

Honestly, that sounds like an awful event that I wouldn't even consider attending. Blanket bans like that are a clumsy attempt at "balance" that punishes a lot of "fluffy" or "casual" lists just as harshly as the Helldrake/Riptide/etc spam lists. It's the sign of a TO who has no clue about how to run an event or improve a game beyond "ban everything the internet says is overpowered".

And I know what your going to say; changing the rules will simply allow a different set of units to become 'optimal' and be exploited by powergamers. If that happens, then at least we'll see a little variety in our spam lists for once.

There are three problems with that attitude:

First, you don't know if the new metagame is going to be better or worse than the current one. For example, that demons list with a death star unit with a re-rollable 2++ (IOW, you can't kill it) works just fine with the limits in the event you mentioned, and that's about the least possible fun you can have in 40k. A metagame full of Helldrake spam is much, much more appealing.

Second, you're also punishing the people who brought lists that use duplicates/allies/FW/whatever but aren't overpowered. For example, a Tau list with two units of crisis suits and no Riptides is punished just as harshly as a Tau list with five Riptides, and that just doesn't make any sense. The Riptide spam player will probably happily move to whatever new "best list" you've created with your restrictions, while the casual/fluff player is going to be stuck playing with a list they aren't happy with because you excluded their favorite units.

Finally, by creating a new optimal list you reward the competitive players with the most money to spend. Helldrake/Scythe/Vendetta spam may be overpowered, but at least people know about it and have spent the time since 6th edition preparing to beat it. But if you change the optimal list to something completely different then people won't be as prepared for it and you potentially just made the games even more one-sided.

The better solution is to just let the natural pairings system solve your problem. After 1-2 rounds the competitive players will be playing each other at the top, while the people with weaker lists will be playing each other and having fun games. That way everyone gets to bring the stuff they like, and you don't have to worry about making the game even less fun than it is now.

"something something your way is wrong, what you like and enjoyed is horrible and your not qualified to be a TO"

Jesus Peregrine, I don't know where you'd get the idea that coming in here and posting such a thing would be welcome.

The event I mentioned was great fun, and if I run one I will do so in the same style. If you think that type of event is terrible, then you're probably not somebody who should be giving advice on how to run it

So thanks, but no thanks.

Would be interesting with some form of purchasable assets. I know its just been chucked out there at the moment, so a bit would need to be done to even them up. For other 'asset' ideas you could have one where the player can choose what mission it will be rather than rolling for it as usual/ or for deployment or warlord traits etc.

But I would agree with peregrine that you should try and define some goal for it. Otherwise it may be a bit hard to control and it will seem a bit disjointed from the participants POV. I know naught about apocalypse but checking out their strategems like Happyjew suggested sounds like a good idea to me from a cursory internet search.

I agree with Peregrine. Though he said it pretty harshly, his point has a lot of merit when it comes to blanket bans on armies. On the surface, they make a lot of sense of 'oh well, these things are considered OP, so let's just ban them', but it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater for most of the other armies. Those other armies just get told 'well too bad' when they find out that their lists are illegal. This is not something I would want to play in. It comes across as reactionary and like you just went to the internet and asked 'what is OP' then banning whatever responses you got.

I'd also advocate against blanked banning. No taking of more then 1 of the same unit? Thanks, you just invalidated my ENTIRE dark eldar army because it could only have 1 raider and 1 venom. Any Mech army is outta there, drop pods? Nah. You have to think about the effect of bans on the entire army ranges, not just the army you think is OP.

Back to my DE analogy where will my AT come from? DL on warriors? Please. I NEED my 2 ravagers to play a game, they are first in the list ad everything else is built around them. Trueborn with DL, but hey, I can only have 1. A LOT of armies work of redundancy where they take 2 units to accomplish 1 thing in case the first one dies. So this I feel is really marine bias as most xenos need that redundancy.

Flyers are as much a part of the game as anything else, simply banning them isn't the right outlook. I agree with no allies at that Pt level. You can deal with flyer spam and all kinds of spam by simply saying no triplicates, as DE can get by on 2 ravagers, 2 venoms and 2 raiders. No one will run 3 heldrakes and if someone runs 2 that's 1/4 there army at the mercy of the reserve roll. Let people make their own decisions and there own mistakes, spending to much on flyers is stupid at that Pt level. Its not the TO's job to fix the game, its there job to give the game a place to flourish and evolve itself, let the learn not to spam themselves.

I am sofar simply modelling this around the previous event I attended, I'm not particularly attached to any given restriction.

I can see "No Triplicates" being a good compromise between no doubles and allowing full spam lists. Any such restriction however would not apply to Troops choices nor dedicated transports.

At most i would like to see no allies, as it is a small enough event as is. but banning dup/trips seems a bit restrictive

An interesting type of game i could see would be upgrading type games where controlling certain objectives by the end of the match can give you addition boosts in the next round. (like catching a com relay improves your reserves for the next round, or holding some crazy relic gives you a 1 shot orbital bombardment or something like that) makes you really play for objectives. (mind you try to keep it balanced as much as possible but that takes a bit of work)

 Desubot wrote:
At most i would like to see no allies, as it is a small enough event as is. but banning dup/trips seems a bit restrictive

An interesting type of game i could see would be upgrading type games where controlling certain objectives by the end of the match can give you addition boosts in the next round. (like catching a com relay improves your reserves for the next round, or holding some crazy relic gives you a 1 shot orbital bombardment or something like that) makes you really play for objectives. (mind you try to keep it balanced as much as possible but that takes a bit of work)

That can easily cascade out of control. Winners of game 1 have an easier time of winning game 2, and thus making game 3 easier as well.

Are 2 riptides or 2 helldrakes that much better than 3?

Does this in any way affect deamons?

The power lists will still be there, even if you went to no duplicates but troops no allies the eldar would have a significant advanged.

Serpent Spam, Wraithknight, warp spider, walkers, farseer win.

Adding objectives/win conditions is what normally allows TO's to blance the game. Add a mission where MC/Flyers killed become VP's or put alot of objectives on the board and say MC/Flying can't score. Table quarters where elites and flyers can't contest.

Add boards with tons of terrain, city scapes, so its easy to cc and shooting armies are penalized.

There a ways to balance the game as a TO without going into the list building.

Assets would work, but adding them for points is just begging for them to be abused. Allow everyone equal access and allow them to negate each other i.e. one side says yes the other can use his to say no, give each person a set of cards that is equal to 1 a round to make things interesting.

Night Fight can really hurt some armies while having no affect on others, using it for the enitre game is perilous.

4+ cover if they don't move isn't that bad, there is a way with a warlord trait to get 4+ in ruins.

Infilitrate and scout have pretty good checks and balances seems fine to me.

last one is fine, but only if you have enough time to actually finish 6/7 turns, most tournoments don't even come close to this

 curran12 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
At most i would like to see no allies, as it is a small enough event as is. but banning dup/trips seems a bit restrictive

An interesting type of game i could see would be upgrading type games where controlling certain objectives by the end of the match can give you addition boosts in the next round. (like catching a com relay improves your reserves for the next round, or holding some crazy relic gives you a 1 shot orbital bombardment or something like that) makes you really play for objectives. (mind you try to keep it balanced as much as possible but that takes a bit of work)

That can easily cascade out of control. Winners of game 1 have an easier time of winning game 2, and thus making game 3 easier as well.

Well id assume no as winners would play against winners who would both come in with advantages.

Just keep the advantages fluffy. and not like a free bane blade (though that would be funny as heck)

The pro player who gets matched up with a casual in round one will have an advantage over the pro who went up against a pro and so wasn't able to get the special bonus

That said, while I'm using the word "tournament" this is really, really emphasizing the "play lots of games" aspect that many people attend tournaments for and not so much the scoreboard one. So would that really be an issue?

 Desubot wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
At most i would like to see no allies, as it is a small enough event as is. but banning dup/trips seems a bit restrictive

An interesting type of game i could see would be upgrading type games where controlling certain objectives by the end of the match can give you addition boosts in the next round. (like catching a com relay improves your reserves for the next round, or holding some crazy relic gives you a 1 shot orbital bombardment or something like that) makes you really play for objectives. (mind you try to keep it balanced as much as possible but that takes a bit of work)

That can easily cascade out of control. Winners of game 1 have an easier time of winning game 2, and thus making game 3 easier as well.

Well id assume no as winners would play against winners who would both come in with advantages.

Just keep the advantages fluffy. and not like a free bane blade (though that would be funny as heck)

If there is a free baneblade, just say that it's one of Stubbs and put a little sticky note that says "If found, return to 252nd Kauravan Conservators."

If your just trying to get a bunch of people to play a bunch of games then just make it an "intro" tournament with basically no prize. something that no "pro player" will ever come to.

there will always be sour grape players that come to stomp just to feel good. there really is no way around it.

edit:V : Actually a Campaign would be cool.

 Dakkamite wrote:
The pro player who gets matched up with a casual in round one will have an advantage over the pro who went up against a pro and so wasn't able to get the special bonus

That said, while I'm using the word "tournament" this is really, really emphasizing the "play lots of games" aspect that many people attend tournaments for and not so much the scoreboard one. So would that really be an issue?

If that's the case, have you considered a campaign setup then? Or do you only have one day to run this thing?

I haven't because it never crossed my mind. I thought Campaigns were more personal and persistent affairs with a few people - if big multi-gamer 1-2 day events are a thing then by god the tournament format is out the window never to return

Not sure how long it'd be, but likely I could make it one or two days according to taste

 Dakkamite wrote:
That said, while I'm using the word "tournament" this is really, really emphasizing the "play lots of games" aspect that many people attend tournaments for and not so much the scoreboard one.

Then just drop scoring entirely. If you have no prizes and don't declare an overall winner then nobody has any real incentive to defy a "please do not bring powerful lists" request and you don't need a long list of comp/bans/etc.