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I was thinking this morning about challenge boards/ladder leagues. I haven’t seen an active one at a local store in a while, and was trying to remember the details about how they worked. The original Dakka Dakka store had one about 15 years ago, and I seem to recall that around the same time GW made some fancy acrylic ones which they had in their own stores and provided/sold to some independent partner stores as well, for 40k and WHFB.

The physical board hung on the wall and IIRC fit in maybe a 1.5’ x 1.5’ or 2’ x 2’ space. It was either a triangle or another shape (I think the WHFB one GW did was shaped like a knight’s shield) containing a triangular arrangement of hooks/pegs/hangers for name tags (again, I think the WH ones were little shield shapes). You’d have 8-10 rows, 1 at the top, 2 in the row below it, 3 in the next row, etc. So with 8 rows you have space for 36 players to be on it. Each player had a name tag maybe an inch and a half to two inches on a side.

The basic mechanism of play was that a player could challenge a player one row above them each week. If they won, the players swapped places. A loss or draw and they stayed where they were. A player on a higher row had to play at least one defense each week if they had any challengers. If they had multiple challengers, they couldn’t choose the same opponent in consecutive weeks. Games all had to be played in the same game system, but players were not restricted to a fixed list or point size. They could agree to play any size/restrictions they wanted, although there would be a “standard” game size and set of restrictions (today it might be a source limit, etc.) they would play if they didn’t agree on something different. If a player was not present at a given league day/night they might automatically lose to the challenger, or might be granted a week’s grace period or something to schedule and play the game.

You seeded the board to start based just on signup order, or if people were really into it, you could have a seeding tournament, or seed based on placement in a recent league, or what have you. New players could join at any time by taking a spot on the highest row that had an opening. If the event was really popular and the board was full, you could challenge on by beating someone on the bottom row.

Play would go for two or three months, then prizes go to the top player or players, depending on structure. I think another good rule would be to award a raffle prize or two to any players on the board who had a certain minimum number of games completed; this would encourage more action even for the folks having a hard time fighting their way up. And/or a store could have a promotion like giving a 10% discount the week of completion to all players who played at least x number of games. Just spitballing a couple of ideas to incentivize play for anyone having difficulty contending for the top spots.

Does anyone else have any memories of these kind of leagues? Any details I’m forgetting?

Any good stories, bad stories, tips or pointers for how to run one?