Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

What has the norm become with Kill Team events? With 3 different expansions, two of which change the game in non-trivial ways, it feels like organizing a tournament might be a bit less straightforward now.

Elites seems to be a pretty straightforward addition to the game. Subfactions, Elite units are just new units, and more Tactics.

But Commander feels like a completely different game altogether. The various Commanders across factions don't feel balanced at all to start with, and it seems that you need to use the Commander-specific missions for the game with them to really work.

Arena feels like it should be the tournament standard, but at the end of the day a $90 box can be a bit of a turn off, I imagine. I think it's well worth it, and personally Arena feels much more tactically interesting and balanced than regular Kill Team, but I can see the buy in turning people away from the game.

Arena is supposed to be the "Official" tournament format. Commanders + Elites tend to be the "optional" add-ons for stores that like to run campaigns.

My local store never adopted commanders and were considering elites when it dropped but then all the players stopped showing up because the store owner hated his GW rep and stopped stocking stuff.

The new store uses all the newest stuff and ignores arena entirely.

Arena is an absolute no go for us, because we find it badly done and even more unbalanced than basic Kill Team.

We also do not like the method of awarding points every turn, because it showed, that many games are basically finished in turn 2, because one side has such a big points advantage that will not be evened out in the last two turns. Except if you grant victory when breaking the opponents team. Granting a win on breaking the opponent in every game is IMHO the worst thing you can do in mission design.

We do not use rosters, because the lists created from the rosters are difficult to check for validity on site - at least for casual players - and we have a lot of them.

So what do we do ?

We currently use Elites, 125pts, all models level 1, no models with keyword Commander.

Players bring two alternative lists from the same faction and subfaction instead of a roster. The choose which list to use after they know what faction on what table they will play against.

What we will use in our September tournament is the same mission in all 4 games.

Deployment Zones as in "Take Prisoners",
4 Turns only.
5 Objective markers. One in the centre and one in the centre of each quarter.

At the end of the game you will be granted 1 point for each goal reached.
1 point if your opponent lost more points than you.
1 point if your opponent lost more specialist models than you.
1 point if you have more models in the opponents deployment zone than he has models in his deployment zone.
1 point if you have removed or control more objective markers than your opponent. You can remove an objective marker, you control at the end of a turn, with a special tactic that costs 1CP to use. There is no difference in Objective Markers removed or held at the end of the game. Removing the Objective Marker grants the advantage to have that marker "save".
Each player has 4 priority cards, which allows him to triple the points he gets for one of the goals.
Before setup each player chooses one of those cards hidden.
After the game the choices are revealed and the additional points granted.
A player can not choose a card twice, so in every game his "priority" will be different.

brumbaer wrote:
Arena is an absolute no go for us, because we find it badly done and even more unbalanced than basic Kill Team.

Really? Arena feels more balanced to me. It can be challenging for small teams due to point scoring, but I've still seen some deathwatch teams take arena games through intelligent play.

We also do not like the method of awarding points every turn, because it showed, that many games are basically finished in turn 2, because one side has such a big points advantage that will not be evened out in the last two turns. Except if you grant victory when breaking the opponents team. Granting a win on breaking the opponent in every game is IMHO the worst thing you can do in mission design.

I mean, it might feel that way, but with the card scoring even arena games can turn around suddenly.

We do not use rosters, because the lists created from the rosters are difficult to check for validity on site - at least for casual players - and we have a lot of them.

Aww. Rosters are the BEST thing about kill team! I don't see how they're that hard to check, its only 20 models and each one has to have his own card. Rosters add so much tactical depth, I think you're really missing out!

So what do we do ?

We currently use Elites, 125pts, all models level 1, no models with keyword Commander.

Players bring two alternative lists from the same faction and subfaction instead of a roster. The choose which list to use after they know what faction on what table they will play against.

What we will use in our September tournament is the same mission in all 4 games.

Deployment Zones as in "Take Prisoners",
4 Turns only.
5 Objective markers. One in the centre and one in the centre of each quarter.

At the end of the game you will be granted 1 point for each goal reached.
1 point if your opponent lost more points than you.
1 point if your opponent lost more specialist models than you.
1 point if you have more models in the opponents deployment zone than he has models in his deployment zone.
1 point if you have removed or control more objective markers than your opponent. You can remove an objective marker, you control at the end of a turn, with a special tactic that costs 1CP to use. There is no difference in Objective Markers removed or held at the end of the game. Removing the Objective Marker grants the advantage to have that marker "save".
Each player has 4 priority cards, which allows him to triple the points he gets for one of the goals.
Before setup each player chooses one of those cards hidden.
After the game the choices are revealed and the additional points granted.
A player can not choose a card twice, so in every game his "priority" will be different.

Well that sounds like fun too. Having two list options seems like a decent idea. The objective thing sounds a bit weird, but could be fun. Report back on how it goes!

Many thanks for your reply.
Regarding Arena and turn-wise scoring.
Different gaming circles, different experiences. What works in your circle may not work in mine and vice versa.

I agree about the value of the roster-concept.
But at least in "local real life" many players still play list oriented, because they are used to do so. Even players using rosters often do in fact use a number of lists. They do not consider every single model for the next game, but have a list against elite troops, a list against hordes, a list against psykers all based on a "base list" (or two) and some models switched depending on the task.

Regarding validation. The organiser can check the roster, but can not check the lists made from it. We have a high percentage of casual players, they will be no help in checking their opponents lists. Having somebody finish in the top three who played with an illegal list (only learned after a game) regardless of ill-will or honest error is best avoided.

If you do a "serious" tournament for "serious" players you can expect more knowledge from the players.