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So the other day I was thinking of a way to make a tournament really interesting. At my FLGS, there is a pretty wide variety of armies and lots of players. I want to make a silly tournament, but have it be really fun. Before I pose this question to them, I wanted to get some online feedback. The tournament rules would be like this:

Rules:
1. 1000 points

2. Single force org, no fliers, no allies.

3. No changes in lists, proxies, etc. Regular tournament stuff.

Justifications:

1. Since this could get really silly, I want to keep it small and manageable for the day. Be careful when making your list, because it could come back to haunt you...

2. In our local meta, there are two types of players. Those with flyers, and those without. The ones with flyers seem to dominate, so I want to level the playing field.

3. Fairly obvious I think.

Now, the twist. Once everyone has submitted their lists to satisfy numbers one two and three, we give each list a number. The numbers go in a hat, and a roll of the dice determines who picks first. The number you pick is the army list that you will be playing with. This could very possibly be one that is not your own. Everyone is pretty comfortable with each other (we borrow each other's stuff from time to time) so I don't think it will be an issue. The purpose of this tournament is to prove that you are the best general, not necessarily the best list builder. You could bring one of the uber competitive lists, but do you really want your opponent to use it against you? I think people would create armies that are either really bad, and make the tournament a hilarious sissy slap fight, or make really balanced lists, lists that they themselves could use, but are not altogether invincible. It is just a crazy idea, but do you think anyone would be interested in such a thing?

As long as people are not crazy about others touching their models... In my experience, people are crazy about not touching their models.

The idea of everyone making hilariously bad lists and then having to flail them at each other until one eventually wins is something I could get behind.

The models I would use are all one piece metal tallarn dudes, so no danger of them breaking lol. How would I sell this to people though?

You could always do a First edition (first rule book released for said army) tourney. and go nuts with that lol.

That would be interesting, but something I would never take part in. I put too much work in my models to risk them being damaged by someone else.

I think this would only work between close friends, I barely even let my brother touch my models nevermind some guy I'm facing in a tournament. The idea is cool though

Thanks all for the replies, I appreciate the feedback.

There is a small, regular crowd at my FLGS, so we know each other quite well. Frequently we even borrow things from each other to make up points, playtest new units, or just for S&G's.

Another question I have is: Is 1000 points the right level? I feel like more than that becomes cumbersome, especially playing with an unfamiliar army, but maybe less points (and therefore less models that might become damaged) would be more enticing? In your opinion, what points level would be best?

My personal preference is 1000pts, it allows variety outside of the HQ two troops situation, whereas some armies really suffer at lower than that. It also gives a good solid game that doesn't take up too much time. But this is all my opinion, I find I just don't enjoy the smaller games as much as the bigger ones and 1000pts is a good middle ground

I've done this before with 1000pts of fantasy.. It was a Reverse Invitational only Tournament. You played against your army with your Opponents army.. This helped them with the rules for the army. There was a small chance your played your own army. (like both players rolled a 1 on a D6, etc.

Put rules like, every army has to have a caster. the caster and the general (separate) had to have some type of save ward save that worked in CC and Range.

Yes this there was crazy stuff in the lists.. Some stuff you would never put in a list.

Some crazy stuff. Lvl 4 wizard with the Wizard Hat. The WoC Festering Shroud Banner that causes a Toughness Test on models that didn't have Mark of Nurgle in a unmarked unit. And my mistake, I put a Giant in my list and no one had warmachines.

Actually, I tried such a thing, but not with switching lists, but having all the armies brought, be *exactly* the same. Most 40k players start with marines, so I proposed 750 to 1k lists with C:SM.

There was only one taker. No one else was willing to try playing the *same* list against another, proving, Best General-ship. Buncha trash talkin' wussies.

I'm talkin' to you, Darrian!

You might, if there are enough SM players, pull *that* off.

Make one list, give your other players access to it, and everyone brings models to match it, allowing for a proxy here or there.

The winner of that tourney, will likely be your best General, barring crazy dice.

Assuming your players don't mind letting other people use their models (I would never even consider playing in an event like this), you just have the problem of completely broken lists. For example, this "awesome" Tau list:

HQ:
Commander, bodyguard x2, shield generator x3/4 on each model

Troops:
Fire Warriors x6
Fire Warriors x6

Elite:
Crisis suit x3, shield generator x3 on each
Crisis suit x2, shield generator x3 on each

Total: 992 points, with 12x pulse rifles as its only ranged weapons. Have fun trying to win with melee Tau.

Or, you know, there's no rule that you have to reach the maximum point total, so let's go with IG:

HQ:
CCS, no upgrades.

Troops:
Veterans, no upgrades.
Veterans, no upgrades.

Total: 190 points. 22 models with lasguns, 3 models with laspistol/CCW. I bet you're going to have a lot of fun if you're the last pick and get stuck with that army...

With the tournament being WYSIWYG, I feel like really bad lists won't be as prevalent. I can't make a WYSWIG list with one million grots because, well, I don't own a million grots. I feel like a lot of people don't own really bad units, or at least not in enough quantity to make a 1k list. Do you buy bad units en masse?

That's a good point about filling up the points, I will be sure to account for that.

I asked around at the store yesterday, and I got a definite yes from five people woot woot. Time to fine tune the rules.

Something to think about to is, don't put your nice models in the list. Simply provide a list made up of the stuff you have laying around waiting to be painted. This would help with the "don't touch my model" syndrome.

Done this as a worst list tourny. Lots of fun, but hte guys at my LGS are not prickly about other using their models.

One of my friends was describing an event where they wanted to do this as a true generalship challenge instead of a "worst list" joke tournament, so they added a second layer of prizes so that there were prizes both for the most successful generals and the people who built the most successful army lists. This fixed the problem of people bringing intentionally inefficient or just plain bad armies, since people were interested in winning both prizes.

It also made watching some of the other games more dramatic!

 ghastli wrote:
With the tournament being WYSIWYG, I feel like really bad lists won't be as prevalent. I can't make a WYSWIG list with one million grots because, well, I don't own a million grots. I feel like a lot of people don't own really bad units, or at least not in enough quantity to make a 1k list. Do you buy bad units en masse?

No, but most people do magnetize their crisis suits (so taking them with no weapons would be as simple as switching what is on the model) and have tons of basic guardsmen (so can easily make a 1000 point list with nothing but lasguns).

 Peregrine wrote:

 ghastli wrote:
With the tournament being WYSIWYG, I feel like really bad lists won't be as prevalent. I can't make a WYSWIG list with one million grots because, well, I don't own a million grots. I feel like a lot of people don't own really bad units, or at least not in enough quantity to make a 1k list. Do you buy bad units en masse?

No, but most people do magnetize their crisis suits (so taking them with no weapons would be as simple as switching what is on the model) and have tons of basic guardsmen (so can easily make a 1000 point list with nothing but lasguns).

That's true with respect to the guardsmen. In my case, I have limited tallarn models, so I might have a tough time with that. But in a more common guard army, I definitely see your point.

I'm really putting my faith in people for this one. I am really hoping that they won't make something too terribly bad because there is a chance that they might get stuck with it. Out of curiosity, what other lists would you all bring to this tournament, from things that you have?

 ghastli wrote:
I am really hoping that they won't make something too terribly bad because there is a chance that they might get stuck with it.

But the chance of being stuck with your own awful list is minimal compared to the chance of one of your opponents being stuck with it, and there are probably several other lists that are just as bad so getting your own list back isn't much of a step down. Really the winner (with very little effort) is going to be the whoever is lucky enough to get a decent but not overpowered list from the one person who doesn't go all-out on making a horrible list.

If you want to fix this problem you have to abandon the idea of automatically switching lists. Instead, roll a die before each game: on a 3+ the players keep their own armies, on a 1-2 they switch with their opponent. That way the majority of your games will be played with your own list so you want to make it a legitimate army capable of winning against most opponents, but you can expect to have to play against it so you don't want to make it too much more powerful than the other armies in the event. But then you're getting away from the intended theme of the event.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ghastli wrote:
I am really hoping that they won't make something too terribly bad because there is a chance that they might get stuck with it.

But the chance of being stuck with your own awful list is minimal compared to the chance of one of your opponents being stuck with it, and there are probably several other lists that are just as bad so getting your own list back isn't much of a step down. Really the winner (with very little effort) is going to be the whoever is lucky enough to get a decent but not overpowered list from the one person who doesn't go all-out on making a horrible list.

If you want to fix this problem you have to abandon the idea of automatically switching lists. Instead, roll a die before each game: on a 3+ the players keep their own armies, on a 1-2 they switch with their opponent. That way the majority of your games will be played with your own list so you want to make it a legitimate army capable of winning against most opponents, but you can expect to have to play against it so you don't want to make it too much more powerful than the other armies in the event. But then you're getting away from the intended theme of the event.

Exalted this one, really awesome idea, and i know that my decently painted models will still be on the same table as me and not on some backwater table in some random corner.

 Kingsley wrote:
One of my friends was describing an event where they wanted to do this as a true generalship challenge instead of a "worst list" joke tournament, so they added a second layer of prizes so that there were prizes both for the most successful generals and the people who built the most successful army lists. This fixed the problem of people bringing intentionally inefficient or just plain bad armies, since people were interested in winning both prizes.

It also made watching some of the other games more dramatic!

I like this concept. Adds another incentive to actually make good lists while still preserving the core idea of the event.

Make the players run their own army on game 1. This ensures the guy who brings the worst lists ends up with a loss (and out of the running).
Then go 1 of 2 routes:
players switch armies for round2-3 or you go with the drawing for random army selections...not being allowed to draw your own army.
This will tend to have people bring workable armies without making them uber powerful or silly weak.

Well, I finally made an account on here man lol. The biggest thing I see people saying is prize support. the guy who runs our store could care less about prizes and its up to the players to set up tournaments. This Tourney would have no prizes so it'd purely for fun and to shake up the monotony

It would work with close friends, but I don't know how how much I would enjoy the tournament if I was constantly worrying about what someone else was doing with my minis somewhere else in the room.

I like the idea of switching armies on the die roll. Like it was mentioned above, you bring a list and at the start of the match you and your opponent roll 1 die. On a 1-3 you switch armies (this way you still get to see your army played and don't have to worry about it as much)

This will force people to bring good lists, but not the killer net list as there is a 50/50 chance that they will have to face their own list.