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My guess is that a tournement wouldnt allow a mission to be played more than once. Perhaps rotating deployment as well.

Our local store had a summer series with folks competeing in tournies accruing points. The top 16 played in a final w/l bracket, and I had folks roll up book missions for each round. The whole room had to play the same mission. I did do some minor tweking to keep things fairly consistent. All objective missions (not scouring or emp. will) were assumed 4 objectives were in play. Once a missions was played, it could not be played again. The first 3 rounds would all be different deployments.

Rnd 1- Big Guns/ Dawn of War
Rnd 2 - Crusade/ Hammer and Anvil
Rnd 3- Capture Control (Emporers will) / Vanguard Strike deployment

For Rnd 4 since it was W/L players would be allowed to drop if they wanted, and since only the final table mattered for overall I had tables roll up their missions.
For the top table it was
Rnd 4 KP/ Vanguard Strike Deployment

The final round was Tau/Eldar vs Tau (farsight bomb). Very small sample size to really get anything out of it. Tau did still come out on top. The top 16 had very little variiety as far as types of armies brought so that may be why.

Top 16 had
1 Chaos marine/deamon
2 Pure Deamon
1 Marine
1 Tyranid
1 Necron/Ork
10 Eldar/ Tau/ Taudar

Final 4 was Pure Eldar- Farsight Bomb Tau/Eldar- Tyranid

Most folks enjoyed the pure book missions, some were frustrated by the format. Since I ran the event and not many folks are comfortable giving criticism face to face Im not sure how to take a majority of the folks enjoying the book missions.

Now definately not a large GT, and the furthest travellers were around an hour.....not flying from around the country.

Breng77 wrote:

Far to often people come on here and say things like Tournaments should run in such and such a way, because that is how the game is meant to be played/the game would be better etc...

Perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps people come on here and say what they'd be interested in participating in, and avoid events run with multiple-combined objectives because they do not enjoy those. There's no reason anyone should have to play through an event they don't like in order for you to feel their input on a topic is valid.

I personally would not like a tournament where I was playing different missions from everyone else and then a winner was decided. Further I am not a fan of the random roll each round method.

Well, that's you. I wouldn't mind it at all. That's me.


When I started playing in tournaments, there was a lot of variety in what I'd see at tournaments. Some of that was because I believe the codexes back then were written better, with better internal and external balance, so people could take what they liked, rather than taking only the good stuff. My first tournament army had at least one of every possible unit from my codex in it - and placed in the top-ten of a GT that year. But the missions were also varied and didn't let you just ignore a condition that you weren't good at, so you needed to bring a variety of tools. As a result, the armies I'd face that year were incredibly varied, and even those from the same codex were unlikely to use the same units.

What I see now just doesn't appeal to me. I don't want to face the same army four times in a row. I go to less tournaments now, for that reason. That doesn't mean I'm not interested, or that my opinion is somehow less valid than yours. You say you do things one way because that's what the players like. What about the players who don't like it that way, who aren't showing up?

IF they don't show up how do they expect to effect change it is catch 22. I can try to change thigns for players that don't show up who may or may not exist, and may or may not show up if I change things...or I can appeal to those who show up, have fun, and pay to play the event so that I don't lose money. Which would you do? IT seems that your answer is ....not run tournaments. And that is what I am getting at. IF you are not taking the risk financially it is very easy to say to some one, why not try to appeal to players that don't show up like me....You don't even live in my area, and I assume would not shell out a ton of money to come play my GT if I changed how I ran it to suit your idea of a fun event.

I'm not saying you are un interested, but perhaps I can say you are uninterested in taking steps to do anything about it other than complain on the internet.

Now maybe you do run tournaments, and use book missions, but that is not the impression I get.

I'm not saying it makes your opinion invalid on what you would like to see, but not taking the initiative to make what you want happen, does to me make your opinion less valuable to me, because it is grounded in theory alone, whereas at least for me my successes (and failures) are grounded in fact.

YOu believe "in theory" more people would finish games with book missions.

In theory the meta would drastically change

In theory that more people would show up

In theory they would enjoy the event...

I know that for my events

In fact people show up

In fact the enjoy the missions

In fact most games are very close

In fact that perhaps because I am still a small GT that my meta is diverse

Essentially I have players tell me that they love the missions, have had other events steal ideas from my mission design, and have had players enjoy themselves.

What I don't have is players clammoring for book missions, or players telling me that they don't show up because of my missions, or telling me they did not like the missions.

Maybe those people exist...maybe they don't...maybe they will never tell me that they are looking for something else.

The point is if they don't I have no incentive to risk the player base I have built up just because some one else might show up.

Yes, obviously only the people who travel to your GT have anything worth you listening to.


I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, but around here, our attendance rates are dropping. So, are the best people to ask what the problem is the ones who will show up no matter what, or the ones who stopped, but who may return?

And this is the basis of the fallacy you're trying to perpetuate here. If you don't want to discuss the merits and flaws of the missions, that's fine, but don't act like the only opinions that matter are those who show up, because that's why attendances dwindle. When you keep telling yourself that you're doing everything right and there's no room to improve, you'll eventually find yourself alone.

Part of the consideration for an organizer is efficiency and transparency, too. Having a transparent system limits drama and mitigates criticism. Having an efficient system makes things run fast and smooth. Sometimes you have to do things that are less fun for the sake of these first two concessions. I have found that, both in fantasy and 40k, that having a fast transparent tournament will net more return traffic than having optimum scenarios. Your millage may very on this.

Ultimately, if I were king for a day, my preferred tournament would be 5 rounds with every book mission except Relic being used. While other missions have certain logistical flaws, Relic causes endless butthurt from people, which I feel to be justified from personal experience playing it.

 Redbeard wrote:
Yes, obviously only the people who travel to your GT have anything worth you listening to.


I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, but around here, our attendance rates are dropping. So, are the best people to ask what the problem is the ones who will show up no matter what, or the ones who stopped, but who may return?

And this is the basis of the fallacy you're trying to perpetuate here. If you don't want to discuss the merits and flaws of the missions, that's fine, but don't act like the only opinions that matter are those who show up, because that's why attendances dwindle. When you keep telling yourself that you're doing everything right and there's no room to improve, you'll eventually find yourself alone.

Except my attendance is up and consistently high... So again it is not a problem for me. I took over running my local events at the end of 5th, they have steadily gone up rom a enrage attendance of 8-10 people (playing book missions) to consistently 20+ people (not playing book missions). Most of which may or may not have to do with mission, but I have gotten consistent negative feed back for running so,e book missions and none for running the missions I do run. So if I start to notice a drop or have players complain I will address those concerns. The issue I have is thinking I should wholesale change things when non-local non-attending people bring up the issues, and thinking I should change because mythical people might not be showing up. If I had players in my area tell me they did not want to come to my events due the missions I would consider that complaint very highly.

Again I lack the have stopped and may return crowd except for people I know the reason for (don't like 6th, or Gw, or have gone off to college, or have family commitments that have limited play time.....).

I'm not saying your ideas about playing book missions have no merritt. I'm saying they seemingly don't really apply to my case. What I am saying is that if you believe in them strongly start running events. It is easy to criticize when you have nothing invested, to tell others how they should do their job better, etc

Do I believe I have everything perfect absolutely not, I seek feed back from players after every event, tweak missions using player feed back, and personal play testing, this thread even has me considering how to possibly emphasize some missions in my tournaments without including what I consider to be the unbalanced aspects of those missions.