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I have been giving some thought to the design of tournaments.

The release of Escalation rules has lead to certain tourneys nerfing / banning various parts of 40k, which strikes me as impractical and out-of-line with the idea of a competitive gaming system. If every organized event can have it's own set of rules, the results of each event don't really mean anything relative to the others. Similarly, the question of what army is the most competitive seems to be changing. It's more a question of what army has the best superheavy, as they have so much of an impact on the outcomes of games (see An'ggrath to understand my point).

As it stands, the success of competitive play is primarily based on a lack of balance between sides, with players seeking advantages based on Codex and unit selection. The top performing armies in most tournaments are fairly homogenous, and the lists that are winning seem to be very similar if not the same. Winning consists of scoring points through a series of trials, where W / L, along with achieving objectives, is used to determine the 'winner.' The outcomes of the tournaments are tied directly to the mechanics of the game, which are driven by market forces and the need to constantly sell new models.

I wonder why it has to be this way. I have never believed tournaments were an indicator of the relative strength of Codexes. What separates a top-tier Codex from a third-tier Codex can be as little as a single loss. What separates a pair of individual players can be as simple as holding a single objective somewhere in a match. A lot of this is related to the fact every army list is built to be TAC, which is easier to do in some Codexes than others. If this is what is meant by competitive play, it's a poor standard at best since it doesn't really reflect the nature of the hobby. Most people I know try to build cool armies moreso than build things that can beat everything.

What if tournaments were less about building a single list that can beat everything else, and more about building a force that wins by adapting to each battle? Call this a progressive tournament. Here's how I would see a system like this working:

- Players bring armies up to X points, say 5,000.

- The first round, each player fields a 500 point army. Each player puts together his list out of the 5,000 or so points of stuff he has and fights. Points are awarded based on W / L and achieving objectives.

- The second round is for 1000 points. You put together a new list out of whatever you have and award points based on W / L and achieving objectives.

- The following rounds are for more points, with the armies becoming bigger until you reach a ceiling. Some tournaments could go to 2k, some to 5k. The ceiling is what decides what can and cannot be used, not some artificial set of rules each TO comes up with.

It seems to me a system like this would have some advantages and be more interesting to a larger number of players for the following reasons:

1) It evaluates the strength of Codexes at multiple points levels. It answers the question of which Codex is most competitive at X points?

2) It can scale to any number of points without making the outcomes irrelevant compared to other tournaments. The outcomes of a 2k points tourney can be relevant in relation to a 5k point tourney up to the points cost.

3) It diminishes the importance of the TAC and WAAC lists. You see a broader choice of units in lists optimized to fight specific opponents at each level, increasing the range of tactical decisions to be made and leading to more interesting games.

4) It rewards the best general instead of the most OP Codex. The person who can win in the largest number of situations comes away rewarded for his tactical expertise.

5) It diminishes the impact of new 'rules' that may emerge, and gives players more of a level playing field . If GW decides to release a new, horribly expensive monster unit, it can only have so much impact on the outcomes because it simply can't be bought at lower levels.

Thoughts?

 techsoldaten wrote:
3) It diminishes the importance of the TAC and WAAC lists. You see a broader choice of units in lists optimized to fight specific opponents at each level, increasing the range of tactical decisions to be made and leading to more interesting games.

How exactly does it do this instead of, say, having the Tau player bring one Riptide at 500 points, two Riptides at 1000 points, three at 1500, etc? I don't see any way to justify your assumption that you're going to get anything other than 500 point WAAC/TAC lists followed by 1000 point WAAC/TAC lists, and so on until the final round.

Plus, if your goal is encouraging in-game skill over list building then the last thing you want to do is get rid of TAC lists. TAC lists are your best hope for a balanced game, if you replace them with unbalanced lists you get a rock/paper/scissors metagame where your matchup is more important than any decisions you make during the game. For example, your 500 point list has room for melta guns to deal with AV 14, but has no AA to deal with flyers. Since you don't have a TAC list the biggest factor in whether you win is whether your IG opponent took a LRBT or a Vendetta.

4) It rewards the best general instead of the most OP Codex. The person who can win in the largest number of situations comes away rewarded for his tactical expertise.

Unless you have a codex that scales well and a player who brings the most overpowered list at every point level. Playing at different point levels doesn't require more tactical expertise, it just presents different list optimization problems to solve.

5) It diminishes the impact of new 'rules' that may emerge, and gives players more of a level playing field . If GW decides to release a new, horribly expensive monster unit, it can only have so much impact on the outcomes because it simply can't be bought at lower levels.

But that only applies to new big units. If you have new smaller units then your structure does nothing to stop it. And then of course you get things like the 500 point lists that bring a superheavy, where GW's new rules ruin the game all the way down to the smallest point level.