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Hey guys, so I have been asked to organize a tournament for my local shop.

The points will be 1250 with 3 games.

Other than that the only thing set in stone is:

Cost of entry: $10 (includes lunch and prize support)
Prizes:
1st: $50
2nd: $40
two Raffles for $30

Now here is where I need your help. I want to make this the best tournament possible.

What would be your ideal tournament? If you could make any rules what would they be?

Please let me know your answers to these questions aswell as any other tips you will have:

1. What should be allowed to be used (fortifications, fw, escalation, allies)?
2. What scenarios would you use? (BRB or other) please specify?
3. Should full FOC be allowed or a limited FOC such as only one of each heavy/elite/fast to limit the cheese?
4. Should tables have preset terrain? If so how would you work in fortifications?
5. Should I promote a friendly atmosphere or competitive?
6. How would you reinforce rules?
7. How would you handle WYSIWYG/proxies/conversions?
8. How would you handle scoring? (win/loose, points killed, objectives=points)
9. Any other tips/information you would offer?

I have been to a bunch of tournament now and have some ideas, but I want to make this a fun tournament that will grow the hobby and attract players, and what better way to do that then include suggestions from players.

1. Allow everything, but put a limit on Destroyer weapons. (A cap I like is '1 Per army.' It's not perfect, but it is a good step in the right direction.')
2. BRB is fine, unless you want to write new ones.
3. Full FOC.
4. I like Preset terrain. Just don't make it too dense, so the Fortifications can be placed.
5. With a prize, it's going to be at least somewhat competitive no matter what you want.
6. If there's any rules question, have them check with the TO. If the TO doesn't have a solution, roll off. (I suggest you find someone really nuetral. I've seen a lot of TOs always defer to their friends, or whoever they think needs the handicap.)
7. 1 Proxy per army is a cap I like, so long as it has the proper base size.
8. Don't count VPs. A mission can have anywhere from 6 to 18+ VPs in it, so doing well in the 6 VP game wouldn't get you near as far as doing average in the 18 VP game. I like Lose: 0 Points, Draw: 2 Points, Win: 4 Points, Crushing Victory (Wipe or get every VP): 5 Points. Bonuses for having a fully painted army are nice too. (One or two extra points.) Most points at the end wins.

A 'Most Friendly Player' bonus is nice too. Have everybody rank all their oponents post-game, and either give them bonus points or a small prize of their own.

^that

I'd consider simply forbidding the use of superheavies, but the new knight codex makes it significantly harder to do that...

A maximum of 1/2 flyers per army maybe isn't a bad idea either.

Don't disallow FW stuff.

A maximum of 1/2 flyers per army maybe isn't a bad idea either.

how would nids plays , if they could take 1 flyer . Their builds are based around 4-6 flyers . Same with demons. IG needs at last 2-3 vendetta to do anti tank.

make an interesting story around the players involved and their armies as to why are they here in the first place etc

twinner wrote:


1. What should be allowed to be used (fortifications, fw, escalation, allies)? Allow everything except ranged D. However do what some other tournies have been adopting, make it so you can have your primary and one other detachment only. eg. Allies or 1 Dataslate or a Lord of War. Only one of these total not each. Fortifications are the exception.
2. What scenarios would you use? (BRB or other) please specify? BRB or write your own if your good at that thing.
3. Should full FOC be allowed or a limited FOC such as only one of each heavy/elite/fast to limit the cheese? Don't limit the Force Org.
4. Should tables have preset terrain? If so how would you work in fortifications? Preset terrain with one or 2 big LoS blocker in the middle. Don't make it too cluttered so Fortifications can be placed.
5. Should I promote a friendly atmosphere or competitive? Let this work its self out.
6. How would you reinforce rules?
7. How would you handle WYSIWYG/proxies/conversions? In a tournament I'd say a no to proxies and make sure almost everything is WYSIWYG. Conversions would be fine.
8. How would you handle scoring? (win/lose, points killed, objectives=points) What ever the mission specifies.
9. Any other tips/information you would offer?

How many places can the venue hold?
It's a big consideration as to how the tournament is structured/run.
If you only need to cover the prize money/lunch and break even ie 14 entrants then do whatever you fancy ruleswise, you'll find enough like minded people.
If this is a serious business venture and you are seating 200 then getting enough people in means your ruleset can't be too wacky then so be it.

3 games is a tough one to decide on a winner if there are a large number of entrants.
Basically you'll find guys playing in the top tier that want to table their opponents with minimal casualties as quickly as possible in order to win a drawn top slot on points difference.
This combined with a cash prize will lead to horrible cheese lists and a super competitive atmosphere.
I wouldn't attend.

1250 is low but will go quicker. I like 1500 myself.

I would allow super heavies just w no D. Are you allow Strong Hold?

What about data slates?

I would always allow the full player to end when time runs out btw.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
How many places can the venue hold?
It's a big consideration as to how the tournament is structured/run.
If you only need to cover the prize money/lunch and break even ie 14 entrants then do whatever you fancy ruleswise, you'll find enough like minded people.
If this is a serious business venture and you are seating 200 then getting enough people in means your ruleset can't be too wacky then so be it.

3 games is a tough one to decide on a winner if there are a large number of entrants.
Basically you'll find guys playing in the top tier that want to table their opponents with minimal casualties as quickly as possible in order to win a drawn top slot on points difference.
This combined with a cash prize will lead to horrible cheese lists and a super competitive atmosphere.
I wouldn't attend.

It has a maximum of 14 entrants for now, until we see the need for more.

twinner wrote:

What would be your ideal tournament? If you could make any rules what would they be?

Please let me know your answers to these questions aswell as any other tips you will have:

1. What should be allowed to be used (fortifications, fw, escalation, allies)?
2. What scenarios would you use? (BRB or other) please specify?
3. Should full FOC be allowed or a limited FOC such as only one of each heavy/elite/fast to limit the cheese?
4. Should tables have preset terrain? If so how would you work in fortifications?
5. Should I promote a friendly atmosphere or competitive?
6. How would you reinforce rules?
7. How would you handle WYSIWYG/proxies/conversions?
8. How would you handle scoring? (win/loose, points killed, objectives=points)
9. Any other tips/information you would offer?

I have been to a bunch of tournament now and have some ideas, but I want to make this a fun tournament that will grow the hobby and attract players, and what better way to do that then include suggestions from players.

It totally depends on your meta. Do you have a majority of hyper competitive people with access to all the toys? If so then open it up to everything. Do you have a basic group that does not have access to much. Then put limits on it.
1. Experienced meta= open to everything Inexperienced meta= limit to codexes or basic rules
2. Experienced meta = use BAO / LVO style missions. Inexperienced meta= use BRB.
3. Your point limit will take care of alot of this. But I would use full FOC
4. Preset terrain. They play Fort on the table where able, the TO adjusts the terrain if needed.
5. It should always be friendly even if competitive.
6. TO's word is law. Make sure you have all the FAQ's available.
7. We are lax here on that. But usually any proxy has to be run by the TO first.
8. We use Win/ Loss, then points for Tie Breakers here. However, I have seen Point totals for wins too. ( Either way just use the same match up chart)
9. Just have fun with it yourself. Allow plenty of time for the matchs, and annouce as time Ticks down. That way people do not start new turns with only 10-15 minutes left to play.

Check out the adepticon rules. They give you 3 pre determined missions and set ups so things go smoothly.

Another little thing is that the local tournaments I've gone to have pre determined amounts of terrain on the table but the first game the players take turns placing it. Each game after that the terrain remains the same.

Oh and another thing the adepticon rules do is introduce major victories, minor victories, draws, minor loss, and major loss. It makes it more dynamic than just win or lose.

Best of luck to your tournament!






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah and if someone had a fortification, they were allowed to remove one piece of terrain to place it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=3783

Peruse that to find the rules and what nots.

Perfect tournament?
That would be one with a ban on Tau. They're so broken it isn't even funny.

Thus saith the Eldar player..

I say, 0 points for a loss, 1 point for a tie, 3 points for a win.

Not sure if you want to add points for sportsmanship. From what I read, some people low ball it so they can win, so I wouldn't do sportsmanship.

Also painted armies, should't get bonus points. You shouldn't win a game if everything is even and the person won because of being painted. Have a separate jackpot or prize for best painted army. It's either fully painted or you allow non painted armies. Then a prize for the people who took the time to paint the armies separately.

Points for army composition that reward having a balanced army and punish having only the min troops required to make a "legal" list. IOW reward guys for bringing lots of full strength troops choices and hammer them for bringing more than one Riptide, for example.

Formation or ally, not both and pay a penalty for either.

Essentially what you should want to encourage is people to bring something other than the "standard" tournament list.

Limits on things that could completely dominate a low point game. Flyers are one. Super-heavies are another. I would say limit fliers in the form of a hard 0-1 choice and charge a penalty for a super-heavy.

Some concrete examples of what I would do:

+1 VP/troop choice 50% or more larger than the min size.

+1 VP/troop choice after 2 that is greater than min strength (additive with above; e.g. having 3 6-man Space Marine Tac squads would net you a +1 VP bonus, while having 3 8-man squads would net you a +4 bonus)

-2 VP/duplicate Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy choice (Spam penalty)

-2 VP/super-heavy with a 100% marginal increase in penalty for each after the first i.e. first costs you 2 second costs you 4 plus the 2 for the first, 6 more for the third and so on. Want to bring that IK list with 4 titans? Ok, you'll start the game with a 20pt VP deficit.

-2 VP/D strength weapon with a 100% marginal increase as above.

-1 VP/50pts or fraction thereof more than 250 spent on HQ.

-2 VP for spending more on Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy than Troops. Consider each independently.

-2 VP for an ally or formation choice.

-2 VP for spending more on an ally/formation than Troops in the primary detachment.

The overall idea is not to tell a guy that he can't bring a net-list, just make it almost impossible to win with one. Making a balanced list almost mandatory to be competitive makes winning more about playing well from deployment through the end of the game than building the uber list. The limitation on flyers and super-heavies is more driven by the low points limit on the game where such things will have a larger impact than they would in a larger scale game.

Yeah, that's a terrible idea Helotaxi. All you're doing is flipping the bird to certain armies who are already struggling and rewarding armies who have great troops. Lemme bring Orks, I'll take 150 Shoota Boys, one Big Mek with a KFF, and some Power Klaws all around for anti tank Or if I play Eldar, I can spam Wave Serpents with impunity to your restrictions. Starting with 10 or 12 free VPs with a competitive list.
Then you find a Sisters of Battle player....Oh, sorry, you're not allowed to win.
You play Space Wolves? Here, have some VPs.
You're a Tyranid Player? Screw you.
You play Knights as a primary army? Hahaha, nope.

Actually I am a Tyranid player and against a balanced list, their balanced lists compete just fine. Nidzilla lists might not be entirely viable, but they aren't balanced either.

Want to cut down on Serpent Spam, apply a penalty on Hull points above a certain point.

Since the general consensus is that the Codices aren't balanced with the newer one being incredibly overpowered compared to the older ones, restoring some semblance of balance by handicapping the games based on how the list was built would go a long way towards creating parity across the armies and making smart play more important than power-game list building.

helotaxi wrote:
Actually I am a Tyranid player and against a balanced list, their balanced lists compete just fine. Nidzilla lists might not be entirely viable, but they aren't balanced either.

Want to cut down on Serpent Spam, apply a penalty on Hull points above a certain point.

Since the general consensus is that the Codices aren't balanced with the newer one being incredibly overpowered compared to the older ones, restoring some semblance of balance by handicapping the games based on how the list was built would go a long way towards creating parity across the armies and making smart play more important than power-game list building.

Your list makes it impossible to play any army with a chance of winning, unless they have a solid troops choice. You're not balancing the game, you're unbalancing it in a different direction.
If you add a limiter on Vehicles, too, the following armies will become completely unplayable:
Sisters of Battle
Blood Angels
Chaos Daemon
Inquisition (They don't even *have* troops.)
Imperial Knights

Meanwhile, Orks and Space Wolves get free VPs for bringing their best units. Heck, White Scar Space Marines are a top-tier army and they'll be getting bonuses in spades too.


Is that your idea of balance? Kicking a bunch of armies who already aren't any good, making the OP armies still pretty good, and taking a couple armies and giving them a free-win button agaibst everyone but each other.

helotaxi wrote:
Points for army composition that reward having a balanced army and punish having only the min troops required to make a "legal" list. IOW reward guys for bringing lots of full strength troops choices and hammer them for bringing more than one Riptide, for example.

Formation or ally, not both and pay a penalty for either.

Essentially what you should want to encourage is people to bring something other than the "standard" tournament list.

Limits on things that could completely dominate a low point game. Flyers are one. Super-heavies are another. I would say limit fliers in the form of a hard 0-1 choice and charge a penalty for a super-heavy.

Some concrete examples of what I would do:

+1 VP/troop choice 50% or more larger than the min size.

+1 VP/troop choice after 2 that is greater than min strength (additive with above; e.g. having 3 6-man Space Marine Tac squads would net you a +1 VP bonus, while having 3 8-man squads would net you a +4 bonus)

-2 VP/duplicate Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy choice (Spam penalty)

-2 VP/super-heavy with a 100% marginal increase in penalty for each after the first i.e. first costs you 2 second costs you 4 plus the 2 for the first, 6 more for the third and so on. Want to bring that IK list with 4 titans? Ok, you'll start the game with a 20pt VP deficit.

-2 VP/D strength weapon with a 100% marginal increase as above.

-1 VP/50pts or fraction thereof more than 250 spent on HQ.

-2 VP for spending more on Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy than Troops. Consider each independently.

-2 VP for an ally or formation choice.

-2 VP for spending more on an ally/formation than Troops in the primary detachment.

The overall idea is not to tell a guy that he can't bring a net-list, just make it almost impossible to win with one. Making a balanced list almost mandatory to be competitive makes winning more about playing well from deployment through the end of the game than building the uber list. The limitation on flyers and super-heavies is more driven by the low points limit on the game where such things will have a larger impact than they would in a larger scale game.

If I bring 4 Imperial Knights I'll get:

-20 VP for bringing 4 superheavies
-20 VP for bringing 4 units with Strength D weaponry
-2 or -3 (depending if it's past a 50 point mark or reach a 50 point mark since the HQ/ warlord is expensive.

Across 3 games you're looking at -126 to -129 VP just for placing models on the board.

For the same points let's look at Eldar

Farseer with Jetbike and Mantle of the Laughing God

10x Dire Avengers with Wave Serpent, Scatter Laser, Holo field
Bring 5 of them.

+5 VP for bringing more than minimal troop
+15 VP for bringing an additional 3 full strength Troops

That's +60 VP across 3 games just for putting a Wave Serpent Spam on the board.

See the disparity?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

helotaxi wrote:
Actually I am a Tyranid player and against a balanced list, their balanced lists compete just fine. Nidzilla lists might not be entirely viable, but they aren't balanced either.

Want to cut down on Serpent Spam, apply a penalty on Hull points above a certain point.

Since the general consensus is that the Codices aren't balanced with the newer one being incredibly overpowered compared to the older ones, restoring some semblance of balance by handicapping the games based on how the list was built would go a long way towards creating parity across the armies and making smart play more important than power-game list building.

Applying a penalty to a Wave Serpent spam would basically put a penalty to to most vehicles period.
Most vehicles (wave serpents, rhinos, predators, chimera, dreadnoughts, etc) have 3 hull points. Then other vehicles like the landraider, monolith, and imperial knights have more than than 3 hull points. You've basically placed a penalty on 80+% of the vehicles. Only vehicles that won't get affected are those that can be boltered to death.

This penalty would only benefit the tyranid army.

Then do nothing and see the exact same lists and deathstars dominate and have the same old, boring, predictable tournament that is won with list building, not smart play. I'm not saying that my idea is perfect, but something along those lines is what you'd have to do to make it interesting.

And, yes *a* termagant is weak. So is *1* ork boy, but you're trying to apply your idea of what is a "good" troop and a "competitive" army compared to an unrestricted list and the current tournament meta. When the meta changes, what is actually competitive changes as well.

And your math or reading is bad, 5 full troop squads would only net you +8, total, not +20. But, yes, we all know that Eldar are broken, yet again. That said spamming Wave Serpents is at least in line with the fluff. And if you can't see how horribly OP running even a single super-heavy would be in a small game then this discussion is all a lost cause.

I have a tournament rule that solves every deathstar problem in the game without banning or comping any codex or unit.

Rule:
No more than one Independent Character per unit as any one time.

Boom, every deathstar is solved.

 buddha wrote:
I have a tournament rule that solves every deathstar problem in the game without banning or comping any codex or unit.

Rule:
No more than one Independent Character per unit as any one time.

Boom, every deathstar is solved.

That's... Really not a bad idea at all. It's got a couple minor issues, but I don't see any major problems with it.

My perfect tournament is one where I win

helotaxi wrote:
Then do nothing and see the exact same lists and deathstars dominate and have the same old, boring, predictable tournament that is won with list building, not smart play. I'm not saying that my idea is perfect, but something along those lines is what you'd have to do to make it interesting.

And, yes *a* termagant is weak. So is *1* ork boy, but you're trying to apply your idea of what is a "good" troop and a "competitive" army compared to an unrestricted list and the current tournament meta. When the meta changes, what is actually competitive changes as well.

And your math or reading is bad, 5 full troop squads would only net you +8, total, not +20. But, yes, we all know that Eldar are broken, yet again. That said spamming Wave Serpents is at least in line with the fluff. And if you can't see how horribly OP running even a single super-heavy would be in a small game then this discussion is all a lost cause.

[Read the following excerpt in a neutral tone (i.e., its not meant to condescend nor to extol you)]

First things first my math nor reading is "bad". +1 VP per troop choice that is 50% or more larger than min size would give me +5 VP. Each Dire Avenger Squad at full strength is 10 members. Minimum squad size is 5 members. Being 50% or more than minimum size means they have to at least contain 7.5 members which they fulfill thus giving +5 VP. Next, each troop choice, after the first 2, that is greater than minimum strength gets an additive +1 VP. After the two troop choices, there's the three squads of 10 Dire Avengers to consider. Using your example (3 6-man Spac Marine Tac squads gives you +1 VP, while 3 8-man squads gives you +4 VP), it leads me to believe that you gain an additional +1 VP per extra member that is greater than minimal size. So each of the squad has 5 extra members greater than minimal strength, thus giving +5 VP. Multiply that by 3 squads (since the first two don't count), thats an additional +15 VP. Either I failed to correctly interpret your writing or you've failed to correctly portray your thoughts. Either way, +8 or +20 will make a huge impact which you've seemed to have recognized.

Secondly I know not if you've actually played against a superheavy in escalation but they can be taken down. I played two games using imperial knights and both times I have lost. I lost to a Dark Eldar army and a Necron army. Imperial Knights die easily enough. Granted it was a 1500 point game but I personally don't know you're definition of a small game. (I consider anything 1500 and below a small game since I regularly play 2000+ games). Even at lower point values superheavies can be taken out. With perhaps the exception of the Shadowblade, Revanant Titan, and a Thunderhawk, the weapons fired by them are not strength D thus even invulnerable and cover saves can be taken against them. Most superheavies fire blasts which means flyers are unaffected thus offering a counter. So no I don't think MOST superheavies are OP. If you think this discussion is still a lost cause then that is fine by me.

Also, nowhere in my post did I say the idea itself was bad. What I wrote was to show the flaws in the idea and how it could potentially make the situation worse. The fact that you even came up with that is already better than what I can do because frankly, balancing everything from escalation to allies is not trivial. You read the few posts above mine decrying your ability to balance a tournament, calling it "a terrible idea" and "unbalancing it in a different direction" and became defensive. Without being able to hear my tone since words can't convey pitch and already being defensive, you (understandably) lash out at the last person who supposedly wronged you which in this case is me. I guess that's what these are for . So go through my posts and know that I am not insulting your intelligence.

I would really like to go to a tournament where you design the list the other player has to use for that game... (just put some restriction like it must be within 10 points of the specified points limit)

It's probably a horrible idea but I'm really curious what kinds of things would come out of that.

Anything goes. Casual games are for make believe rules.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I would really like to go to a tournament where you design the list the other player has to use for that game... (just put some restriction like it must be within 10 points of the specified points limit)

It's probably a horrible idea but I'm really curious what kinds of things would come out of that.

Orks get to field 10-man Flash Gitz squads with no transports, Tyranids field zero synapse and a bunch of Pyrovores, Space Marines field mass squads of Vanguard Vets, Sisters of Battle get massed Penitent Engine...

Waaaghpower wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
I would really like to go to a tournament where you design the list the other player has to use for that game... (just put some restriction like it must be within 10 points of the specified points limit)

It's probably a horrible idea but I'm really curious what kinds of things would come out of that.

Orks get to field 10-man Flash Gitz squads with no transports, Tyranids field zero synapse and a bunch of Pyrovores, Space Marines field mass squads of Vanguard Vets, Sisters of Battle get massed Penitent Engine...

That might actually be the best way to balance 40k come to think of it. That is a sad sad thing...

If you really want to avoid heavy mercenary attitudes and keep things more to a 'friendly competitive' spirit, then avoid just giving out blanket cash/store credit for simply 1st/2nd/3rd finishing.

Instead, breakdown your prize bracket as:
Overall Champion = best combined score
Best General = most Battle points scored
Best Sportsmanship
Best Appearance

Typically you can break the scoring categories down as:
ie: a 100pts tournament scores thusly;
60pts for Battle scores (actual gameplay)
25 or 30pts for Sportsmanship
15 or 10pts for painting

The focus is still bent more towards the actual game results, but you're also wanting to ensure that the guys who wins isn't just the local Troll running their face-wrecking FotM pile of grey plastic. Plus there's nothing worse than seeing the top prize, (ie: overall), go to the biggest donkey cave in the room that everyone hated playing against! (or else is simply thankful they didn't have to put up with for an hour or so!)

The other big plus towards keeping the more traditional 'hobby brackets' in the event is that it also helps encourage everyone to come out and participate, instead of being entirely slanted to only specific group interest.
Myself for example, I'm NEVER going to win the gaming side of any tournament - my dice suck way too much! (as in, the only time I roll above a 2 tends to be when taking Ld or stat tests, at which point I can only seem to roll 6's!) Thus, any tournament that only ever offers 1st/2nd/3rd placings is pointless and I'll avoid it like the plague. But, if there's say a painting award, even if it's only say $20 store credit compared to the 1st place's $50-60 prize, I'm game for it because there's something I can aim for! (likewise, everyone should be aiming for the best sports award!)
On the other hand, if you only offer prizes for being a nice guy and having a golden demon standard army, then the guys who enjoy the actual game playing will ignore your event(s).