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Hey all, so i wanted to see how dakkanaughts felt about playing in games with odd number teams, more specifically a 3 team game.

Recently, i have played a few of them and honestly tried to like them, but even after turn 2, i end up not enjoying them. Even after the ol college try, i have come to the conclution its best for me to not play three way games, simply because i get a bit salty, and I dont wanna like getting that way.


I have just personally found that odd number teams always end up the same, the person that sits backs in their deployment ends up winning.

I always notice that 2 of the 3 teams fight, then the 3rd comes in and mops up the last 2. The first team to start in on the down hill slope is always the first one picked off, which really does not make it fun at all imo, fighting 2 armies at once and just getting decimated.

Whats Dakkas thoughts? three way, or odd number team games.

Good or bad?

Fair or unfair?

Can they be balanced in the current system?

Would they be more balanced if you used a bolt hammer system? (Picking dice outta a bag to have a unit go its full turn like bolt action)

I never even try odd way games that are not kill team. At my club when we do multi people games it's always as teams. So say we have 3 guys. One guy gets 2000 points and the others get 1000 each. It works well.

Odd numbers of factions can work, but you can't use regular 40k rules for model activation. I've only done this twice, but we just set up a roster of our squads, listing them in a row. They are then activated in that order - Player one uses his first squad, Player two uses his first squad, Player three.... so on and so forth.

That or you have two of the players take half the points and fight one force but as two separate entities. I find this one is the easiest and most fun for everyone involved.

I have done it in kill team and normal games, and it never seems to end up balanced, the winner is always the person who did not get assaulted turn one or two.

Because no matter what you do, the person coming in last always has the advantage, because they get charge on people in combat ect ect.

Honestly I think from now on im just gotta opt outta it, since i dont like getting salty over games, but with how unbalanced it is, even in a kill team, its just not worth getting flustered over.

I think if it used bot action unit activation it would be fine.

An easy solution is to provide each side with a different objective beyond "hey, kill those guys". This gives each team something to concentrate on and combat the opponents as well. Unfortunately the arms race and slaughterfest that GW has become means that most objectives can be skipped completely and you can table someone in a turn or two apparently ---- so...your mileage may vary.

It's workable if you're using a scenario that encourages pushing forward quickly, it's hard if someone's playing a gunline.

It will become ganking. Someone will be perceived as the greater threat and get 2v1'd.

With one exception (for a player I couldn't stand, and there are very few of those) I will play as part of a team, and I will always play against a team. Team games are less prefereable than non team games, but I would rather everyone get a game in than play with even players on each side.

Three way games always end up awkward. For it not to end up with the middle most person getting screwed over, you'd need a triangle board. And it might still happen.

What I've done that has been a bit more fun is run a bigger game where one person is against two. The two each bring smaller lists, the one brings a larger one. An example would be 2 1k lists, and 1 2k list. That being said, with the current formations, it probably wouldn't work well, when I played that was before the current mess of formations.

When we would play with 3 players, each typicall gets a random quarter, 18" separation. You can't attack the centre player in the first turn.

Each gets one objective, plus one in the centre. Works out ok.

I've played with 7 people on an 8x4 board, every man for himself. Kill points [value of destroyed models]. We cut everything up into a 2x2 section, and you had to deploy in a random section. No space requirements between enemy models. It was silly, but we had fun.

Depends on what you're looking for, but no attacking someone that hasn't had a turn yet works well too, or only attacking the player to your right / left on your first turn... something like that can also help balance the 1st turn screw-over of one player.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I have just personally found that odd number teams always end up the same, the person that sits backs in their deployment ends up winning.

Make it so it is never beneficial for anyone to sit back. Put objectives in the middle. Alternatively, give one team an objective they have to protect. That focuses everybody on them and balances things quiet nicely.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I always notice that 2 of the 3 teams fight, then the 3rd comes in and mops up the last 2. The first team to start in on the down hill slope is always the first one picked off, which really does not make it fun at all imo, fighting 2 armies at once and just getting decimated.

Whats Dakkas thoughts? three way, or odd number team games.

That's where the fun part begins. Assuming that you don't want to have two players in one alliance against a superior third, war is random. Take a look at the battle in the Battle of the Bastards episode of Game of Thrones. It's messy, ugly and chaotic. Having multiple armies running around adds to the randomness of it all.

Lionheart713 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I have just personally found that odd number teams always end up the same, the person that sits backs in their deployment ends up winning.

Make it so it is never beneficial for anyone to sit back. Put objectives in the middle. Alternatively, give one team an objective they have to protect. That focuses everybody on them and balances things quiet nicely.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I always notice that 2 of the 3 teams fight, then the 3rd comes in and mops up the last 2. The first team to start in on the down hill slope is always the first one picked off, which really does not make it fun at all imo, fighting 2 armies at once and just getting decimated.

Whats Dakkas thoughts? three way, or odd number team games.

That's where the fun part begins. Assuming that you don't want to have two players in one alliance against a superior third, war is random. Take a look at the battle in the Battle of the Bastards episode of Game of Thrones. It's messy, ugly and chaotic. Having multiple armies running around adds to the randomness of it all.

Problem is your first point causes the problem, by putting the point in the middle, the player that hangs back is going to have the advantage.

Dont get me wrong, i like multiple player games, i dont like getting gang banged from both sides during melee by two players because even though its unspoken, its more beneficial for them to kill off one player then go for the other.

They've never as fun as having an even number of people on each side. I've had fun 2v3 and 1v2 games, but the 2v2 and 3v3 games were always better balanced and more fun.

It’s a problem with all 3 player dynamics. It’s really hard to make things fun and balanced for everyone. 40k’s core system being based solidly on 2 people taking alternating turns does not help here.

Unless you want to make custom scenarios and mod they system extensively, you are much better off just doing 2 sides and dividing the points up. Easy, simple, and it works.

Eh, they can work, but the games not built that way. 2v1 is usually better than 1v1v1

I would think doing a bolt hammer system would probably work better for it, vs turns since again, you suffer from the problem of who ever is gets in combat first is the unlucky one.