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Hey everyone,

I've recently encountered one of what I think may sound like a good idea on paper, but could be a really bad idea in execution.

This is a tournament that's coming up at a place not too far from where I live.

The idea is that you must buy a Battleforce before the end of the month from said store, assemble and paint a 500 pt. army to play by Mid-April. You are limited to the contents of that box, no upgrades or customization other than what the Battleforce allows.

For me as an Ork player especially, this is extremely un-balanced. I don't know how other Battle-forces would fare, but I can't see anything but a huge slaughter for anyone with an Ork force. Firstly, because the total force only comes to about 280- 300 pts, far shy of a 500 pt Force.

1. The Trukk would be virtually useless, unless you split the mob up into squads of 10 and 10 (since there is only 20x Boyz). Still that's just asking to lose 2 Boy Squads in a turn of shooting. Otherwise, you're stuck with a 40pt Big Shoota, that can move 12".
2. AFAIK, there isn't a Power Klaw Nob in the Battle-Force. I could be wrong, but that would make the Ork boyz even more painfully weak.
3. Lastly, 3 bikers that have one wound a pop would probably die or run after taking a couple of shots. They might be the only ones lucky enough to make into combat, but I really can't see them killing more than one small squad.

So, I don't think I'm going to play, considering it's a good distance away and even if I had the money to buy a Battleforce, I wouldn't really want to travel 45 min or so to buy one, then come back and rush to get it painted. Unless I thought I had a really good chance of winning. But if I did get an army, it would probably be something I don't play already.

At any rate, I just wanted to see what other people thought. Is it just Orks that would get screwed on this? How do you think other BattleForces would fare? I think Space Wolves and perhaps Tyranids have a good chance, but I can see a lot of extremely one-sided battles happening.

what do you mean by limited to the contents of the box? could you make nob bikers out of the bikers? or ard boyz out of the boyz?
its sounds pretty dumb, but i understand what they were getting at...

What we were told is you cant "upgrade" things beyond the contents of the box. The reason being is where would you stop. Here is one thing i came up with why they dont want upgrading. You get a Chaos BF. Inside is ten regular marines a little GS and you got plagues. More or less what they are after is the picture on the box is the way you are to build it. Painting is part of the score along with the tourney itself. I too didnt like it much because you are very limited to customization and take pride in my stuff being a little different than the norm.

Well I guess IG isnt going to be winning this tourney hahah

Joetaco wrote:what do you mean by limited to the contents of the box? could you make nob bikers out of the bikers? or ard boyz out of the boyz?
its sounds pretty dumb, but i understand what they were getting at...

Thats a good question. Vindicator, do you know if you would be allowed to have Nob Bikers and 'Ard Boyz? I have a feeling the answer would be no, but I'm not sure. If you could, Orks might have a fighting chance, though I still think it sucks tremendously that you can't give the Boyz a Nob with a PK (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that).

Otherwise, I think Orks would be toast and it's really unfair that some armies would only come out to half the 500 pt limit.

What other armies do you guys think would be really good or really bad in this format?

Anyways, these are the actual "rules", posted on the site. I guess the idea is to get people to buy a Battleforce box and see who can paint it up nicely and do good with limited options. Again, sounds fun on paper, but I think it's extremely skewed towards certain armies with better overall contents in a box.

To enter this exciting event, all you have to do is purchase a 40k Battleforce between now and the end of April.

The tournament will happen on Saturday May 22, at 12:30 PM

500 Points

You may only use models from the Battleforce Box.

There is no force organization for this tournament.

Models may not be converted from one type to another, unless the box allows it (i.e. Space Wolves)

If the box comes with a unit of warbikers, you should have the parts to make 3 Nobs, 1 from the bikes and 2 from the boyz.

Besides, do any of the boxes come with an HQ

That tourney format comes up once in a while, and is always won by the guy that buys necrons. At least they gave you a points limit.

Darkness wrote:If the box comes with a unit of warbikers, you should have the parts to make 3 Nobs, 1 from the bikes and 2 from the boyz.

Besides, do any of the boxes come with an HQ

So, are there 2 Nobz with Pks for a squad of 20x Boyz? I didn't think there was since it never seemed to show in the Pics, but I wasn't sure. IF that's the case than the Orks would be much better off. Especially if you could take Nob Bikers.

Darkness wrote:Besides, do any of the boxes come with an HQ

i'm pretty sure none do, but the IG one might (i'm not really sure what that banner squad is)

No they dont come with an HQ. That is a good question i will tell ya in a couple minutes. The one army i do have a feeling there will be a crapton of is SWs. Actually chaos stands a really good chance is this kind of tourney for once.


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By the looks of it yes you would be able to make Nob bikers out of the BF but would lack Nobs in your boy mobs. So instead you would have Nob bikers and 22 boyz. If IIRC the Ork BF says 20 boyz when in actuality it has 20 boyz plus 2nobs since they are the ork box set in there. I cant be 100% though.

Joetaco wrote:

Darkness wrote:Besides, do any of the boxes come with an HQ

i'm pretty sure none do, but the IG one might (i'm not really sure what that banner squad is)

The Tau box has a lone crisis suit.

The ravnwing box is the only spot (excluding ebay) to get the parts to make the master of the ravingwing landspeeder. that would be a tought box IMO. 6 bikes, 1 attack bike and a 14 front and side armor, TL assault cannon and TL HB? fast and powerful.

Does GW still sell those though? That is also one of the stipulations not mentioned. You have to buy the BF at their store. Reason being is they wanted to give a limited amount of time to put together base and paint the entire BF.

Does the FOC apply in any way?

Nope.

I believe they still do, my FLGS has a few of em.


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Where is this going to be btw? I also live in the state of hate (ohio)

Well, it is a terrible tournament idea, but it's one guaranteed to make the shop a few bucks. The grasping of it all aside, there's nothing wrong with supporting your FLGS... unless it's one of those hybrid hobby stores that focuses on board games and model trains with a little GW section in a corner, closely scrutinised by a security camera.

*cough*Hobbytown*cough*
I keep forgeting you live in Ohio Whale. It is in Newark Ohio. It looks like it might be a little of a haul for ya but hell we have had guys come from freakin Michigan to play in some tourneys. Krak_kirby came last weekend to the shop and he lives in Dayton. Go to comicshopplus.com to see all the upcoming events.

The guard box would be destroyed. To really use all of the pieces you would have to run a platoon with a sentinel or two vet squads a sentinel and two weird command squads (to include the heavy weapons without platooning).

Woo yeah thats a drive. might be doable over the summer. Im more of a casual gamer though, less turny


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On topic, probally wont be able to hit this one, as it would take 2 trips

But with the ravenwing bforce, you could even turn the bikes into a troop choice wth the landspeeder as a hq choice

Vindicator#9 wrote:What we were told is you cant "upgrade" things beyond the contents of the box. The reason being is where would you stop.

Where would you stop?

At the points limit I would imagine. That is why we have points limits and codexes full of point costs right?

If you can build a certain model/unit type from the model in the battle force and it is WYSIWYG and within the points limit then I don't see the issue.

Sounds like a half-baked excuse to clear out some battle forces or meet a sales quota...

Would a better idea not simply have been 500point tourney, $5 to play (or whatever), but you get a free ticket if you buy a battleforce this month?

Everyone gets a decent game, the store gets cash from people who can't afford a BF box and incentivises people who were thinking of buying a BF box anyway?

Or is that too much like common sense...

It is an interesting idea but they haven't thought it through.

The Tau box actually does contain well over 500 points worth of figures including what you could spend on wargear options.

The Tyranid box contains about 500 points at a quick glance, but you have almost nothing with any anti-tank capability and would have to assemble everything with Rending Claws to give you a chance against any vehicles.

I like Chimera-Calvin's idea.

If you are interested in the tournament you could raise your concerns with the promoter.

If they were doing this properly everyone would have the same army.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat180004&prodId=prod1620016&rootCatGameStyle=

I would say you would be allowed to take anything listed there.

It even says, "With this box set you can make the following:"

So as long as its ANYTHING listed there, you're good.

Nids don't have an HQ in their box unless you turn one of the warriors into a Prime but then you cannot field the other warriors. Your only anti-tank would be stealers unless you put a VC on the warriors along with rending claws which the box does not come with enough of. Everything is scoring other than the rippers though but that is the only bright spot.

I was just relaying what was told to me by the manager. I dont like the way they set this up either and why i am not partaking in this tourney beside the $90 buy in for it. I wish they would have done something similar to what Calvin said.

I played in one of these for warhammer fantasy. It was a interesting idea, which as the write said, seemed awesome on paper. It worked different in fantasy as you were given 1 battle force, and could add 2 hero's from blisters. I played dwarves.

The event was actually really fun. The basic theme was you gained points for painting score. I ended up placing 2nd with dwarves, but I got boat loads of stuff because I was the only person to finish the painted army. There was 1 kicker though.

You had 1 weekend to paint the army. IE you buy the army friday, and has to be painted by monday. How the tomb king player didn't paints his army I still do not understand. The match up vs ogre's sucked, but they hate cannonballs.

Realistically, the match ups were not at all even. Example: bretonnia player with 1 unit of knights and peasants, did not do well. Ogre's entire army causes fear, most armies are leadership 7 in their battle box, not good. These types of events are fun if you have a group of guys not caring whose going to win, and doing it for fun. Throw in a couple of competitive guys, its a spell for disaster.

They did this at the Warhammer World store (maybe where the store guy got the idea for it).
Except their events was a doubles tournament, they had 1 each for fantasy and 40k and it was more of a hobby event. That is, it was more about what you could kitbash out of the box set.

Battle Brothers

Battle Brothers is a doubles gaming tournament during the February half term of 2010, that gives you the perfect excuse to expand upon an existing army or start a new one. We are letting you know now, so that you have plenty of time to prepare!

Your ticket is free with any purchase of a Battalion or Battleforce set in the Warhammer World store.

The army that you use in the tournament can only be the box contents of your Battle Force or Battalion, out of which you can also create up to one character (of any level for Warhammer 40,000, or of Hero level for Warhammer Fantasy Battle).

However, there are no other army restrictions or points limits, so whatever you can make out of the models in your set is allowed. This gives you some fantastic opportunities to convert your various figures.

Lots of extra points will be awarded for painting, and there will also be 'best painted' awards for single characters and for armies.

To find out more, or to take part, contact the store.

This is the blurb I took from their site.

I like the idea. Gives people a chance to start a new army and/or try out some modeling or converting.
You just have to make sure it is run right.
The event you're talking about sounds like the guy in charge is trying to put too many restrictions on it.
I tried to set up one of these locally but we couldn't get more than about 7 people interested. Which is our usual gaming group basically.

My plan was to run orks. Make a biker warboss to lead em. Add some plasticard to the truck to make it a battlewagon if I could and use the other 2 bikes and some trukk accessories, like the wrecking ball to make a dread.