40K: Three Alternate Tournament Formats Perfect For 8th Edition
Regular old tournaments got you feeling down? Bored of the same old same old? Try these hot new formats out!
Tournaments are a time honored tradition of 40K. Over the past year or so however I feel they’ve gotten a little stale. While the ITC has brought some standardization to the competitive scene, it also made it a little stale. Most events are run in a very similar fashion and you see a lot of similar armies showing up again and again and again. Now FAQS, Chapter Approveds and a new Codex or two are all great ways of changing things up, but there is another, easier way to do it also: new tournament formats. Like take a look at a few types of events people could run that are just perfect for 8th Edition.
The “One Army, One Codex” Tournament
Allies, soup, mixed <keyword>, armies. all of these a staple of 8th Edition. They are a constant target of hate and complaints. Almost every comment section that even touches on the meta has someone(s) asking for allies to be removed. Well tournaments actually have an easy way of doing that. Just make each player limited to picking his army list from a single codex. Its a simple idea that could really change up an event and level the playing field. There are two ways to do it. The first is tell each player when making their list they must pick a printed Codex, and then can only pick units/options from that book. That limits them to just one “army”. It also gets rid of all the Index mess, as well as any Forge World Imperial Armor shenanigans.
The downside here is that it would cut some units out of the game altogether and currently mean you could’t play Sisters of Battle and Genestealer Cult at all. So there is a second option here, that is limit each player to a signal detachment. This would also force them chose from a single “army”, but would allow the use of Index units, Imperial Armor etc., as long as it fit in the detachment and had the right keywords. Using this option would also limit CPs and prevent players from mixed <craftworld>/<chapter>/<etc> armies. Either of these options would force players to innovate and change things up.
The Power Level Tournament
Power Level is a pretty key part of the game, but its been largely ignored by tournaments and competitive players. And for good reason, its not part of the matched player rules, and its a lot less balanced than points. While power level can work great in friendly, its easily abused. Still, given how core it is to 8th, its a surprise not to see Power Level tournaments. Its a simple idea really, just use power level for picking armies rather than points. I actually think this could have some cool effects. A lot of units are better in PL than they are in points. You’d see a whole new meta spring up, and many ignored units could suddenly become good.
The main thing here is that as long as all players have the same expectations it should be pretty fair. The goal would be to actually abuse PL as much as possible. Trick out all those units to your hearts content. Take ALL the upgrades. Get the most out of the PL you are paying anyway. You’d see a lot of stuff that no one would ever pay points for suddenly show up on the table top. Crazy wacky things, like tricked out Terminator squads, that would never make it in traditional events. It would be broken for sure, but its own kind of broken, and a nice diversion.
Events That Mess With Detachments and CPs
Tournaments, with their wacky, crazy and often complicated mission seem like the perfect place to mess with CPs. And yet I haven’t really seen any events that do anything but play CPs straight by the book. It would be pretty easy and simple to mess with CPs. From having some mission objectives that grant extra CPs to entirely revamping how you get CPs (maybe from holding objectives points, rather than detachments?), tournaments have the power to try new things out. You could also have events or missions add new and generic stratagems, like some of the wacky missions in the BRB.
Hand-in-hand with this is the idea that tournaments could mess with detachments. If you are already changing how CPs are earned, why not change up the detachments a bit? Maybe only allow a few of them? Or make up your own detachment. Force all the players to only use the old Force Org chart. There are a lot of options.
Change It Up
The idea here is not that ALL tournaments should adopt these ideas, but that some should. Any of these, or all of them, would help change things up. You’d see new lists and new ideas at play. Units that are junk in the current meta might make come backs. Players would have to innovate, something we’ve seen far too little of lately. Anything to change things up and add a little fun to a few events would I think be good. So go out there and get your TO to give it a try!
