Warhammer 40K: Knight Jousting & Free-For-All Fun
It’s time to bust out your Imperial Knights and throwdown the gauntlet with these fun rules!
Back in June of 2018 we came up with some fun rules for Freeblade Free-For-All fights. With Engine War Looming we’ve been revving up our Knights to get prepared. And today, Warhammer Community released another short story titled The Joust by Dirk Wehner and that inspired us to change up the rules a tad.
These rules were created to be flexible and aren’t official in any way. These were just what we used for our game and they worked. This format is not meant to be “srs bsns 40k.” It’s just about getting some friends together and smashing giant robots!
Free-For-All Rules:
- Players – Recommended 4-8 players (or more – table size is the limit)
- Each Player Picks a Knight or a pair of Armigers
- Roll randomly for your Qualities (you get 2 – if you roll doubles, the second roll does NOTHING as per the rules).
- Roll randomly for your Burden (you get 1)
- If they are playing Armigers, Qualities and Burdens apply to BOTH.
- Deploy in the corners randomly (if you’re playing on a 6×4 with 4 players). If you have more than 4 players split the table up as equal as possible and deploy on a table-edge and try to stay at least 18″ apart.
- At the start of each round, players roll off to see the turn order. Highest roll goes first. In the case of a tie, those players roll off between each other.
- You cannot fire into a close-combat you are not involved in – Knights still have a sense of honor.
- You can CHARGE into an existing close-combat. This will trigger a new round of melee for all parties. Resolve the fight phase a normal based off initiative order.
- Last Knight standing is the winner.
If you wanted to hand-pick your traits or even pick a specific house and load-out, we’re not here to police that. But the spirit of the game is meant to be fun and light-hearted. In fact, we encourage table-talk and attempting to make alliances with your fellow Knights…Just remember at the end of the day, there can only be one champion.
Also, there are some traits that might only apply if you are targeting a character or enemy warlord – just assume those still count when you’re fighting against another player. We’re here to encourage metal-on-metal destruction and not limit it!
Joust Rules
The Joust is a noble tradition for a duel between two Knights. Use the same rules as above with the following modifications:
- Players: 1v1 – (It’s a Joust!)
- Knights Only – Sorry Armigers
- Deploy opposite each other – Roll off for Deployment and the winner can choose a corner or table edge to deploy on. The other player must deploy directly across from them in the opposite corner or table edge.
- Honor Points – You Score Honor Points with each wound you cause to the opposing Knight. Wounds caused in by Melee Attacks are worth 3 points. Wounds Caused by Ranged Attacks are worth 1 point. The Winner is the Knight with the most Honor Points.
Again, this is meant to be fun and quick so feel free to modify or change these rules up. If you wanted to hand pick stuff, we won’t stop you. You could even run a more formal “tournament” with your friends using these Joust Rules. It would work for either a Round-Robin style or Swiss format. With a Round-Robin, you could just add the Knights Total Honor Points up and the winner of the tournament is whoever has the most points. Swiss would just be whoever goes undefeated.
One other note: Feel free to include Renegade Knights it the mix as well – might be infused with Chaos, but they still follow the same rules as everyone else!
Grimdark Knight Jousting! You know you want to give it a try…
