Goatboy here and today I want to drop some ideas into the kiddie pool of BoLS. Battleforce 40K – the tournament the rewards Interesting armies!
This idea is a way to try and create a new type of tournament. One that tries to reward interesting armies without feeling like the designer just hates certain choices. So with that in mind let me introduce you to what could be a really cool format – Battleforce 40k. I have come up with a system that tries to reward innovative army design, aggressive play, and hopefully interesting experiences. I named it Battleforce 40k because of some of the nonsense players call certain lists that they would never believe to be effective. I like Highlander 40k but thought the nature of the forced list design lended itself to calling it Battleforce 40k. I initially thought of the lists to be 1850 points but I am sure you can scale it back if you wanted too. 5 Simple Rules 1. A player may only ever have one duplicate non HQ choice in their Army list. The idea behind this is it forces players to pick other options instead of the normal copy and paste attitude you see in a lot of lists. I know some armies have one or two troop options and while that is a pain it just means you have to be more innovative in your ally choices as well as troop options. Small little troop units just won’t cut it. If a choice allows you a dedicated transport then it counts as part of the entire choice. This means you can have two Rhinos, Wave Serpents, Raiders, Venoms, etc as they can be a part of the entire choice that is duplicated. 2. The duplicate choice counts for the entire army, including the Ally you might have. Look you can’t take a Riptide in your main Tau force and then get another Riptide in a Farsite ally set. It also means at most you can only have 2 Dragons if you don’t duplicate anything else. 3. When you roll for a Warlord trait you roll once and pick from all tables your army has access too. I always liked this in the other tournaments that run it and thought it should just be common. I want everyone to have a good chance at getting a cool warlord trait. 4. IC’s çan only join units from the force they are chosen from. I always thought it was stupid when you had an Alien telling Marines what to do. I also thought it made no sense to have an Eldar follow Tau instructions as well. I know you can see this as a nerf for the Tau nonsense but it also stops a lot of Marine shenanigans with IG. 5. Psychics still can affect your Battle Brothers. With the limited HQ options this should still be ok when dealing with specific builds. A helping mental hand makes sense when adding to allies. So yeah – that is it for the basic changes to the rules. I didn’t want to do any massive comp or other options that specific limits armies. You should be able to play with your toys and I only wanted to give you the new format by changing as little amount of the rules as you can. So with that in mind I started to think of some ways to tweak the main rule book missions and still leave it as a very simple way to figure out what you need to do. I liked how the BAO missions used two revolving missions at once and thought it should continue in this type of Tournament. Deployment, VPs and Misisons Deployment Same 3 options we have – Vanguard, Dawn of War, and Hammer and Anvil Missions – 2 are chosen to create multiple avenues of winning.
Basic VP for every game.
Line Breaker – Worth 2 VP now – it pushes players to move and engage.
First Blood – Worth 1 VP – the change so to Line Breaker help mitigate the chance for an extra point
Slay the Warlord – Worth 1 VP
Crusade
Each player gets 2 objectives, 1 is placed in the middle of the board.
Player Controlled Objectives worth 2 pts each, center objective is worth 5 points.
If mixed with the relic Mission the center objective is removed.
Objectives must be 12 inches from any board edge and 12 inches from each other.
Purge The Alien
No changes.
Big Guns Never Tire
Heavies still score and are worth 1 VP if destroyed.
Each player gets 2 objectives, 1 is placed in the middle of the board.
Player Controlled Objectives worth 2 pts each, center objective is worth 5 points.
Roll for Mysterious Objectives.
If mixed with the relic Mission the center objective is removed.
Objectives must be 12 inches from any board edge and 12 inches from each other.
The Scouring.
FA still score and are worth 1 VP if destroyed.
There are 4 Objectives – Opponents Objectives are worth 3 VP each, your Objectives are worth 2 VP.
Roll for Mysterious Objectives.
Objectives must be 12 inches from any board edge and 12 inches from each other.
Emperor’s Will
Elite Units are scoring and worth 1 VP when destroyed.
If you control your own objective it is worth 3 VPs.
If you control your Opponets Objective it is worth 5 VPs.
If you are contesting your Opponents Objective it is worth 2 VPs.
The Relic
The Relic is contestable
Worth 5 Points
Cannot be taken off the board
Only moved if it is not contested.
Running the Event I made changes to some of the Objective points to encourage player movement. The other changes is how the tournament is scored. I have talked about in the past a way to mix Battle Points with W/L/D in order to try and create a single system instead of running two tournaments at once.
A player will count how many VP they have achieved. Who ever has the highest Wins the game. If there is a tie in VP then the game is marked as a Tie. The VP earned is how you will determine your placing in the set of round winners and will be used to place you with your next opponent. The thought is to use the VP as a way to create a seeding like a Basketball tournament. If you earned a lot of VP there is a good chance you will play someone with a lower VP ranking just like you would see a First Seed play the Last Seed in the NCAA. I am not completely convinced of that method but it is something other tournament regulars have talked about.
Once you have finished the first day of the event you are then left with a single elimination Top 16 to find out the “true” winner. Other events would mark that second day so people have something to do and the Top 16 can play it out.
The following prizes would be an initial frame work for a way to spread the love and try to encourage different armies. Here is the initial frame work with how to generate who wins each group.
Top 16 – 1st, 2nd, 3rd – They can win awards below as well.
Best Overall/2nd Best Overall – W/L/D, Battle Points, Paint Points, Sports Points
Best General/2nd Best General – W/L/D, Battle Points Best Army – W/L/D, Battle Points, Paint Points, Sports Points – Split by army type – if you won above you do not win this
Best Sports – Sports Points, Player Votes
Best Painted by Judges – Event Judging based on top painted armies by Paint judge then voted on by Event Committee
Best Painted by Event – Player Choice
Most Epic Bad Ass – Lowest W/L/D, Battle Points
These are my initial thoughts after thinking about next years tournament season. I really don’t like Comp but I also want to play cool armies. It gets frustrating to see the same things over and over again as we’ve seen with some of the recent events. You don’t want to judge the player beforehand but it gets sad to feel like you are wasting your time throw dice and hoping to roll above average on your saves.
What do you think? What lists can you think of that fit this? I know there are still mean lists that fit this format. It doesn’t limit some of the brutal combos it just tries to keep them within their army.
Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I've been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on - or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
