Something that came out of the discussion about how to run the IFL RTT this past weekend was an observation that, before 5th Ed. came out, Flyers and other units from Imperial Armour books were par for the course at IFL tournaments. When 5th ed came out, that vanished.
Now, I’ve got opinions about the default inclusion of Forgeworld rules that don’t necessarily jive, I think, with the wider 40K blogosphere (there’s a blog post on that rattling around in my head)… but regardless of what I think should and shouldn’t belong in a tournament baseline, there’s always room for tournaments that step away from the baseline.
So, I’ll be running a tournament with the express purpose of encouraging folks to break out their ForgeWorld models.
- 2,000 points
- Legal GW Codices and Army Lists from Imperial Armour books only.
- Forge World and GW Datasheet models and units are allowed. However:
- See the Adepticon 2010 Imperial Armor & Apocalypse Units document to reference what armies can take what, as well as where to find the most recent rules for those models and units.
- No Superheavies or gargantuan creatures. On the off chance that doesn’t cover everything, no models with structure points, power fields or void shields. No units identified as “WMD” in the Gladiator document.
- You must provide rules for anything you put on the table. If you do not have a hard copy of the rules (the FW book, a photocopy of the rules, etc.) for a model/unit, you may not put it on the table.
- Be prepared to answer questions about your units. Be prepared to repeat yourself.
- The rules for Flyers found in Apocalypse will be used, rather than the rules for Flyers found in the various Imperial Armour books, with the following changes to update them to 5th Edition:
- Flyers without Hover Mode must always begin the game in reserve.
- Blast weapons that do not have the anti-aircraft special rule cannot hit flyers
- Units embarked in a flying transport that is not in Hover Mode never count as scoring units so long as they are embarked.
- All models must be painted to, at minimum, the Three Color standard.
- Battle Points – (5-20 points, plus 4 possible bonus points/game) Scenarios will fundamentally be based on the rulebook missions, tweaked with some rules from the Battle Missions book. VP will be tracked, at the very least, for tie-breaking.
- Appearance – (0-30 points) Scored using the Army Appearance Checklist found in the Grand Tournament 2008 Packet. This score will be reduced to 75% (that is, calculated score * .75).
- Sportsmanship – (0-10 points/game) Scored using the Army Appearance Checklist found in the Grand Tournament 2008 Packet.
- Favorite Player – (2 points/vote) Each player will note their favorite player. Criteria for this is up to the player: you like their army the most, their attitude the best, or they paid you $10.
- Highest Overall (40%)
- Most Battle Points (30%)
- Highest Soft Score (30%) (Everything but Battle Points)
I’m pretty confident about the format here.
Sportsmanship and Appearance scores are there, and are objective. Everyone showing up knows how they’ll be calculated. I think that’s key.
The GT Sportsmanship checklist kinda-sorta covers comp the way I think it should be expressed.
Discounting bonus points and favorite player votes, hard and soft scores both roll up to the same maximum point level. This is either very clever or a big mistake… but it’s intentional, regardless.
Shockingly, I’ve already written up the scenarios. I think they’ll be fun; different enough from standard games to be interesting, but without too many special rules to make them goofy.
If you’re in the area, and can make it out to Game Parlor Chantilly, this should hopefully be a really good time!