Many thanks to Simon for providing a very interesting variation to the standard 'tournament' style game.
Key to this is preventing interaction between allies and the mechanism controlling how the formations are activated on each side so that no individual army dominates the game, which ensures discussions between allied players on the best strategy and tactics to meet the battlefield situations. Mix in a wide variety of temporarily allied armies and a scoring system to award each individual, and the result is great fun.
Simon also provided three "dummy" army lists in anticipation of a reduced attendance, though these were deliberately intended to be less competitive, so that a single player would command both armies where appropriate.
By and large the tournament rules worked very well though there are a few suggestions:-
- The Teleporting sequence needs stating. Effectively it should alternate from side to side, and also between players where both players on one side can teleport.
- There is no real need to determine who is the lead player on each side, but the sheet provided to show which side was playing, and how many times each player had activated was ideal. You simply need to add a counter each time a player activates, and remove them all to start again when the other team player activates.
- Lists should conform to the usual 1/3 spacecraft rule - allowing the 850 point titans was a bit overpowered, and two such lists played as allies would be well OTT.
- Scoring should be more balanced towards the individual within the team situation. So how about dispensing with the normal tournament scores and going with the following:-
Each player scores the following
- Team kills opposing Team BTS:- 4 points
- Team achieves "They shall not pass:- 4 points
- Team achieves "Capture the enemy Blitz":- 4 points
- Team achieves "Capture the flag:- 2 points
- Each objective controlled by the player:- 2 points
- Each objective contested by the player :- 1 point
- Player's own BTS survived:- 1 point
- Player's army > Largest enemy army
- Player's army > Smallest army
And I agree with Tim that where possible pairings should be by experience, certainly in the initial game. This is a great format for instructing others in the finer points of strategy and tactics.
In the game with Rich and Jon, having a juicy pair of Warhounds placed by themselves was an ideal target for a pair of terminator formations with a captain to command a combined assault. They could have had more supporting formations or scouts etc placed around them to prevent the initial assault by the Terminators.
That said, Rich and Jon did an excellent job at cutting my Eldar army to ribbons; at the end of the game I had a reinforced Guardian formation and two falcons left, 375 points out of 2000 - by contrast, Tim lost a single Terminator stand so had 2000 points left . . . .
