Apocalypse Tournament?

[sparti67]

I hope this is the place to post this. I have been thinking about an Apocalypse tournament. Teams of three, 15k per team. Thoughts? Ideas? Has it been done before?

I know many of us own super-heavies and look forward to using them on the table, but often times tournaments are not the most conducive place for them. I think the possibilities are endless as far as team force structure. It would allow people some freedom to be a little more creative.

I have been brainstorming some rules and ideas. I will be more than happy to share them with the community, but first wanted some feedback.

[John Bower]

I hope this is the place to post this. I have been thinking about an Apocalypse tournament. Teams of three, 15k per team. Thoughts? Ideas? Has it been done before?

I know many of us own super-heavies and look forward to using them on the table, but often times tournaments are not the most conducive place for them. I think the possibilities are endless as far as team force structure. It would allow people some freedom to be a little more creative.

I have been brainstorming some rules and ideas. I will be more than happy to share them with the community, but first wanted some feedback.

As long as you are ready for the fact that each game will take a whole day, and at 15k each person that's 45K a side, probably closer to a whole weekend.

[sparti67]

I meant 15k a team (not person). I think with the right ruleset you could get two games in a day, possibly three.

[Chris*ta]

Isn't the idea of an Apocalypse tournament kind of difficult? I mean, with so few restrictions on what to take, the potential for supremely abusive (and supremely unfun) lists is pretty much limitless.

Would it be better to run an "event", (or somesuch) so that winning isn't so important?

Just thinking out loud ...

[Denzark]

I think it would be hard to do in a fair way so as to append the title 'tournament' to it. 1 person at least may not have much fun - if the team that goes first decides to concentrate firepower on that person's key super heavy to knock it out.

Why not go for a 3k points limitwith Lords of War allowed, but standard objectives? in 3K you can fit almost everything available in a CAD and still have super heavy fun. But stick to tourney time limits etc.

[Mad Cat]

We considered an apocalypse tourney with teams of three but each person was limited to 2000 points and a single combined arms FOC. If you didn't take a super heavy or lord of war you could take an ally contingent instead.

This still allowed people to use their super heavies and it would top out at 1000 points to allow Forgeworld mega daemons but not Warlord titans.

At 6000 points a side with at least 3000 points of codex legal units on each team we thought it wouldn't get too over the top and the games would progress in reasonable time and get 2 games in per day. Your idea of 15,000 points a side though may be a little much so I would organise a test game or two.

One way to speed up larger games is to do the opposite to what we were thinking and FORCE players to use 70%+ of their points on lords of war or super heavies etc. A game involving 5k of points with 4 titans and 6 baneblades per player will go quicker than if somebody uses and infantry guard footslogging force.

[sparti67]

My thought process goes along with your post Mad Cat. The idea is to field lots of super heavies rather than troops. Maybe in the ruleset there should be a minimum number of super heavies per team. With that said, troops would have to limited in the amount of titan-killing weapons they may take. For example, an assault squad armed with only multi-meltas and grav weapons. It may be we come up with an apocalypse only force organizational chart. That may anger some, but I could see an unbound list with a a thousand cultists armed with melta's.

[Mad Cat]

Going for large armies could cut down on the number of potential players who are able to join. If you require say a 4 baneblade minimum (or something similar) then many people just won't be able to field this from their collections.

I would start out at 2-3k per player in teams of 2-3 just to get the number of teams entering above the minimum requirements. 4 teams minimum are needed for a tournament that way each can play the others over 2 days.

A problem for team events is you always need an even number of teams so you may end up having to rope in a reserve team of your friends and fellow organisers who very well may not get a game if an even number of teams show up. Note you could only sell an even number of tickets so you sell 8 and take the contact details of the 9th team telling them they can only buy a ticket if a 10th team enter. You then repeat the process for the 11th etc. But this still needs a reserve team as one team may just not show up on the day.

[John Bower]

I meant 15k a team (not person). I think with the right ruleset you could get two games in a day, possibly three.

Oops, sorry, my bad. I misread that. As a few have said there is the issue of abusive players. If you have people that will build fun lists even though it's a tourney then all well and good. At my old club we used to do an Apoc every year on the run up to Christmas (usually the last actual 'gaming' night). I wrote 2 of them, and although we did have prizes they were for things like sportsmanship and Role Playing (in the latter case the player who best carried out their secret orders).

Everybody enjoyed it and even the WAAC player we had didn't dominate, in fact in his favour he sponsored one of the prizes but asked me first so he didn't 'steal my thunder'. Ah great times.... Miss it.

No the club didn't fold I have to work that night now so can't go anymore. :(

[sparti67]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I hope to have a first draft soon for all of you to peruse.

[jeffersonian000]

One way of doing an Apocalypse level Tournament is an all in, last team standing, knock-out drag-out fight, and just play until one team is left. Of course, a lot of people will get a tab bit butt hurt over it, and it's more of an endurance test, but I know I'd have a blast. Apoc is the only real 40k, IMHO.

SJ