Idea to balance Tournaments

[mattblowers]

Here is an idea I picked up on another forum and wanted to get the Hives thought. We all know that 40K is not balanced. The problem is that there are just so many unbalanced list possibilities that TOs almost can't combat it all. By dissallowing one list you allow another. What if you had to play a pre-set list at a tournament? The list building would be tough, but the idea is that a group of players build all the lists and if you want to play an army you have to play that list. I think maybe even give them a choice of 2 lists. This would be the easiest way to see which person was the best general. It certainly wouldn't be the list that won. It would be great to build each list to be a solid contender for the missions but have each list with something they do really well and something that is their Achilles heel.

With so many factions I'm not under any delusion that this would be truly balanced, but it would certainly be better than WK going to GMCs (and S:D) and scatbikes improvements when the Eldar codex needed some balancing. Any decent player could see at first glance that GW didn't do much to help balance with that one.

Some people would scream at pre-made lists and how it took away their freedom to chose what they want to play, but I think most would embrace it. I even like the idea of throwing in some choices in each list that are universally panned and see what good players can do with them. Prior to lictor shame almost no one was cheering the use of lictors, now everyone acts like they thought they were awesome all along. We could use more things like that in the game.

What say the hive?

[WestRider]

Actually, why not take it a step further? Combine with what they do at some Tournaments over at Gamer's Haven, and have Armies and Scenarios set by Table. So every round, each Player is playing a different Army, against a different Army, with a unique Scenario balanced for those two Armies and that Table.

The prep logistics would be an absolute nightmare, but I think the logistics of actually running it would end up simpler than a regular Tournament, since there's no need to move Armies from Table to Table.

Definitely one for experienced Players only, tho.

[mattblowers]

Yeah that would be tough. I can't play power armor armies worth a darn.

[Kark]

You can call me crazy, but in my opinion it would be best to contact GW and somehow convince them to focus more on the game. If we could form some kind of coalition of tournament environment and, I don't know, write a letter or prepare a presentation or something else that could proof that there are houndreds of thousands (or maybe more) players that actually buy miniatures for gaming purpose, that we are not only intrested in collectables, but also in organised, blanced, tournament play. Maybe that could trigger GW to run some reserches, analize market again and change strategy towards WK40k being a well balanced game. We are the customers and this is our demand, for Emperor's sake.

[gigasnail]

there was a tournament a couple of years ago, the selling point of it was that everyone had the same list. something along the lines of "here is 1750 worth of codex: space marines. work out." seemed kind of cool/different. i'd be interested in an event like that, but as a once-off. it's not what i'd want to do every time. list building is a large portion of the hobby.

[mattblowers]

Yeah gigasnail, that was a concern of mine. However it's not like most players do much list building. Most tournaments I go to 80% of the armies I know what the list will be as soon as I know the army they are bringing.

[N.I.B.]

Aug 2, 2015 7:14:50 GMT gigasnail said:

there was a tournament a couple of years ago, the selling point of it was that everyone had the same list. something along the lines of "here is 1750 worth of codex: space marines. work out."

I'd be all for it, as one kind of tournament among others. It would be the equivalent of pre-made Magic:tG decks.

[gingerwerewolf]

Sideboards. That you get get a 1750 POint army choice with a sideboard of 1k

You get to see your opponents army and Sideboard and then change your force before you actually fight. They bring a Superheavy, you get out your Knight etc.

[mattblowers]

Aug 5, 2015 13:44:23 GMT gingerwerewolf said:

Sideboards. That you get get a 1750 POint army choice with a sideboard of 1k

You get to see your opponents army and Sideboard and then change your force before you actually fight. They bring a Superheavy, you get out your Knight etc.

Sounds interesting. I like it.

[WestRider]

Eh. Sideboards have a couple of issues. First, some Armies are easier to sideboard against than others. Nids are a pretty major example here, tho maybe not as bad as in the Jaws of the World Wolf days. The other is just logistical. It's hard enough getting an 1850 Army to a Tournament and from table to table between rounds in a timely manner, without having to haul around an extra 250-1000 Points worth (depending on which Sideboard proposal we're talking about) and keep it all organized so you don't get mixed up about what's in your main list and what's in the sideboard and all.

It works in M:tG and Warmahordes because those Games are better balanced and require less stuff for any given game. 40K is far more logistically intensive.

[biomassbob]

IMO, while the idea of everyone using the same army/list or given preset lists to choose from for each army sounds interesting as a one-of, I see many issues with this as well when going beyond a thought experiment. 40K still wont be balanced and you will have taken away player choice (there is so little these days removing some of the last bits seems problematic). You might appeal to a competitive person whose only interest is demonstrating they are a better general so if all armies are the same then in general the better players will rise to the top (horrible dice exceptions may apply since the game has far too much random). It might also appeal to players that don't really care that much about the fluff and just want a hard list. So if nids were given units x, y, and z plus an imperial knight (or sub whatever broken units/needed units) in set lists, some nid players wouldn't care (and some nid players wouldn't care if nids were made battle brothers with every faction in 8th edition) while other nid players would want to remain closer to the fluff but want their nid dex to be able to compete with other armies.

Just imagine if a team had to create a couple tournament nid lists that you had to chose from - many nid players would be unhappy with some of the selections and may not have many of those models so would be excluded from the tournament unless they were willing to reward GW by buying a bunch of models (yes some tourney players buy lots of new models and build varied armies each year all the time but not all). A list may require multiple dakka flyrants, maybe requiring 4 or 5 to be competitive with the other builds they are making. Some may like this but for me this starts becoming 'why not just take anything from any army' since it is just about OP units and not about using certain armies/trying to remain truer to fluff.

So having TOs ban certain units or put other restrictions to try to combat the imbalance seems the best way and some will like certain tournaments while others like different tournaments with different restrictions.

The sideboard thing sounds interesting from one perspective but it forces players to have to buy far more then their normal army in units (yes I know most of us have lots more units anyways). Also the game becomes a competition for sideboarding - who goes first? how do you out-sideboard your opponent? how many turns of replacing units are there? can you bring back units you replaced after seeing your opponents later choice? Maybe this is what the battle should be - 40K listbuilding competition. Each person continues switching units in and out of their 2000pt army until one player kills himself.

I would much rather see a tournament where no allies were allowed. Of course it wouldn't go well since with the imbalance between dexes some factions would be burned. But why not get the 40K community to re-write the game rules - get a group coming from a certain perspective (like TOs now - eg some ban superheavies) and re-write the rules and dexes to internally and externally balance each one. Then tournaments using those dexes would be created and the game relatively balanced so no need of further restrictions. Then GW only has to produce models since they supposedly don't care about rules - even though the release mountains of rules at absurd prices - but forget that, they are a model company.

[javaman21011]

Aug 2, 2015 7:05:45 GMT Kark said:

You can call me crazy, but in my opinion it would be best to contact GW and somehow convince them to focus more on the game. If we could form some kind of coalition of tournament environment and, I don't know, write a letter or prepare a presentation or something else that could proof that there are houndreds of thousands (or maybe more) players that actually buy miniatures for gaming purpose, that we are not only intrested in collectables, but also in organised, blanced, tournament play. Maybe that could trigger GW to run some reserches, analize market again and change strategy towards WK40k being a well balanced game. We are the customers and this is our demand, for Emperor's sake.

It would be far easier to just buy a bunch of stock and go to their stockholder meetings. But at that point you'd be going towards the hostile take over territory.

[Kark]

There were tournaments in my area that followed such rules:

1. You could have brought 2 armylists. You and Your opponent could see them before a battle and both secretly choose one armylist and play with it. Idea similar to sideboards.

2. You played with Your army against the opponent and after that, there was an army swap and You got to play Your opponent's armylist with and Your opponent got to play with Your armylist. Score from both battles was summed up and that determined the victor. So if You brought strong armylist You would win when You play it, but You would most likely loose when playing against Your own amry. The problem is that You need twice the time to play one "game"

[N.I.B.]

I've played with a sideboard in a Fantasy tournament once, was fun.

I'm not interested in collectables though. I rarely look at my gaming tools (models) when I'm not playing, they are a nuisance that require huge amounts of space in my house. I stuff them away as best as I can. As do most other people I know in the hobby.

[pedro009]

We have been doing something g similar recently.

Each person has a list A) and a list B) each of which 1750 pts

However the list are submitted to the TO at the beginning g if the comp and he has been deciding each week which one to use. Basically we had a campaign earlier this year and the biggest issue was we had the same fixed armies....After 5 weeks it started to get abit stale.

It has been a success from what I have seen and has kept it varied. Also mean no tailoring as the list A and B are fixed and you can't alternate unless the TO says we can pick which list we want to use