How are tournaments run?

[tylertt]

Hey Hive,

Being a fairly new player to 40k, I have never had a chance to play or even see a 40k tournament. Over the holidays I wanted to do a little just for fun tournament with my gaming group of friends. So I just have a few questions on how they are run/just for curiositys sake.

- How is the game structure run? In regards to mission types, terrain, and so forth for each individual game.
- How is an overall winner determined? If it is a round robin type tournament, how would that work? What is the standard most tournaments use?
- Is there always a game timer on matches? If so, even in small games? Is this done to promote competitiveness, and quick resourceful planning/thinking?

Thanks in advance guys, sorry if a silly set of questions.

[baconslice]

I've been to 1, at warhammer world in the uk.
We played 3 games, each missions and deployment was rolled for by the organisers so everyone plays the same.
I understand it that you gain tournament points 3 for win 1 for draw, plus bonus points for painting, army lists objective markers etc.
Each game had a time limit of 2 hours.
As I understand it that's pretty much how most go.
It's worth noting, whilst most tournament players are there to have fun, it's a lot more serious and competitive (even in a casual one like this) be prepared for cheese and beardy lists. And still unfortunately you still get the occasional $^%+.
I'd recommend giving one a go if you fancy.
Some podcasts I've listened to really rate the dual flyrant lists as one of the most competitive as well!

[baconslice]

Oh sorry and to answer again, I think they normally do between 1500 and 2000 per side (half each if its doubles. ) and yea it's round robin rather than knock out

[WestRider]

There are a ton of different ways to run Tournaments. Some suggestions for your first one:
- Three rounds is usually a pretty good length for a Tournament. Unless you've got more than 8 Players, that's enough to give you an overall winner, simply by pairing people according to win/loss records. It also lets you use each Deployment Type once.

- The standard way to do matchups is to arrange pairings randomly in the first round, and then match winners against winners and losers against losers in the second round. In the third, the undefeated players play each other, the players with only losses play against each other, and the players who are 1-1 play each other. Keeping track of the VP totals from each Game can help arrange pairings better, especially if you don't have a nice number of Players, and need to pair people with different records. Go for pairing up people who have the closest total VPs, so the guy with a narrow win ends up playing the guy who just barely lost.

- If you want, you can come up with some extra tie-breakers, or you can just jam Ties in to the pairings by comparing VP totals.

- Use the Rulebook Missions. Successful Mission Design is a lot of work, and takes a pretty solid understanding of the Game.

- To really keep it balanced, I'd go with Crusade (4 Objectives), Purge the Alien, and The Emperor's Will. Yes, those are the three that are holdovers from 5th. They're the simplest, and the most heavily tested, and thus the most useful for competition.

-If you want to use the others: Big Guns Never Tire is also best when fixed at 4 Objectives. The Scouring works best with the 4 and 1 Objectives pre-placed on the centerline and each Player placing a 2 and a 3. There's no easy way to fix The Relic.

- Pre-placed Terrain is probably best. Helps speed things up a bit, and (as long as some care is taken) keeps things a bit more balanced.

- On the other hand, Player-placed Terrain reduces the problem of having people play at the same Table repeatedly. If you do go this route, set out a pile of Terrain for each Table, and have it all used each Game, rather than rolling for Terrain Density as usual.

- The purpose of Time Limits is to minimize the amount of time people have to spend sitting around waiting for that one last Game to finish up, and to make sure you all get to go home before midnight. One hour per 1000 Points, plus half an hour, usually seems to be about right. Decide in advance how you're going to handle Games that run out of time. Is it going to be a straight "Dice down, add 'em up!" or will you let Players finish out the current Game Turn? I recommend the latter, and if you do go for the former, make sure to give plenty of warnings as time starts getting short.

- It's usually good to build a lunch break into the schedule, and 10-15 minute breaks between rounds to do the next round pairings and have people move their Armies.

[tylertt]

Really appreciate the advice on how to run things!

There are only 5 of us total in my group, so time should be ok to fit all games in as we have two tables.

I definitely want to build my fleet up and hopefully play in a real tournament soon. Would be a excellent starter experience!

[pipsickness]

great advice Westrider!

I think I may pinch some of that myself for my local club. We're looking at starting a tourney soon!