Criticism and advice on a small narrative tournament

[Berzul]

Hey everyone.

 

I'm setting up some local campaigns and tournaments in my current gaming group, and beyond, and I would like to discuss the system I've set up for one such activity I have coming up at the end of the month.

 

Where would be the right place to post about it and look for feedback? I have been looking over the forums and have not been able to find a clear spot for this.

 

Any direction on it would be a big help.

 

Thanks!

[Slasher956]

I’d say this one as it’s general 40k chat or the homebrew rules forum....

[Berzul]

Ok, then I'll edit the topic, and post my questions right here then. Seems like a good enough place.

 

Thank you!

[battle captain corpus]

It doesn't quite fit into "Homebrew" rules as such so yeah maybe see what feedback you get here and we can always "Smokebomb!" it over to Homebrew if needs be!

 

BCC

[Berzul]

So, the deal is this.

 

I have a small gaming group of about 9 players (including me). I have decided to try and run a one-day, small narrative tournament. This, to test the water for something of a bigger scale next year, in my local gaming store.

 

I pretty much just want to share what I came up with, and see if anyone can give me their impressions. I want to make sure what I am planning sounds (or reads) fun on paper, before I run it at the end of the month.

 

The setup is as follows:

 

1) Its an 8 person tournament. Lists are at 1000 points, with some restrictions that the group has already agreed upon (2 detachments max, nothing over 12 wounds, no LoW or FW, max 1 dataslate for anything other tan troops). Games will be played on 4 by 4 tables.

 

2) The format of the tournament will be by points. 3 to a victory, 1 to a draw, 0 to a loss. VIctory points achieved in-game will be tallied, and used to break ties in between players. Ranking will be done at the end of 3 rounds, and the player with most points wins. Battles will be at 5 rounds with no extensions, with each player getting 10 minutes to deploy, and 60 minutes to play (after time is up, they can only react). This, kept by chess clock.

 

3) The scenarios is the part I'm trying to make things interesting.

 

I'll have 4 tables, made in very different styles. I plan for one table made entirely of craters around a fortified line of defense (sort of a no-mans land with trenches, bunkers, bastions and rocks), one table of hills, woulds and low ruins, one table full of higher buildings packed densely, and one table full of blasted walls, containers, cranes, manunfactorum terrain and pipes.

 

I have planned for a total of 12 scenarios, taken directly from Eternal War, all from the Core Rulebook, and the 2 Chapter Approved books. Each table having 3 scenarios already predetermined for it.

 

For the first round, I'll give the players a budget of points. I'll let them review the tables, and the 1st scenario of each one, so that they can decide what scenario and board suits their army best. Then I'll make a silent auction for the tables, and determine who starts where. From then on, progression follows not an auction nor a randomized system, but rather, a narrative.

 

At the start of the second round, I'll place the players in their respective tables, according to who won and who lost on each one in the first round. For instance, at the end of round 1, the winner from table 1 stays there, and the loser moves to table 3. The winner from table 3 moves to table 2, and the loser stays. And so on (this is not the actual flowchart of movement, but just an example).

 

Then, at the start of the third round, I'll do the same. Each winner/loser at each table moves to another or stays at their own, and faces someone else.

 

The idea is that the scenarios will, using this method, form a narrative for the players.

 

So, for instance (and now using an actual, but summed up, example from the actual fights I have planned): On table 2 I'll have players fight over a broken down ruin of an imperial convoy, looking for intelligence left inside. Whoever wins, gets to move to the city (at the urban table) to play a scenario about finding key points of interest described in the intelligence gathered, while the loser stays at the table to regroup and form up for an assault at the city in pursuit of the other army. At that point, the winner from table 1 (the defensive outpost), who in his own scenario has defeated his opponent, has made it past the outer defenses of the city and now moves through the wilderness to reach the urban sector, bringing in his army to advance. Both armies are caught against each other and must fight it out to see who actually can move in to the city, and who will get pushed back to the outer defenses.

 

And so on, for each table.

 

This is what I have planned so far. If it would help to get a better sense of my ideas, I can later (when I get my hands on my home laptop) post the structure of tables and scenarios, and how each winner/loser moves about them. But this is the essence of the format I want to apply.

 

I would love to get some criticism on it.... but since my group will be playing, I cannot discuss it with them , without spoiling the surprise.

[Berzul]

To provide more context for the structure of the tournament I am planning, here is the actual progression of the boards, as I have it planned out. WIth the central plot being that various armies are either inside the city or attempting to reach it, following clues of a vital cache of resources somewhere inside the warzone:

 

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FIRST ROUND OF TOURNAMENT

 

Table 1: Fortified battleground

 

Two armies are fighting a desperate battle, to try and conquer a way across the lines of fortifications into the city beyond

 

First Scenario: Beachhead (CA 2018)

Winner moves to table 2

Loser stays in table 1

 

Table 2: Outer woods

 

Armed groups roam the sectors in between the city and the defensive lines, in search of a lost imperial convoy that was carrying important intelligence.

 

FIrst Scenario: Narow the Search (CA 2018)

Winner moves tot able 3

Loser stays in table 2

 

Table 3: Cityscape

 

Patrols are spread out through the buildings in recon missions, but an engagement breaks out and quickly escalates.

 

First Scenario: Roving Patrol (CA 2017)

Winner stays in table 3

Loser moves to table 4

 

Table 4: Industrial sector

 

Armies battle it out to secure access to an auxiliay comms device, whih can break through to their allied forces in orbit, from whom they need to request orbital drops of reinforcements and supplies.

 

First Scenario: Vital Intelligence (CA 2018)

Winner moves to table 1

Loser stays in table 4

 

+++

 

SECOND ROUND OF TOURNAMENT

 

Table 1: Fortified battleground

 

Orbital support has been contacted by ground forces, and is attempting to reach their allies with supplies. But, with anti-air defenses inside the city keeping on with their barrages, they are forced to drop their payloads no closer than the edge of the warzone. Right were other re-grouping forces can intercept them.

 

Second Scenario: Supplies from Above (CA 2018)

Winner of table 4 vs Loser of table 1

Winner moves to table 2

Loser stays in table 1

 

Table 2: Outer woods

 

Armies advance against the city, on the momentum of their previous victory in breaching through other enemy defenses. Now, as they bring their weapons to bear in a plan to breach through the last stretch and into the city, they must engage against new forces in the outer woods. Forces that, just the same, are preparing themselves for just such an objective.

 

Second Scenario: Big Guns Never Tire (Core Rulebook)

Winner of table 1 vs Loser of table 2

Winner moves to table 3

Loser moves to table 1

 

Table 3: Cityscape

 

Intelligence elements obtained point to the location of various hidden generators, spread through the central core of the city, which present themselves as vital assets that could give any army the edge in the war effort across the entire warzone

 

Second Scenario: The Four Pillars (CA 2018)

Winner of table 3 vs Winner of table 2

Winner moves to table 4

Loser stays in table 3

 

Table 4: Industrial sector

 

Wounded forces seek to regroup and rearm themselves as best they can, scavenging for resources and ammunition through the factories and weapon deposits of the industrial sectors; and, if the resources cannot be secured, their only option is to, at least, ensure noone else can obtain them.

 

Second Scenario: Scorched Earth (CA 2017), played with oly 4 objectives

Loser of table 3 vs Loser of table 4

Winner stays in table 4

Loser moves to table 2

 

+++

 

THIIRD AND FINAL ROUND OF TOURNAMENT

 

Table 1: Fortified battleground

 

The war was left these armies bloodied, and pushed to their limits. Caught in the firestorm of battle, and as the conflict escalates to its breaking point, there is no more room for grand strategies. The path to survival must be made in blood. No way out now, but through the enemy.

 

Third Scenario: No Mercy (Core Rulebook)

Loser of table 2 vs Loser of table 1

 

Table 2: Outer woods

 

One army has been left with no means to support itself. The other has managed to procure supplies to survive the breaking point of the conflict. Both sides have found each other in the wilderness in between the defensive lines and the ruined city. What follows is a battle to see who is cunning enough to capture and keep these means for survival.

 

Third Scenario: Retrieval MIssion (Core Rulebook)

Winner of table 1 vs Loser of table 4

 

Table 3: Cityscape

 

Forces both lost inside the city, and invading from beyond its borders, have managed to find their way to the urban core, and now set themselves to the task of scouring the ruins in order to lay claim to what will be left after the war passes its breaking point across the entire warzone.

 

Third Scenario: The Scouring (Core Rulebook)

Winner of table 2 vs Loser of table 3

 

Table 4: Industrial sector

 

The generators in the city lead the forces to their source, lost inside the industrial sector. Herein lies the true prize to be won at the end of the war. It's time for the commanders to claim their prize, personally, and achieve victory for their side.

 

Third Scenario: AScension (CA 2017)

Winner of table 3 vs Winner of table 4

[Berzul]

Oh, also, the tournament will have the following armies:

 

T'au Empire (sept yet to be decided)

T'au Empire (sept yet to be decided)

White Scars

Raven Guard

Iron Hands

Tyranids (brood yet to be decided)

World Eaters (or Black Legion, depending on a few things)

Aeldari (most likely, but could be Custodes)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

My advice is don’t play if you’re the TO.

[MegaVolt87]

My advice is don’t play if you’re the TO.

 

True, but he might not have a choice due to lack of people + someone might not show so he would have to be a ringer. 

[G8Keeper]

I'd include dedicated transports in the 1 unit exemption.

[Berzul]

Good points.

 

I won't be playing. I have 8 players already, so at most I'd join in as replacement to a player that fails to show up. But, I'm not supposed to play.

 

As for the transports, thats a good point. I'll add that.

 

Any takes on the structure and format as a whole? Ill be thankful of any comments, constructive criticism or advise.

[Berzul]

So, I added some changes per the request/advice of players in my town.

 

First, I expanded the format so that each player can bring 2 lists, instead of 1. Same restrictions to both, with the player having to chose before the battle (but after the mission has been asigned) which one to use, without knowing which one his opponent will use.

 

Second, I built more on the narrative of the tournament. Its almost feeling like a choose your own adventure, in Warhammer form, to the players. This is already giving the players a notion on how tl build their lists, so as to play into a personal and group narrative.

 

The general narrative amd setup is fairly simple.

 

A garden-world north of the Scourge Stars, called Exelia, was cut off from the Imperium a year after the fall of Cadia. The light of the astronomicon having become obscured by strange astrophenomena.

 

For many years the place survived in relative isolation, with void ships unable to make safe travels to or from the system, due to the obscurity and the surge of warpstorms, as the cicatrix maledictum streched just south of the place. Leaving it to its fate, im the new formed Imperium Nihilus.

 

By the third century of M42, Imperial Forces finally saw a breach in the blockage of the Astronomicon, and managed to engage in a reclamation mission to Exelia, and the various other systems of the subsector.

 

What they found was that the astrophenomena had actually been a particularly slow moving tyranid hive fleet, piercing through to the system. The garden-world already resuced mostly to a desertic waste. But, also, they found that pockets of humanity on the surface endured, this due to a troubling development; a Fifth Sphere Expansion force from the T'au Empire, which had reached the place in the absense of imperial control, and has managed to assimilate the population.

 

This T'au and human forces had managed to mount up a defense agains the invading tyranids, by creating fortified lines around the settled garden-valleys. As the vegetation was consumed and the cities laid to ruin, these forces persevered in fighting off the invaders. Making the tyranids adopt a conquest that was slow moving, although relentless.

 

The issue was that, through the breach in the shadow on the warp, forces other than Imperial managed to seep through. Demonic incursions from the southern warp storms, chased by daring Aeldari hunters, found their way to Exelia, turning the battlefront into a chaotic warzone.

 

Now, Imperial, T'au, Tyranid, Chaos and Aeldaroi forces are battling it out on Exelia. Either to consume it, save it, or simply to survive long enough to find a way out.

[MegaVolt87]

Feel sorry for those colonists, that place is begging for an exterminatus. Maybe the Imperial victory is finding and extracting something useful + exterminatus with Mechanicum, Inquisition or IG making it a bastion world after. 

[Berzul]

Hahahaha!! Maybe?

 

One of the prizes for victory, will be to decide some elements of how the story progresses, into a second event I have planned for after christmas.

[Wulf Vengis]

I want to live in your town Berzul.

[Berzul]

If you ever drop by Santiago, Chile, drop me a line. I'd be happy to host a few battles for you in my city :D

 

As for the tournament, I've been playing with scenery configurations.

 

I plan on making changes to the tables on each round. Particularly in table 1.

 

I'll have craters increase in number after each battle. Also, I plan on placing some fortifications there (a Bastion, a Bunker, an Aegis, and a couple of Walls of the Martyrs), which will act as neutral buildings.

 

That is, they will operate per their dataslates, but belong to no faction. Either player will be able to claim them, or attack them. Their automated weapons when unmanned will fire at the nearest unit, regardless of faction (with the bastion firing on a frontal 90° arc for each of its sides, independantly).

 

The second table will change in configuration, but with no particular special rules. Just, those for every kind of alien woods and regular woods, from CA2018.

 

The third table will be densly packed with ruins, using 2 rules from urban combat. The -1 to fire obscured units, and the +1AP for firing from a higher position. On the final round, I'll make all ruins dangerous terrain, too. Representing how the city is collapsing under enemy artillery fire.

 

The fourth table, same as the second, will mostly just change a bit in configuration. But, overall, will have no special rules aside from those for the terraim used (mostly gwenerators, plasma conduits, and containers, plus some ruins).

 

 

Changes in scenery from round to round will not be THAT big. Just something to give the feel that the battles are not taking place in the exact same place each time, and show some progression of the narrative.

 

I'll see about posting pictutes of the boards as I have em.

[Berzul]

I've been working on pre-planning the tables for the tournament.

 

Since I will have little time to set up, I figured it would do me good to make up the terrain first, and carry pictures of the placement that can serve me as quick guides on how to set up everything quickly, without having to think it at the last minute. Specially since these tables are NOT in any sort of standarized format (such as ITC), and follow no real guidelines.

 

In any case, I have managed to plan 9 out of the 12 tables. Im still pending the last 3, because first I need to finish building some terrain kits I still have lying around my storage unit.

 

Lots of this is unpainted, and I do not have mats of 4 by 4, so please excuse the crudeness of the board. Its all MDF wood, and lots of unpainted kits. But, I hope my players won't mind much.

 

Also, tables 1 and 2 still lack some additional pieces of terrain that a player will bring on the day. Tyranid inspired piees, such as spikes and spires that emerge from the ground. Should add a nice touch and pair up nicely with such open-field boards.

 

TABLE 1, ROUNDS 1, 2 and 3 - The Defense Line of Exelia

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TABLE 2, ROUNDS 1, 2 and 3 - The desolated valleys of Exelia, before the city proper

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TABLE 4, ROUNDS 1, 2 and 3 - The Industrial Sector

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The final table will be a city. I have a bunch of buildings I can use, most of them painted.

 

The first table is all about open lines, with craters and trenches for cover, as armies clash in between some tyranid-like formations here and there.

The second table is meant to have dangerous xenos fauna, and the cover of the woods and the tyranid-like protrusions that come from the ground.

The fourth table is of high-density of cover through buildings and obstacles, but most of it low in height. With armies most likely having street fights between the ryza ruins while ducking behind containers and pipes

 

And, the third table, which is the last I have to prep, will be a board with a lot of height. Many buildings with 2, 3 or even 4 levels up, with a bunch of low ruins and statues scattered here and there. I have a particularly large shrine of the aquila made from 2 kits fused into one. A couple of administratum buildings. Some more ruins, the entire Core Kill Team box, as well as other killzones, and the urban conquest terrain. Should be enough to make something interesting.

 

THe point here is to have all tables be different and feel different.

 

[Berzul]

Damn, so, I had 2 players fall through before we play this sunday.

 

Meant I had a looong discussion with the players on what to do. In the end, we are going to reduce the event ot 6 players, which made me have to reorganize the tables a bit.

I hope it works well with just 6 plyers and 3 tables...

[MegaVolt87]

Damn, so, I had 2 players fall through before we play this sunday.

 

Meant I had a looong discussion with the players on what to do. In the end, we are going to reduce the event ot 6 players, which made me have to reorganize the tables a bit.

 

I hope it works well with just 6 plyers and 3 tables...

 

Six players is enough spice, if it were just four then you should be worried IMO. 

[Berzul]

Yeah, I remade the scenario to fit 6.

 

Here"s to hoping noone else falls through

[Berzul]

Well, the tournament took place yesterday.

 

A small afair, of just 6 players from my local gaming group. Distributed across three 4 by 4 tables, with 1000 point lists, fighting through three rounds of battles.

 

We ended up having two T'au armies, a horde of Nurgle Demons, an Iron Hands Primaris force, a White Scar fast attack force, and a host of Necrontyr with a C'tan shard for good meassure.

 

The format actually worked GREAT! Players loved the narative I wrote through it all, as well as the progression system between scenarios. I am now starting to plan a new event. This time with even more players, and using the same format.

 

Here is a small selection of the pictures of took of the event, showcasing the boards and some of the 9 battles that took place.

 

THE BOARDS OF BATTLE

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AND SOME OF THE BATTLES

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AND MORE PICTURES OF THE BATTLES!

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