Wargaming Ninja Turtles

Alright everyone, G asked me to contribute to this blog since I'm a bit more involved with 40k than he and the other bloggers are so that's what I'm gonna do. I figured a good way to start would be to talk about the tournament I ran last weekend.

One of the big problems I have with 40k is how static the game can be when the goals are always fixed. In 5th, kill points made up the vast majority of the games, and as a result, strong lists depended on a few high output high survivability units (Draigowing and bike-nobs were very good for this). With the shift to 6th, the idea is to have low cost, high volume scoring units to sit on the myriad objectives that rule the board. When you take troops that have a high damage output, they tend to also be costly, and you've made the choice for the other person with regards to target priority. What rules now is low cost, numerous scoring units that are minimal threats on the table. Either kill the scary things and let the troops score, or shoot the troops down and eat the return fire from the scary stuff; Damned if you do, damned it you don't.

Neither of these types of game are bad by any stretch, but they certainly lend priority to a certain type of list. In 5th, bikers and paladins brought the toughness and killyness to win. In 6th, kroot, warriors and cultists are ideal in that they are super cheap, and aren't so scary that your opponent prioritizes killing them. What I wanted for my event was a game that does not force that choice, and while I'm not completely there yet, I feel like I've gotten close.

My tournaments run 6 objectives (to avoid having a player at the advantage of placing one more than the other person), with no mysterious objectives, secondaries and a special modification to each game. At setup, each table has a deck of cards; each table has the same deck, and each card has a small effect on the game. Some cards will activate kill-points, others will turn off secondary objectives. Some of them will modify the way objectives are scored (biasing the points in favor of one player or the other) and others still have no effect on scoring, but allow for modified rules (one allows a single unit to assault coming in from reserves, and another allows the warlord and his unit to fire into Close combat). Before the start of the game, each player draws five cards, elects to keep two, and passes one to their opponent. This way, you have to consider that the other person may modify your own pre-game position rather than just trying to gain the maximum advantage you can.

The idea is that a player can bring whatever list they enjoy playing (be it a strong death star, numerous small units, minimal troops, etc) and be able to shift the games objective slightly so that they stand a chance of winning. No one is forced to bring massed scoring units if they prefer a mechanized force, because they can before the game starts, sway the objective slightly away from scoring on objectives. Because of this, a resident Nid player who isn't very known for being hard won the event and took home a nice big gift certificate.

Before I run my next one, I will be sure to share the cardset on here so that other people can give it a shot. :)


`Dave