Hi guys,

While I was in GW Chermside yesterday the subject of tournament play came up, in particular, how some people start to take these things a bit too seriously. So an antidote was proposed - a 40K tournament without pre-set lists. Instead of submitting a list before hand you simply nominate which codex you'll be using, and you just bring every model you can. Before each game you find out who you're play and what race they're using, then you've got 30min to come up with a 1000pt list (because of the extra list games would have to be smaller and faster). Then it's game on. The last round would be blind, so for that you could have prepped lists.

I think if played in the right spirit this could be a lot anarchic fun, but I thought throw this out there and see if anyone else liked the idea, could think of any potential problems etc. Kriston (the manager at GW chermside) seemed pretty amped to make this happen and if there is some interest it may help get this thing off the ground.

Thanks for any input

In my mind it would be way to easy to exploit. You would be able to tailor your force for a specific enemy, taking more AT when facing guard, more flamers when facing orks nids etc.

However it would depend on the group playing, if your all in with the same intent it would be a nice change.

As long as you call the tournament listhammer, and expect some particularly nasty tailored lists to appear throughout.

Instantly I feel its a bad idea...

Possibly make a new 1000 point list each game but not know who you will fight and what army they have.

I think you might want to run it as a 3 lists with 1-2 optional units per list.

otherwise you would have too many delays as a TO.

What do you do when a player hasn't quite finished their list at the end of 30 mins? Make them play with an incomplete list? make them play with their default list?(defeating the purpose of your Tourney).

How about take 3 pre-made lists which have to be different. At least one or two choices must be different, or even a different army in each list.

No delay, no writing, no confusion.

then you simply draw from a hat that the players will play using their list number whatever that round.

I can see this causing a lot of confusion.

For example Writing and giving your opponent a half scriblede up list with items, rules, stats etc.

Also i can see this kind of system 'favouring the rich' (thoughs that can afford models) as they will be able to change there list extensivly.

What about writting up a 2000 point roster, and bring those models

And then making an army list of random vaule (750, 1000, 1500) out of the 2000 point roster.

And then you put restrictions on thing like in the 750 point game no models with more then 2 wounds .. ect ect ect

5 rounds, 5 lists, no list can be used twice. No limits on the list (incase people have small collections) and if they want they can have 5 of the same list.

That way they can have limited tailoring but if they specialise their lists too much they could have issues of bad matchups

(did that once with a 3 round FOW comp but said core was the same and support must be different, different meaning that you had to at least change platoon sizes if not type)

I'ma long way from Chermside but I think i prefer the sound of bringing 3 lists or something like that. Who checks the people's math? I have run plenty of tournaments, and it's a rare one where somebody doesn't make an error, some times Ive had like 1 in 4 players hand in incorrect lists!

I don't play 40K, but I think that the best way to do it would be each person makes 3 lists, after finding out which army they'll be playing against, they pick one. Then they can see which list their opponent has picked. You could have lists that were built specifically for different types of armies, but you wouldn't know their exact build. Also, all lists could be prechecked by the TO. No limit on how many times you can use each list, no limit on how many or how few changes are made between the three lists.

If you want players to be able to custom write their lists for each opponent I would suggest that this would be better suited to a campaign or league rather than a tournament. Let people take the time to do it properly.

However, the idea of coming with 2 or 3 premade lists sounds workable in a tournament environment. Especially with Planetstrike coming out and the idea of attacker and defender have different force organisation charts (eg attacker has more elites and fast attack, defender has more heavy support) this sort of idea could work.

Regards

Mark C