Hey everyone, please take a look at this and let us know how this sounds to you for a potential tournament format for 6th ed.
No one wants to jump the gun on cutting things out of the rule set, or adding things in so early, but the reality of the situation is that we here at Frontline are contractually bound to run some big events coming up in September, and we need to show people what they’re getting if we expect to sell any tickets for these events. We’d love to get more play testing under our belts, but we can’t wait any longer. So, we need to post up some guidelines for 6th edition events, which means we need to make some tough decisions.
We’ve been playing 6th ed like crazy and feel that we know the game as well as can be expected this early in. This is our first draft of a tournament structure for 6th ed and we wanted feedback from all you tournament goers and TOs.
We will be building on the system we had used last year which itself was the result of several years of tournament player feedback and fine tuning and had excellent reviews at every event we ran. We’re looking to use those core concepts (simplicity, and fairness) combined with 6th ed changes to hopefully provide a fun, level playing field.
Lastly, that said, we’re not married to any of our ideas, and we definitely operate under the principals of meritocracy so if you have a good idea please share it. This will be an evolving structure that builds over time and with experience, but we need a starting point so here we go!
=Basics
We won’t be using mysterious terrain. Some of these are just too unbalancing for some armies.
We won’t be using mysterious objectives unless they are predetermined, which will be explained below.
We will be using Fortifications, but not Fortresses of Redemption or Skyshield Landing Pads as they are just flat out too big, particularly if both players bring one.
Warlord Traits: Frankie had the idea of rolling once and then choosing that number power on any of the three traits. This means the system is still random, but it gives you the ability to avoid rolling a worthless trait. Feedback on this one would be appreciated.
Allies are in. They bring more balance to the game as IMO, the core mechanics of the game are what now create imbalance. When everyone’s power level is cranked to 10, it helps to level the playing field.
Terrain will be pre-arranged. Having players arrange terrain just isn’t practical for a tournament from a time perspective.
Book Night Fighting will be in as will Random Game Length and Stealing of the Initiative.
= We will be using a “BAO” (Bay Area Open) style mission similar to what we did last year.
What this means is that we will essentially have a single, multi-layered mission with different deployments. What we have found is that the mission is sufficiently complex enough that when combined with differing terrain, deployment and opponents, provides for a unique play experience every game that also allows for multiple paths to victory. Playing the same mission also means that you are never left trying to figure out what to do in a given mission. You already know it and get better at it each round. It allows you to focus on playing your best instead of trying to figure out how to play.
The first victory condition will be 2 Capture and Control objectives on 40mm bases that can be placed anywhere in your deployment zone at least 6″ from a table edge or 12″ from another objective. The player controlling the most of these (as per the BRB) wins this victory condition.
There will also be 3 Seize Ground Objectives on 25mm bases which must be placed outside of either player’s deployment zone, 6″ from a table edge and 12″ from another objective following the rules in the BRB. The player controlling the most of these (as per the BRB) wins this victory condition. We are 90% sure we will allow at least one of these to always give Skyfire to a unit within 3″ of it so long as you control that objective (ANY one unit within 3″, not just the scoring unit controlling it) to mitigate the threat Flyers pose to armies without a lot of counters. What are your alls feelings on this? We think it is fair as it allows armies to fight back against Flyers but it isn’t a gimme. You have to get into position to use it and the other player can prevent you from doing this. We think it is a good compromise but would love some feedback.
The third victory condition will be Victory Points as in the old system. We wanted to keep KPs but due to the amount of Deathstar style units we anticipate will become prevalent in the game, the KP system becomes silly. KPs are meant to balance out MSU, which is still really powerful in 6th (if not BETTER) but now that the Draigowing style units are going to become the norm, saying destroying one of those is the equivalent of taking out a unit of Grots is not fair. So, Victory Points, while more mentally taxing at the end of a long game, seems to be the best bet. Half points if the unit is immobilized or below half strength at games end, full points if it is destroyed or broken at game’s end. Whoever has more VP’s wins this victory condition. An alternative to this we are considering is to say a unit is worth 1KP for every 25 or 50 points it costs. You then put this number on your army list to make the math at the end of the game easy. The downside here though, is that it creates situations where having multiple units just over the break point can mean your army will give up a great deal more points proportionally than an opponent who has a lot of units just under the break point.
We will use 3 Tie Breaker Points for bracketing purposes per the BAO style. As the old BAO Tie Breaker points were really similar to the new ones in the book, we’ll largely keep these apart from First Blood which we find is just too easy for the player going first to get.
Slay the Warlord
Linebreaker
Preserve Your Focres=You get this is half or more of your scoring units, rounding up, are not destroyed or broken at game’s end.
We will use the following deployments:
Dawn of War (6th ed version, was called pitched battle in 5th)
Vanguard Strike (triangle deployment)
Spearhead from 5th
We are considering Hammer and Anvil but in a tournament setting where tables are butt to butt, it can get really, really inconvenient. What do you guys think? I just don’t think think it’s practical and Spearhead is pretty close to it.
This mission then stays very true to the book missions as we like to do, but also (hopefully) balances out some of the inequities those missions have. For example the mission in the book “The Relic” is just so unfair for shooty armies or if you have a scoring Deathstar such as Nob Bikers who can just drive forward, grab it, and then drive away. They are tough enough to just shrug off any damage.
=Psykers
If you roll a power you can’t use, either because of Force Charge or the inability to use it such as a Broodlord rolling a shooting power, you can reroll till you get one you can use.
Points Level
This is the one where we’re really scratching our heads. We want to go with 1500 as the game really slows down and counter-intuitively, the better you are the slower it goes. Why? Every little micro-movement becomes really important. It bogs the game down a ton. We just don’t see games finishing in the same time limit we had previously with 1750pt limits. Experience will be the best teacher here and it may turn out that we are wrong, but we have to post a points limit before we have any experience, hahaha! So, we’re leaning towards 1500 at this point. What do you all think?
We also find that at this points level you can’t pack in all the goodies, which is good and bad. For one, most Deathstars fit in at 1500pts, and as such they can really dominate the game. On the flip side, it also means that you can’t bring a deathstar AND crazy support units. We’re finding it can be a bit more rock, paper, scissors at 1500pts.
We’re open to non-traditional points levels too, such as 1600, or 1650. Now is a good time to throw off old traditions if they no longer fit the dynamic of the game.
Forge World
Most of you know we at Frontline love Forge World and have pushed to have it in tournaments previously but were met with a lot of community opposition.
The biggest objection previously was that FW upset the balance of the game. Well, hahaha, no worries about that now! Game balance went out the window with 6th in a big way and the power combos that the game provides don’t need FW. The worst offenders that people complained about were Vehicles (Achilles, Lucious Drop Pod, Caestes Assault Ram) and those have all been hit with the NERF bat due to Hull Points, so I don’t see it being as big of an issue.
The second biggest objection was that most players didn’t know the FW rules. Well, now everyone is relearning the rules and this is a perfect time to open the doors and broaden our horizons. I think particularly the inclusion of the FW AA units will go a long way to helping to even out some of the crazier lists. Mostly though, FW units just add a lot of character to armies and the vast majority of them are under powered if anything.
We propose to allow any units with the 40K approved stamp to be allowed in the game.
Ultimately I think FW increases the fun of the game and the diversity of toys we get to play with. What do you all think?
=Counts As Armies and WYSIWYG
I anticipate this is going to get crazy. Can anyone say, “counts as allies?” 
Yeah, that is going to get bananas.
So, we’d love to hear some ideas on where to draw the line? Particularly with FW models, this gets crazy. So, what do you do when you have someone who has built an awesome AdMech army using all kinds of beautiful conversion but is using two different codices andFW models? Even worse, the guy with a bunch of half painted models or models from his and 4 friends’ collections that all have different paint jobs and represent an allied army. That could very easily get confusing.
We don’t want to limit people’s creativity, so what are some ideas to make this easy? My thoughts were to include a hand-out for players who are doing this to give to their opponent that includes at the very least a unit to unit breakdown, ie. this unit in my army=this unit from this codex, and etc. Preferably with a brief stat breakdown.
=What are we missing?
Are you guys seeing any obvious holes in this? The better prepared we are, the quicker we can get into the flow of running more fun, well organized events in 6th as we did in 5th!
Thanks, everyone!