What is Oldhammer 40k? Tony Myers has the answer with this tournament review as well as steps for how to run you’re very own Oldhammer event.
Hello everyone!
Tony Myers from the Meta Mafia gaming club here with my very first article on frontlinegaming.org! As a long time reader of the great articles here I’m very excited to drop my two cents in the bucket.
This article will be both an event recap as well as a small piece about why we decided to run this style event. Not only that but we will give anyone that’s interested the link to the event page for the next one so that hopefully we can see a few of you all there at the next one!
So before I dive right into the recap of the event we ran a little while back in Sacramento California I want to talk about the type of event it was and why I think it’s important.
Our event is an “oldhammer” style event and is essentially a 5th edition style list build that’s using the current big rule book and ITC FAQ. That means none of the scary formations, no destroyer weapons, no super heavies, etc. Just a standard CAD and some dice to rolls to determine the winner.
It’s an alternative format to the standard ITC style and I think that’s part of what makes it interesting to the 40k community. Not only is it an opportunity to draw in those players that have been on the fence with competitive gaming, but maybe it brings back a few disgruntled people that have left the game in recent years, and even some new players. This is also an entry point for those either scared of the power gaming aspect that competitive play can be, or maybe a nostalgia trip for those of us that enjoyed fifth edition and it’s list building simplicity.
I really think this style of event is an important thing to have in any healthy 40k community, and contrary to some arguments of it battling with the standard ITC format, I think it actually complements it. Newer players, returning players, and disgruntled players can all get their feet wet again with this style event and are more likely to keep playing and maybe even dabble in the other standard style ITC events once they feel ready. Not only that, but it’s a great way for the competitive players to relax and maybe play some fun lists that have taken a back seat to the block of cheese armies they generally bring to other events. We saw things like dreadnaughts, and terminators being played for example. One guy even brought an entire Mordian Imperial Guard army to really bring the Oldhammer style!
We also let everyone that played give feedback throughout the day and also at the end in order to make adjustments for the next event. Only two rules adjustments were made for our next one on August 6th and I think that’s really good considering how different the event is to anything else.
So without further delay here is the tournament information and format
Location: great escape games – Sacramento, CA
Date: June 18, 2016
Rules:
– 1500 points
– Single CAD (Combined arms detachment)
– No formations
– No lord of wars (characters ok)
– No super heavies
– No gargantuans
– No Destroyer (D) weapons
– No flyers
– Flying monsterous creatures are considered to be gliding at all times.
– No forgeworld units or rules
– Armies without an HQ selection such as harlequins can build using the CAD perimeters without the HQ choices but must nominate one character in the army to be their warlord.
– Current Itc FAQ will be used for anything else, including the interim rules for the new psychic powers.
– First draft GW FAQ **will not be used**
Salamander melta spam in drop pods ended up being the overall winner. Vulkan with his army wide buffs and the master crafted weapons ended up being very very powerful in this event. Part of the reason was the low tau army count. With very few armies able to deal with the rapid insertion and armor popping melta, it proved to be the most dominate army there.
Our overall feedback from the event was really really good. Players seemed to enjoy the more relaxing style of games where they felt their units could actually all interact without being at a huge disadvantage when put against other more streamlined and min max style units. We saw terminators and dreadnaughts and land raiders, instead of formation based obsec heavy Gladius armies with min max units of tacticals in rhinos. Or khorne berserkers instead of cabal conclaves. The psychic phase was used sparingly instead of a game deciding phase. We also played with some really unique missions designed by the TO that were themed and told a story throughout the event. Also the next event will have new missions directly themed and influenced by the winning army from the first event. This lets the players impact their experience from each event and really gives something to work towards. (Editors note: Make sure to ping Tony for more info on those missions! I am curious about them as well.)
Anyone interested in attending our next event please feel free to call and sign up at the store, great escape games – (916) 927-0810, and/or visit our event pages.
Also, If anyone has any questions about the event or would like to get some tips on how to run a similar event in their area, please feel free to check out our club page and message me there.
Thanks everyone and I hope you all enjoyed the article and we look forward to seeing you all at the next oldhammer event!
That terrain is incredible.
Right?!?! These kinds of events are perfect for all the special but maybe not so practical terrain TOs tend to accumulate.
Looks amazing, and sounds like a fun format.
My only objection is the Forge World thing. I don’t see a good reason to forbid Forge World units as long as they’re within the other parameters.
in 5th they did not allow Forgeworld at all the events but one. that’s when BAO was deciding on using it. so by not letting you use forge world it keeps it true to old hammer. But i could really use some of the forgeworld ork stuff.
Eh, it was a stigma with no real backing. There’s a good reason it’s so widely accepted now. I get that it keeps to the old way, but it’s already using 7th ed rules so I would hope to see them allowed next time.
Regardless, looks like a good time
Hey guys, the reasoning with the no forgeworld was mostly for theme purposes since back in 5th edition forgeworld was a very frowned upon thing and widely considered op
Realistically it could easily be allowed
Man, that’s this Saturday – I’d definitely come over for this, just not sure on short notice. I don’t have a problem with Fliers or Forgeworld either when you take into account the other limitations.
How many rounds/games and what time do you usually start and finish??
Yeah some cool terrain.
We have one planned roughly every other month going forward as well. We hope to see you at this one on Saturday but if not then the next ones are scheduled for october 22 and december 17th
Each event is 4 rounds and each round is 2 hours and 15 minutes. We start Reg at 9am roll dice at 945am and are done at 8pm
We were really happy with the terrain. A lot looks really good and we made a big effort to have good line of sight terrain as well.
I like the competition that comes from Old Hammer. It is a very different and fresh meta.
It isn’t perfect, but it is far better than the All-Apoc-All-The-Time that we play with the ITC army Comp.
I was at an Oldhammer Event in Kansas City on Saturday. My Ork Trukk Rush did pretty well.
There were a couple of problematic Daemon Lists. Because the 2++ reroll wasn’t using the ITC nerf, screamer star was pretty huge. One opponent had a Screamerstar that was grimmed and cursed earth the whole game, and a Tzeech prince who also had a 2++ reroll from an artifact + Warlord Trait, a Fateweaver, and 2 min squads of Pink Horrors. It wasn’t a terribly interactive game. I tarpit the screamer star, and killed the pinks then ran around sitting on objectives trying to outlast him with my MSU.
I think one thing that should accompany an Oldhammer format is a Cap on Warp Dice. At 1500 points Single CAD, I like a 12 Warp Dice Cap (Meaning if you have 8 Warp charges, and you roll a 6, you only get 12 dice to cast with).
With your event’s nerf to FMC’s, Fateweaver wouldn’t be nearly as good, so it might have balanced out. Eldar and Demons are really the only ones that can spam warp dice in a single CAD.
I never considered a nerf to fliers as part of Oldhammer, and it might be interesting to try.
I’ve also had lots of people request nerfs to Scatbikes. Rather than making it 1 in 3 Scatter Laser, I’ve been experimenting with tweaking them to be a Fast Attack choice if they include any Scatter Lasers or Shurikan Cannons.
I always look like shit after 10+ hours of playing 40k. The ITC faq was in effect so 2+/4+ rerolls. There were no issues with warp dice that I heard of.
Because 3 ML 3 Heralds fit in 1 HQ slot, and ML:3 Demon princes can be Heavy support, a Demon player can exploit warp Shenanigans.
Of course without Fatey flying around it is less successful, so you might be fine.
Yeah… but look at what you’re bringing to the field. The heralds are super squishy if you don’t put them in a Screamerstar. And they aren’t exactly cheap when they’re ML3. And, even at ML3, it takes 2 of them to combine for 6 warp dice which is a little over a 50/50 shot to even get a summon off.
Why wouldn’t you put them in the Screamerstar? That is the whole point of the Screamerstar to give you a place to safely stash your heralds.
The screamer’s don’t really do much damage, Just keep the heralds safe so that they can be Warp Dice batteries for other units like gunboat fateweaver, or Summoning Horrors. They can also Summon while in Combat if need be.
We actually use the itc FAQ in addition to the stated “nerfs” / rules.
Daemons weren’t really an issue but time will tell with that. Some armies are not hurt as much by the list building requirements but that’s just the breaks lol
We actually switched the no fliers to be fast skimmers for the event coming up this Saturday.
Hah! This event sounds awesome. I’ll definitely be able to make a pure Blood Angels list for this type of tournament format!
Awesome! We hope to see that in action and to see you there!
Are we using updated codex’s? Cause eldar necrons dark eldar ans of course chaos sucked and tau eh. I remember 5th being space wolves guard and space marines
It’s current 7th edition brb and codexs with certain restrictions and rules to inspire 5th edition gaming as opposed to actually going back to those exact rules.
Eldar and Tau still caused some serious issues at the one of these I’ve been to. They had an additional change that only Troops (and not Transports) were Scoring, which made ScatBikes even stronger, while Triptide Lists were still ripping people up, even without their Formations.
We kept dedicated transports for troop units as obsec so nothing changed on that. I could see how that could be a big change and advantage tho.
Riptides are a very strong unit and can easily be an issue. That being said, we aren’t creating the rules to curb each and every thing that is powerful. We expect our meta to adjust. Deathstars are still possible despite not having formations to make them crazy op so basically they can still weather the storm of fire from riptides and then destroy them in combat. Also ravenwing is really good once they destroy their market light sources.
Im curious then if yoi couldnt use things like angels of death. Since armies like iron hands become impossible to use
In our events, Supplements are still available to use. As long as the army composition is still made with a single cad and none of the restrictions are violated like no d weapons or forgeworld units for example, then it’s all good.
Angels of death is good for relics and warlord traits mostly. White scars getting the fleet banner and hunters eye come to mind, as well as the gorgans chain for iron hands of course.
I find it odd that you simply banned fliers instead of allowing them but restricting them to hover mode like FMCs.
We banned them in the first event for simplicity. We had 30 days to announce and plan and promote the event based on scheduling.
Our event this weekend and any going forward have all fliers allowed as fast skimmers similar to how they were treated in 5th
the only issue I have is that Tyranids are almost auto loss in this format. with the level of fire most of the armies can do now. If you are allowing grav-weapons Tyranids may as well not show up. There’s is way to much ap2 shooting with grav.
To be fair, Tyranids in general (outside of #LictorShame) are pretty much an auto lose regardless in any tournament format. The codex is just utter garbage compared to recent releases.
grav is banned at the next event.
Well… there’s not much they can do to help that. FMCs got stuck only gliding (like in 5th) but the tournament also took away formations, D weapons, and super heavies. Those are all significant blows to a lot of the power lists. If hat’s not enough to help ‘Nids, that just means ‘Nids are beyond help (which is pretty true).
So supplements are okay but no formations out of the supplement.
Fliers… What exactly is 5e skimmer rules?
Go to the events page that’s linked in the article. Not using 5th ed rules per say, just a 5th ed. style of list building. Flyers are just fast skimmers, etc.
Great article , I`ve been working on something very similar here in NJ. Looking forward to future posts.
How do you handle eliminating D weapons when alot of units/psychic powers in the core armies have D strengths? Do you downgrade them to S10 and let them use the units/powers anyway?
In the case of D weapons they aren’t allowed, if the weapon has multiple profiles then they simply can’t use the D version. In the case of psychic powers, they aren’t allowed to generate them so they reroll to get another power or reroll the powers result in order to get a legal result. In no case will a d weapon or d result be used in the event.