Here at SN Battle reports we pride ourselves in creating themed battle reports on beautiful tables, where the focus is not on the hyper-competitiveness side of the hobby, but rather the fun side to 40k coupled with fantastic painted armies.
Therefore when it came to hosting our own tournament we have tried our best to create our own unique army composition rules to reflect our principles. We have found that our current ruleset of a two source army build (a single mandatory detachment, plus an optional formation) tunnels players into our vision without limiting them too much. Although there is still many ways to create competitive lists, they are generally a lot tamer than what is possible with the standard 40k, out of the book, ruleset.
Currently we have held three events in total, each of them proving better than the last. We have received very positive comments for all of our events and that is paramount to us. Our list of previous participants includes members of from Tabletop Tactics, Aceface, Geeks40k, Scattered Dice, and multiple Golden Daemon painting award winner Andy Wardle. Therefore, as you might expect, we are extremely excited about our upcoming event, No Retreat IV.
The tournament is held in sunny Gibraltar, a small overseas British territory on the southernmost point of Spain. It is famous for being the entry point to the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Pilar of Hercules, the mighty Rock of Gibraltar and the only place to find wild Barbary Macaques in Europe, amongst other things. We speak both English and Spanish, but in our native tongue we tend to have an eclectic manner of speaking both languages entwined in the same sentence. As we have Spanish as a second language we can cater comfortably with any translations required and can have an adjudicator assigned to a specific table if the language barrier is an issue.
For anyone who is interested in applying to No Retreat IV, you will need to email us directly requesting an application. You will then receive a reply from us with an application file for you to fill in and resubmit. You will need to be quick because the application deadline is the 11th November. In order to be accepted entry you will need to provide us with six high quality photos of some finished models for the army you intend to participate with. We will then evaluate all of our applicants and accept the best painted armies as we only have a limited capacity of 36 players.
Regarding the army building, player’s armies must be comprised solely from a single codex (there are some modified rules for Imperial Knights and Assassins). One detachment, whether it be a CAD or army specific, is mandatory and there is an option to include a single formation as well (Can’t be an additional detachment). Formation of formations (e.g. Necron Decurion) are not allowed along with the Air Superiority detachment. Armies must be fully assembled, painted and based and all weapons must be wysiwyg. We used the ITC faq along with some extra limitations, e.g. 400 combined points maximum spent on Lord of War choices. For more details on the army composition rules please check out our website at www.snbattlereports.com.
If you have been fortunate enough to be accepted to our Tournament you be notified by the SN Team through a special package in the mail, after which we will start arrangements for the overnight packages (if required). A shuttle service from the airport to the venue is included with the ticket alongside free soft drinks, tea, coffee, exclusive event t-shirt and some other goodies. There is also no fee for people with event tickets to enter in the painting competition, where participants display their painted models for a range of categories. During your stay we will arrange for evening meals, if desired, plus a chance to have a roam around the Rock of Gibraltar and encounter some of our wild macaques.
Players army lists will be validated and put live a couple of weeks prior to the event starting. The tournament itself is spread across the two days so that there is plenty of time to casually prepare for the next battle, have lunch/snacks and socialise amongst other peers. Once the tournament is underway, players will be paired up following a swiss ranking system (winners play the winners, losers the losers, etc). We use our custom scoring method to score players following a combination of the Eternal War and Maelstrom of war missions. Scenarios are divided into three scoring levels, a primary, secondary and tertiary mission. Primary is an Eternal War mission, secondary a Maelstrom mission and tertiary is first strike, linebreaker, slay the warlord. If a player gains more victory points in the primary mission than their opponent, they are automatically given 14 points (regardless of how many victory points they have actually got). The same is applied to whoever has more maelstrom mission points for the secondary, gaining 8 points, and 6 points for the tertiary. If there is a tie in victory points for either the primary, secondary or tertiary, each player gets half of the points that a winner would have got (e.g. 7 points each for a draw in the primary). Again, for more information about the missions and scoring method, please visit our website at www.snbattlereports.com.
On the final day there will be an awards ceremony for the entire event. Prizes will be given to the top 3 winners of the Tournament, along with the winning entries for the painting competition. The SN Team will give an additional 6 “SN Awards” given to the armies who the team believe are painted the best, and have the best collective feel as an army. There is also a silver spoon to whoever comes last in our tournament.
On a final note we would like to add that it is our mission to setup and host the best, most exclusive Warhammer 40k tournament there is, where the focus is not only on the success of the tournament, but the experience of it all.
For more information or if you are interested in signing up, please visit our site at www.snbattlereports.com.
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