Interested in hearing ideas...

[Battle 1-2]

So, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I play WH40K with my three oldest sons, ages 14, 12, and 10. I play Space Marines and have an eclectic army made up of what was cheap on e-bay, my oldest plays a Tyranid army made up mostly of 1) what was cheap on e-bay plus 20 genestealers from the Space Hulk of the 1990's. My second son plays an ork army made up entirely of e-bay material, and my third son plays a Tau army that I started a few years back with a squad of fire warriors, expanded with a Tau Battleforce (which included a crisis suit, devilfish, fire warriors, and stealth suits) and some Kroot, and well, that's pretty much what he has.

As of today, the boys each only have about 750 points of units, and our lists are not tournament quality. They are, as I already said, based on what we could get.

We don't let that deter us, and so we're about to finish up a second tournament where we have round-robin battles: everyone has to battle everyone else, one time. That makes for six battles, and it makes for some really interesting ones. Today, we fought three battles, Space Marines vs. Tau, Tyranids vs. Orks, and Space Marines vs. Tyranids. Yesterday we had two battles: Space Marines vs Orks and Tau vs. Tyranids.

It's been a lot of fun, and we've videotaped battle reports of several of the battles (although not all). Even though we're having a good time, I'd like to do something more with it, but I don't know what. Our battles have been kind of a hybrid of the missions in the BRB - we lay out six objectives. For each objective you control at the end of the battle, you get a victory point. Linebreaker is worth 1 point, First Blood is 1 point, and Slay the Warlord (we each only have one HQ, so we count those as the "warlord") is 2 points.

Of the three boys, whichever one ends up with the highest VP total gets to pick out a unit, up to $30 in value, and I'll buy it for him. Second place of the boys gets to pick out a terrain feature from our FLGS, and the third place son gets to pick a White Dwarf mag and I'll buy that. Loads of fun.

Where can we go to improve on this? This was a good year for us financially, so they're getting a lot of WH40K stuff for Christmas. Everyone is getting an HQ (well, except for the Orks), and they're all getting a Heavy Support unit, too, plus more. I think after Christmas we'll all have at least 1500 points worth of units, although again, none of it is tailored to winning. The Christmas presents are geared towards getting them HQ options and a Heavy Support, filled in with a lot of, again, whatever was cheap on e-bay. (we believe in having fun at low cost)

Does anyone have suggestions for a tournament concept we could try or a site we could check for scenarios to play? I really liked the BOLS batrep pitting the Imperial Gua... I mean, Astra Militarum vs the Tau. Something like that would be a lot of fun, but I don't know how we could make it work with all four armies. Any ideas or suggestions I'll be happy to listen to.

[ShadowcatX]

Really it depends what you are wanting to do.I'd recommend starting buy letting everyone get used to their jump in points. I'd recomend not just going to 1500 and staying there, do battles at 1,000; 1,250; and 1,500. Maybe an escalation series.

You could do 2 vs 1 battles, say whoever lost is on the ropes and having to ally with foes just to stay alive. (Both sides points totals should be equal.)

Another league idea I saw was that the players made a 2,000 point list, but started at 1500. Each game they won their available points went down 50, each game they lost they went up 50. The winner was whoever first won a game with 1250 points. However, they were only allowed to field units off their 2000 point list, and only exactly as they were on the list so building the list was difficult. Obviously points values would have to be adjusted for your family.

[Battle 1-2]

I appreciate very much the suggestion. I've played 1000 point battles now with two of the boys, and you're very right - the nature of the game has changed considerably by going up to 1000 points (and the addition of the heavy support options for the boys).

We've decided our next tournament will take some time. We'll play an escalation series, like you suggested. We'll start at 400 points and play single elimination, which will amount to 3 games. At 400 and 500 points we should be able to play those all in one day. But the winner from a round of battles at a given points level will get to choose a single benefit to apply in the first round of the next series, either +4" to his deployment zone, -4" to the opponents deployment zone, one extra objective on his side of the map (making seven objectives on the table), or one non-heavy-support unit can infiltrate that couldn't normally.

I think it'll make for some really interesting battles. I'll report back and let you know in a month or so.