14th Black Crusade: Week One of the Opening Salvo

So I just got home from Great White, and there were close to a dozen people ( ! ) there to play in the Week One of the 14th Black Crusade lead-up event (running in the store each week this month). A dozen people! I’m pretty pleased with that; also, everyone seemed pretty jazzed about the perks they got just for showing up to play. I think the re-roll tokens are going to be a hit.

Above, I’ve posted the Special Event cards that will be raffled off at Great White on their Thursday-40k nights (the tables open up for play at 4:30 and people start showing up between then and 5:30; gaming continues until the mall closes at 9pm). The way it’s working is: everyone gets a raffle ticket when they play a game (whether they’ve registered already for the tournament or not), and if they win their game they get a second raffle ticket.

Because 40k is being supported by Great White on both Thursday nights and Saturdays in June, raffle tickets will be handed out on both days, making each week’s draw for the Special Event card happen at the start of the next Thursday 40k-gaming night. Before any games begin that Thursday, a ticket will be pulled from the raffle pile and the winner gets that week’s Special Event card –provided he’s now registered in the tournament; if he isn’t yet registered, a new ticket will be drawn. All tickets drawn that night will be thrown out.

I’m in favour of handling the raffle this way as it doesn’t discourage people from registering later on; if some one has been playing in the lead up all month and finally registers in the last week, he’ll have all those tickets from the previous game already in the raffle box to ensure he still has an okay chance of winning a Special Event card. I’ve always liked formats that focus on being inclusive (rather than exclusive) and think handling the raffling of the special cards this way will encourage more people to participate.

You’ll also notice that some of the cards have added benefits if played in the Rubicon Straits battle zone of the tournament; this is where the Sector passes come in to play. The Sector Passes help ensure that those with Special Event cards in Round One are able to play their cards in the system they’ve fought in all month (at Great White, the system is the Rubicon Straits). If too many people all play their Sector Pass on Round One, preference will be given first to those with Special Event cards, second to maximize on good-evil pairings, and third to maximize variety.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, everyone showing up to play in the lead-up games gets a Re-Roll token. And they get one each week they show up (and that’s the maximum per week: ONE). The Re-Roll token allows a player to re-roll (duh!) a single D6 roll during any game played during the lead-up event or during the tournament. I’ve decided to go with a ruling that a maximum of THREE tokens can be brought to the tournament –just in case any players end up playing at both Great White and the Games Workshop in Chinook mall (or GW & Myth, or …you get the point).

Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll touch on the grudge matches we’ll be allowing in Round One of the tournament, where players can opt to choose their opponent in the first round of the tournament. Also, the classic Saturday-night mixer at the tournament will be running a Battlefleet Gothic game that will have in-game repercussions on the tournament’s Sunday games. We’ll be providing a certain amount of stuff, so owning your own BFG stuff will NOT be a prerequisite to playing some ‘Gothic.

Until then….

Eye of Terror Tournament: A Taste of Round 1

For those who haven’t scoured the players pack, we’ll be doing some lead-up events in the weeks preceding the tournament weekend. Two Games Workshop locations: GW Chinook Mall in Calgary and GW Kingsway Garden Mall in Edmonton will be running lead-up games throughout June. Also, the independent retailers, Great White Entertainment and Myth Games (both in Calgary) will be doing likewise.

So what’s the deal with these lead-up games?

Sneak Attack!

All the games being played ahead of the tournament represent the initial skirmishes being fought before the hostilities fully erupt. These battles give those playing a pro-Chaos army (the tournament refers to these as the Forces of Destruction) a chance to get a head start in the campaign: all victories scored by these factions will lower the initial degree of Imperial control in a select few sectors. Which store you play your battles in determines which sector your victories will count toward:

GW Chinook will be handling all battles taking place in the Perilous Stair (first leg of the Arx Gap: one of the less stable paths out of the Eye of Terror).

GW Kingsway Garden Mall will be handling the hive world, Chima Lomas, in the Nemesis Tessera sector.

Great White and Myth Games will have their battles affect the Rubicon Straits, a treacherous causeway that leads to the naval yards of Bellis Corona …and ultimately Cadia.

Tournament Perks:

Players can also gain tournament perks simply by playing at participating stores during the lead-up events.

Sector Defence

With their determining the initial defence values of three systems in the Eye of Terror, players will earn one Sector Defence card that will allow them to begin the tournament in the battle zone belonging to the store they played at in the lead-up events.

(I’m not sure if I mentioned it already or not, but this tournament will also be different in that tables will be clumped together to represent a battle zone. The combined scores of ALL the tables in a battle zone will be used to determine how much of the defenders the Forces of Destruction have destroyed there that turn. Players will switch battle zones pretty much every round so as to ensure playing the greatest variety of opponents.)

Re-Roll Tokens

Each week a player games at one of the participating stores, they will gain a Re-Roll Token that can be used either in the lead-up event or be saved for the tournament weekend. A maximum of three tokens can be earned by one players.

Special Event Card

Lastly, the most exciting reason to participate in the lead-up games is for a chance to win a Special Event card playable in the first round of the tournament! Even though there are six cards, only ONE card can be won per week: going either to a Forces of Destruction player or to a Forces of the Imperium player. This means not only does getting a Special Event card from the lead-ups gain you a cool ability in the first round of the tournament, it also keeps your opponents from getting  one.

(True to the old Eye of Terror world-wide campaign GW ran back in 2003, this campaign will present opportunities for players to earn Special Event cards that can have dramatic effects on the campaign results each round. ALSO, some Special Event cards will enable players to take a special named character in their army for one round free of points cost…!)

I think the Special Event cards are going to be pretty neat. The way that [I'm hoping] they’ll help weave the campaign narrative together throughout all the rounds has me pretty excited. I’m also pretty excited about the way that players will earn Special Event cards: by fulfilling secondary objectives in battles –objectives that won’t be geared towards helping complete that round’s primary mission. I think the secondary objectives will create the feeling of “crazy” missions without forcing the missions themselves to become too crazy.

Campaign Tournament: June 26 & 27

More info also at: http://conquest-calgary.com/

On Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28 myself, Great White and the fine folks who ran the ConQuest tournament in the fall of 2009 will be doing a tournament weekend unlike what’s become the standard style of tournament in these parts for some time: we’re bucking the trend and running a campaign tournament weekend.

Our tournament will combine competitive tournament play with what makes map-based campaigns so attractive to us gamers–namely, an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie , the feeling that our games are part of a big picture and the sense that at some point the whole thing could turn out feeling, well, epic. Basically, this campaign weekend is all about contributing to an adventure where the story is as important as the games themselves, where it is just as important to achieve victory for your team as it is to gain glory for yourself.

This is campaign weekend will not be a standard tournament where only your score is important!

Games will be driven by the narrative of the campaign; the games you play will be connected to part of a greater battle – the assault upon the Cadian Gate by the armies of Chaos and the forces of disorder. (The link to the full back story can be found at the top of the column on the right-hand side of this page titled, oddly enough, “14th Black Crusade back story”).

How well your team does will matter just as much as how well you yourself do; even if you lose your individual battle, achieving some of your objectives may help out your faction more than you tabling your opponent would.

I’m hoping that players will get into the mindset of the army (and faction) they’re bringing to the campaign and use this weekend as an opportunity to try something new with their armies — without being worried that straying from their tried and tested ‘tournament’ lists will result in them doing poorly over the weekend.

A Win is a Win is a Win

The other thing I’d like to point out that will make this tournament different is that for each player’s personal battles, there will be NO degrees of victory. A minor victory counts as tabling your opponent; a major victory counts as tabling your opponent; tabling your opponent counts as …you guessed it: tabling your opponent. My aim  is that we can all play this tournament to win but won’t have to stress over by how much. There will be other factors beyond merely decimating your opponents that will create the points spread necessary to determine winners.  With any level of victory counting as the same kind of victory, we should also be able to focus on having some fun: we all know that the best and funnest games are the ones that  –win or lose– are close and hard fought.

My hope is that players will make lists where they can try a new thing (or few) without hampering their ability to place in the top five. I’d really like it if this tournament became more about generalship than list-building, about how you play your army on the board than what you put in your army while still at home.

Army Lists& Construction Rules

Though I’m still getting the player’s pack finished up right now, I thought I’d post this info beforehand …for those who want as much notice as possible.

Army Size:

All players will make up a list of 1400 points called your army core list.

They will also make up a list where they add an extra 250 points to their army core list (total 1650).

They will also make up a third list where they add an extra 500 points to their army core list (total 1900).

Apart from the 1400-point core, the 1650 and 1900-point lists need not be the exact same lists (ie: the 1900-point list doesn’t have to be the 1650-point list with an extra 250 points tacked on). Lists must be emailed to info@ConQuest-Calgary.com . 

Submission deadline is midnight, Friday, June 18th .

Players should ensure that the rosters include all of the models in their army, the correct points values and all equipment, skills or powers upgrades taken (along with their proper point values). Army lists can still be submitted later than June 18th but run the risk of incurring a penalty on their overall tournament score and MAY be ineligible for the Best General award (called the “Ambitious Opportunist:  (   faction name  ) ” award in this tournament.

Army army lists must have the following clearly stated at the top of the page:

Army Type,  Name of Player,  Phone Number,  Email Address

Points spent on:  HQ  /  Elite  /  Troops  /  Fast Attack  /  Heavy Support

Army lists can be submitted in Microsoft Word or Excel (versions 2003 or lower), in Notepad or in Army Builder format.

Armies cannot use more than one Force Organisation Chart and must follow their most current codex according to this list:

Codex: Black Templars                  Codex: Blood Angels (2010)

Codex: Chaos Space Marines       Codex: Daemon Hunters

Codex: Daemons of Chaos           Codex: Dark Angels

Codex: Dark Eldar (2^nd Ed.)         Codex: Eldar

Codex: Imperial guard                  Codex: Necrons

Codex: Orks                                  Codex: Space Marines

Codex: Tau Empire                       Codex: Space Wolves (2009)

Codex: Tyranids (2010)                Codex: Witch Hunters

Other Army Construction Guidelines

• Individual units that may have multiple rules versions will follow the rules presented in that army’s codex. (Yes, this means a Black Templar Land Raider will function differently than a standard Space Marine Land Raider.) Please take the time to review the relevant codex and GW FAQs for clarifications.
• Forge World/Imperial Armor/ units are not allowed; however, players can use Forge World versions of legal unit(s) from their army’s current codex.
• Apocalypse-only units and/or Formations may not be used.
• The Vehicle Design Rules may not be used.
• Allies may only be used where allowed by a particular codex (i.e. only Witch Hunters or Demon Hunters may be allies, and only as per their rules).

For Inquisitorial Armies:

Imperial Guard and Space Marine allies are allowed. As both of these codices have changed substantially since the Inquisition books were originally released, use the following amendments to the lists presented on pg 30-31 of the Daemon Hunters book and pg 26 of the Witch Hunters book:

Troops: Space Marine Tactical Squad, Space Marine Scout Squad, Imperial Guard Infantry Platoon, Imperial Guard Veteran Squad.

Fast Attack: Space Marine Assault Squad, Land Speeder Squadron, Space Marine Bike Squadron, Scout Sentinel Squadron, Armored Sentinel Squadron, Rough Rider Squad, Scout Bike Squad.

Heavy Support: Space Marine Devastator Squad, Space Marine Land Raider (Crusader and Redeemer as well), Space Marine Dreadnought, Space Marine Predator, 0-1 Leman Russ Squadron (Pask may NOT be taken).

NOTE:  Grey Knight Terminators may not travel in Valkyries or Vendetta Gunships.

Regarding Special/Unique/Named Heroes:

Special or named Characters CANNOT be used. Period.

…but there will be an allowance made for certain characters whose special rules change how their army is made up or who confer a special cross-army rule when present in the army(Like Belial or Pedro Kantor do).  This will be covered in the upcoming Player’s Pack.

That’s all I’m going to go into for now, but I will leave all interested parties with the factions break down –for those with multiple armies who aren’t sure which one they want to play yet.

The Forces of Destruction: The forces motivated to destroy all bastions of the Imperium surrounding the Eye of Terror.

• Chaos Space Marines
• Daemons of Chaos
• Space Orks
• Tyranids
• Dark Eldar

The Forces of the Imperium: The forces seeking to contain Chaos within the Eye of Terror.

• Black Templars
• Blood Angels
• Daemon Hunters
• Dark Angels
• Imperial guard
• Space Marines
• Space Wolves
• Witch Hunters

The Forces of Self Interest: Those forces looking to their own goals and are willing to fight whomever they need to achieve them. They do have a faction they ultimately side with, included in parentheses after the army (this is done so that this tournament avoids becoming a six-way competition).

• Eldar (Imperium)
• Necrons (Destruction)
• Tau (Destruction)