The Gladiator Tournament in the Future

[Elthniar]

I agree with most people that a few things need to be tweaked with the Gladiator. The Apocalypse book specifically says that the rules there are intended for games of more than 3000 points. I like the idea of splitting the Gladiator into two, one 3000 and one 2250. Having 8 5" Strength D templates in a 2250 point game is overpowered. Did I whine about it this year? No. The rules are the rules, and the Gladiator specifically stated what was and wasn't allowed. I have no problems with people that brought Reavers. I did enjoy Mission 3 which gave everyone a vortex I did enjoy mission 3 which gave everyone a vortex grenade, I feel this gave people a chance at destroying the Reaver (I did in this game, at least). However, now that the 2009 Gladiator is over, I don't see anything wrong with having a discussion about what to fix for next year, so I don't think any of us are breaking the first rule of the Gladiator!

Not being able to move through flyers is a must fix.

Not being WYSIWYG is completely unacceptable. I did not complain about it when I faced one of the Flylords, but it states that everything must be WYSIWYG in the rules for a reason. If some of us have to go out of our way to convert models to be WYSIWYG, all of us should.

If the Gladiator is not made a straight-up Apoc. tournament or split into two, perhaps you should consider not allowing Apoc. rules and only allowing the older IA rules. Strength D and 10" templates, unless I am mistaken, do not exist in these rules. Also the points costs tend to be higher which, as already mentioned, will discourage people from taking them.

Another possible option would be to limit the points that are allowed to go to super-heavies and gargantuans. Maybe allow for around 750-800 to allow Stompas, Warhounds, Revenants, and Baneblades. Or if you don't want titans present at all limit it to 500-550.

My personal preference would be to increase the points limit to 3000, make it an apocalypse game where everyone gets a single strategic asset to counter the super-heavy units (I would still disallow formations, especially ones that give extra assets: the space marines commander one and the seer council get ridiculous). Having a 2250 game with no super-heavies allowed would simply be a miniature version of the 'Ard Boyz event. I would like to see the Gladiator remain a distinct event that you can only find at Adepticon.

Overall I thought the Gladiator was very well-run. Thanks so much to the organizers and all the other volunteers who helped throughout the weekend. The missions were nasty and the lists were nastier. I expected to see a few Reavers and wasn't surprised to see them finish so well. There's no point in complaining about what happened this year, but as Gladiator 2010 is being planned it is good to take a step back and consider possible things to change.

[Cptn_Snuggles]

One of the reasons why I think they did well was because there was no "screw the big ones" mission this year.

As someone who lost his Bio-Titan to 10 wounds from a vortex grenade... there was one screw the big ones rule! (hit and wounded with 4, then on my turn it scattered only 3 inches and I took another 6).

I think what really made the Reaver so powerful was the ability to be screened and untouched by flyers.

BC

[Matthias]

I generally agree with making the Gladiator event Apoc rules - if you are going to include some of that - you have to include all of that - which means larger point values which in turn leads to longer games. The 40K/Apoc rules really threw the Gladiator as we have known it for for the last 8 years into a tailspin.

I am not really into the idea of just running a standard 40K tournament on Friday night with no FW/Apoc rules. At that point you are just playing the Championships again in a slightly different format. Hell - you could run two simultaneous scoring systems during the Championships at that point and crown the Gladiator Champion separately (raw battle, no painting, etc...although I think whining is allowed in that event).

I say let's just get it down to a 4000-point, Apoc rules, 2-man team Gladiator event on 8' tables and REALLY enforce the 1st rule of the Gladiator.

[Ed]

I say let's just get it down to a 4000-point, Apoc rules, 2-man team Gladiator event on 8' tables and REALLY enforce the 1st rule of the Gladiator.

For this event I will gladly don a cardboard box costume and play as someone's Imperator Titan. You will have to pay me in cups of macaroni and cheese.

Ed

[Matthias]

An old AWC member (Jay Barry) is currently working on rules for a Warhammer 40K LARP that he wants to run next year. Should be fun.

[Ed]

An old AWC member (Jay Barry) is currently working on rules for a Warhammer 40K LARP that he wants to run next year. Should be fun.

I'm gonna start working on my foam Carnifex suit right now.

[Centurian99]

Lots of good comments. I don't want to make a whole lot of comments now, but in the interests of furthering discussions, here were some of Greg and my thoughts on what each mission was.

As I told a few people, we originally tried to come up with 4 balanced missions that didn't screw anyone. End result: utter boredom.

So we switched the idea around, and went with trying to screw everyone.

Mission 1: Screw shooters. Night fight through the entire game. Most shooty armies have some way of negating night-fight available (i.e. searchlights/blacksun filters).

Mission 2: Screw assaulters. Lengthwise deployment means potentially having to cover 48" of distance (one side deploys along their short table edge). Deep Strike & assault redeployment gives assault armies an option, at the risk of losing the unit.

Mission 3: Screw the big ones. Vortex grenade gives an offensive means of negating big ones, as opposed to the defensive means in previous years (hold one unit in reserve).

Mission 4: Screw static armies/hordes/inflexible armies. Decent amount of distance that needs to be covered to move off the enemy board edge, and having diametrically-opposed objectives (keep units onboard to hold quarters, move units off) makes for a difficult mission to achieve.

[Generalissimo_Fred]

Apoc games don't take that long at larger (3000pts) size points. The huge templates and redeployment tricks tend to wipe out large sections of the table fairly quickly. An apoc game would be fun.

If a normal 2250 gladiator will copy the invitational then screw the invitational. It has always struck me as overly elitest to begin with. Combine this with no GT's this year and the potential field shrinks rather quickly. Give 40k a true classic gladiator at 2250 on Friday. Throw in an Apoc tournament, I like Matt's Apoc Team Tourney idea, at the same time and give Sunday back to the 40k Championships as a solo. Or you could give Sunday an Apoc Tournament to mix things up on that day and not to infringe on comabt patrol on Fridays.

[Inquisitor_Malice]

An old AWC member (Jay Barry) is currently working on rules for a Warhammer 40K LARP that he wants to run next year. Should be fun.

Please tell me that you didn't just say LARP in in conjunction with AdeptiCon.

[Matthias]

An old AWC member (Jay Barry) is currently working on rules for a Warhammer 40K LARP that he wants to run next year. Should be fun.

Please tell me that you didn't just say LARP in in conjunction with AdeptiCon.

What can I say - Jay just loves LARPing...

[Inquisitor_Malice]

If a normal 2250 gladiator will copy the invitational then screw the invitational. It has always struck me as overly elitest to begin with.

People just need to get over this attitude of the invitational being elitest. All kinds of sports or events have invitationals. If you want to be part of invititational events - then qualify for it. Plain and simple. If you don't like it, then too bad.

I personally like the invitational because I get to play good games against good players that I have become good friends with over the years. The best part about it is not having to smash through unsuspecting people to do it. It is actually quite a nice relief to play in that event. Nothing against you Fred because I have heard the "elitest" complaint from a few others and think all of you need to just get over it.

[Janthkin]

I say let's just get it down to a 4000-point, Apoc rules, 2-man team Gladiator event on 8' tables and REALLY enforce the 1st rule of the Gladiator.

I like this idea! Only problem is that a team format dilutes the value of the uber-prize: I doubt the budget would have stretched to *two* Reavers this year, even if you scrap the "first loser" prize.

The missions were fun, and did an excelent job of screwing everyone equally (although someday, the Eldar WILL discover headlight technology; then you're all screwed). The "surprise" objective in mission #4 was, I believe, a bit too complicated to introduce into the middle of the round. If the idea was to punish lack of late-game mobility, that could have been covered with soemthing like "Scatter 3 Objectives 6d6" from the center, stopping at the board edge; whoever controls the most at the end, wins the objective."

I enjoyed force-feeding Capt. Snuggles' Hierophant a Vortex grenade. Poor guy couldn't catch a break that game, though!

Did the Eldar Flyers player encounter any of the Flylords Reaver lists? I think that would have been as one-sided a battle as you could hope for. Matchups make all the difference in the Gladiator!

WYSIWIG should be unwaveringly mandatory.

I think most of the "problems" with the Reaver list could be addressed through mission design - make the primary require holding two separate objectives, spaced 4' apart along the center line. People who sank over 50% of their army into non-scoring fliers & titans are going to have a significant problem with that one. Similarly, snag the "scoring unit completely within 3" of the objective" language used in one of the team tournament rounds - scoring units will have to get out of their Thunderhawks/Stompas for that one.

Alternatively, you could just cap the points available for non-codex purchases to 1000; that'll block out the "real" titans, and leave only the scout models (the Warhound, the Stompas, etc.), plus superheavy tanks.

Had a blast, though - glad I played.

[Blackmoor]

The Gladiator use to be the “Everything can be played” tournament with Forge World, trial rules, optional rules, opponents permission only, you name it. This year because of 5th edition and GW taking off all of the trial lists off of their website, it was just 40k+apocalypse units.

You need to keep Forge World in to separate it from every other RTT, and to keep somewhat with tradition.

But what you might want to think about lowering the points limit back down to the 2000 that it was last year, and that might slow some of the tougher units down.

[Inquisitor_Malice]

Actually, I think one of the main problems comes with the "Tabling" rules. I disagreed with this during the rules discussions both in the online forum posts and the behind the scenes discussions. Take out the tabling rules as they are currently written and I believe you see a completely different story for the finish of the event.

If you make it where you have to achieve objectives with scoring units and not automatically get all points when eliminating an opponent, then the Reavers would have had a far more difficult time. For instance, people could have focused on killing the enemy troops or scoring units.

The Gladiator was designed around bringing a balanced force to achieve multiple objectives. However, the ruling on tabling allowed certain forces to bypass this, which was just wrong and went against the philosophy of the Gladiator.

[sabote]

How many Reavers were brought down by anything other than another Reaver? Or maybe... a lucky vortex grenade.

I played a Cobra and lost it 3 of my 4 games. Most players spread their units apart and I usually only got 2 shots off per game if I was lucky. With armor 12 it was pretty easy to penetrate.

In the gladiator I played a Gargantum creature, Heirophant and STompa. I was able to fight all these except the Reaver.

Most superheavies can be dealt with in one form or another. What makes a Reaver different is that it can fire at 3 seperate targets with 3 rounds of template D weapons. It can take down 99% of other super heavies in one round of firing without needing much luck. In addition, even the loss of a weapon will not slow it down because it still has 2 more. As an opponent you are pretty much going to lose 3 units per turn.

My vote would be to limit the point level to 1000 pts and below. Everything under that limit can be a pain to deal with but not impossible.