Battle (Points) for Honor

Let’s take a look at the Warhammer 40K Championships scoring system and how one might do well at AdeptiCon 2013.

Shortly after the release of Warhammer 40K 6th edition, there was plenty of discussion about how the scoring systems and mission formats of the past stacked up against what was presented in the new rulebook. The practicality of tournament play was lacking. The simple introduction of Secondary Objectives and the transition from Kill Points to Victory Points (and the subsequent death of pre-W40K6e Victory Points) called for a significant redesign of the overall mission format. Shoehorning the format originally developed for AdeptiCon 2011 and 2012 into W40K6e wasn’t something we were interested in, yet we wanted to build on the successes and lessons therein.

At its core, the AdeptiCon 2013 Warhammer 40K Championships is simultaneously a W/L/D tournament and a traditional Battle Points tournament rolled into one. Participants should be playing for the win, for it is the overall Battle Record which determines who qualifies for the finals and who will ultimately be crowned the AdeptiCon 2013 Warmaster! At the same time, players will gain Honor by achieving objectives, regardless of the outcome of any given game. Honor is a cumulative total of all objectives achieved throughout the entire tournament and will be used when seeding games, breaking Battle Record ties when determining qualification, breaking applicable Awards ties and ultimately determine the winner of the Master Tactician Award. The lesson being, objectives are important – even when the game results in a draw or a loss.

So how does one win? Simply put, victory is won by achieving Primary Objectives. If winning games and advancing to the finals is your goal, then all you need to do is focus on the Primary Objectives. Does that mean you can completely ignore the Secondary Objectives? Of course not, but they are not required to advance. Secondary Objectives can result in Minor Victories if a draw occurs on the Primary Objectives and will gain you additional Honor which will help you keep your position in the rankings if you have a draw or a loss at some point. Each Secondary Objective also has an award category all onto itself! The more Warlords you slay, the greater chance you have of being bestowed the title of The Headhunter.

It is purposely difficult to win games in this format. Crushing Victories will have to be…well, crushing! It is highly unlikely that there will be 16 undefeated players at the end of Thursday evening. Combine that with the fact that we always have dropouts before/during the event, and the chances of wildcards qualifying for the finals is all but guaranteed. This gives players the chance to recover from a bad matchup, treacherous dice or other stumble – a highly beneficial holdover from the Battle Point tournaments of old.

Multiple paths to victory, missions rooted in W40K6e, the chance to fight your way back up, a scoring system that attempts to combine the best of both worlds…these are all directives that AdeptiCon attendees have requested and we hope will ultimately make for a fun and engaging event. April approaches…

The Warhammer 40K Championships rules and sample mission can be found here.