The Battle Barn

Had a talk with Jarvis up at Alpha Omega Coffee & Games. A really great guy and we had a good chat. One of the things we discussed was doing an escalation league starting in January. He seems very excited to work with us to grow our community, and I for one am more than happy to add an actual storefront owner to our group.

I wanted to open a topic of discussion to see who was interested and talk about some ideas for rules and such. For those of you who were with us at the beginning, the Barn did an escalation league the first winter we were open. It works thusly:

• Each round of the league lasts 2 weeks (could possibly up this to 3 weeks) and point jumps are in 250 point increments
• Games start out small, probably 500 points using combat patrol rules
• All models that you use are required to be fully painted and based
• At the end of each round, when we jump up in points, you should have the next 250 points of your army painted and ready to go
• You are not required to use the same models each round. Although the league is hopefully a push for people to fully assemble and paint their armies, I see no reason to restrict people on the army that they use. As long as it is fully painted and based, have at it.
• There's some sort of points involved for wins/draws/losses that are used to keep track of your progress
• Possibility of special missions that you can play each round with different objectives than the standard missions.

I'm going to try working up a full rule system sometime this week that we can think about using, but until then I would love to hear some discussion and ideas that anyone else has.

Personally I really enjoyed the escalation league and would be willing to participate.

Some of the things from last time we may want to change is the use of the combat patrol rules. It makes it difficult to build a combat patrol that expands up to a larger army based on the rules. Maybe just do 500pts and make the troops 1-6 rather than 2-6 and call it good. Remove restrictions like 2+ armor and total armor value rules

I am also curious about your thoughts on previously painted models and changing armies midway through

The previously painted model/changing armies thing is really for those who may already have a few painted armies and don't really want to start anything new. Now admittedly, there aren't many people that have that right now at the Barn. However, I certainly don't want people to feel like they must start a new army in order to participate in the league, thus my idea to include that caveat in the rules.

Obviously, I'm fairly certain that a good 90% of us all have models and armies that need work, so I'd like to see people keep the same army throughout the league.

I'm not sure that I agree with you on the combat patrol rules making it difficult to build an army, but I have no problems discussing it. Everyone uses troops and light vehicles in their army these days, so I don't really see how you wouldn't use the same models that you build and paint for the first round later on in the league. Plus I feel that removing some of the restrictions can far too easily make things unbalanced, and not fun for their opponents. We saw last time how dominating a Land Raider was when added to the mix. There aren't that many special weapons available at the low point cost, so a large squad of terminators or a land raider might be far too much for a lot of armies to handle. I'm not saying that some armies don't already have an advantage with the combat patrol rules, but I think things are more balanced with the restrictions than by removing them all together.

I was considering running a ork bike army. Looking at combat patrol rules that is not an option. i can do it in a standard FOC. please help.

I think the thing that unbalanced the land raider wasn't the raider itself. It was that people were not expecting it to be in a combat patrol army and made choices without knowing it would be there. I think if they would have known it would not have been such an issue.

That being said I am more particularly concerned with the no 2+ on characters and no special characters. Would make all but impossible for me to run the list I want to run

I AGREE WITH JEFF

Just out of curiosity, how is the bike army made invalid by the combat patrol rules? No 2+ save, not over toughness 5, and not more than 2 wounds. Where's the rule disallowing it?

WAZDAKKA
sorry bout the caps... @ work

heres the rule that poops on my army:
No Special/Unique/Named Characters are allowed in the Warhammer 40K Combat Patrol event.
Not only that but a warboss has 3 wounds. So, no warboss either.

I have been interested in doing an escalation league since the last one ended. I came in late to the party last time and really just showed up with painted models. This sounds like a fun way to get/stay motivated on painting up a new army.

The more I think on it though I don't think we should have any model restrictions. I was there when you were talking to Jarvis, and I know that even I said then that we should have some restrictions. In hindsight I think this is wrong for the same reasons I don't like comp in tournaments... It's their money, time and effort spent to buy/model/paint up their own army. Who should have the right to tell another that they can't do it if that's what they have their heart set on.

Quite frankly its a league, not a tournament. Pairings can be chosen, and are not up to the whims of a TO or scoring system. If you don't think a Land Raider (or any other model for that matter) is fair, well you just don't have to play the person using it.

I had a short bout of insanity, but I have returned to normal (or at least as normal as I ever get!) Lets just say no to comp!

Preach on brother!

The lack of named characters in a CP battle makes sense. You don't send Marneus Calgar on a fringe mission, out of contact with the main force of your army!

Remember, last year's Adepticon combat patrol fiddled with the old CP rules a fair amount. The main one was that Troop models, but only Troops, could have 3 wounds. This allowed a few extra choices: mostly tyranid warriors, but also kroot shapers and possibly krootoxen (not that you would want them). I think they also changed the vehicle rules to 12 per facing rather than 33 total. Surprisingly, I didn't see any drop pods.

So Brian was asking me what was the issue with special characters and I think the real issue in my mind is that GW has shifted the codex's in such a way that they are integral to codex design and open options for army builds. By preventing them it makes it more difficult to build the armies that people want to play.

After reading Eric's post I am in agreement with him. Rather than making exceptions for everyone lets just remove the restrictions and let people play what they want to play within the points limit.

so if i decide to play DE i could only field a homuculi as my HQ and only that... not interested... i will take part in this, but only if it is not combat patrol rules...
not trying to sound like a jerk but if im going to buy and paint models, i will buy and paint what i want to

Okay I know what I am running then if there are going to be 2+ saves everywhere with multiple wound models.

Honestly...don't know if I can or want to play the Combat patrol portion with GKs...Terminators are the GK troop choice.

Not being able to use them is like saying I can't use gants or Mike can't use Whyches.

So standard rules then?

500 points, 1 HQ - 2 Troops - No unit/wargear/save/etc... restrictions

That's what everyone wants?

I wouldn't mind monkey-ing with the force org at the lower levels. I just don't want anything that restricts me (or anyone else for that matter) from using the models/units I want to use.

Of course standard force org is okay by me too.

That would work for me.

im in

So we're looking at AV14, 2+ multiwound models, and special characters being on the field at 500pts. Got it covered.

I'd prefer 1 HQ 1 Troop.

I would prefer 0 hq and 0 troop and 1 superheavy...
quit whining Austin.

We were kind of asked what we wanted...

touchy this morning? was just messing with ya buddy...

Round timeframe.

The culmination of this league will probably be a 1500 point tournament sponsored by Alpha Omega Coffee and Games. Thus, I'd like to find a good timeline for everyone to have a 1500 point army painted by sometime in March. If we start on January 6th, with the assumption that everyone has 500 points assembled/painted/based by then, 2 week rounds would put us right about the beginning of March, with a tournament planned for mid month.

Is 2 weeks enough time for people to assemble/paint/base 250 points? If we were to do 3 weeks, that would push us to the end of March, with a tournament in April. I'm hesitant about that, as April is Adepticon and just one more weekend people would have to take off to play. Perhaps a mix of things? 2 weeks until we hit 1000 points, then 3 weeks for the last two stages?

Looking for everyone's thoughts on this.