Never Mind the Blog Wars - Event Format and Army Selection

Never Mind the Blog Wars (NMTBW for short) is under three months away (Saturday November 11th 2017) and I've yet to post up the rules pack. Ironically this is because I've found a lot of hobby mojo recently so I've been working on painting my models rather than blogging.

However, I've had a few emails and FB messages now asking about the format so I think it's time I committed to a plan. NMTBW will be a return to singles tournaments. That doesn't mean the death of Double Trouble, which will return with DT3 in June, but BWX was my last singles event in November 2015. I've been trying to play as much 8th edition as possible before writing the rules pack but that doesn't amount to much as I have a full time job and a family which are pretty big draws on my time.

It seems to me that the standard points limit for tournaments in 8th is 2,000. This is because there's been a general increase in unit costs but also because games are, in theory at least, a lot more brutal and therefore finish quickly. I'd considered a lot of different things to make NMTBW unique. You may or may not remember that my previous event series, Blog Wars, was themed around the fact that you had to take a special character in your army. At the time this was against the grain as a lot of events were banning SCs completely.

One of the things I learned from running Blog Wars over the years was that keeping things simple is the way forward. Trying to come up with unique missions or deployments etc. just confuses people on the day or worse, puts them off entirely. It's also pretty early in 8th edition too so I don't want to give people too much extra to worry about when they're still getting to grips with a new rulebook. What I propose then is:

• Three games of 2,000 pts
• Maelstrom and Blood Points simultaneously
• Scores converted from raw VPs and BPs to a tournament point system that rewards margin of victory (as I used in BWX).
• Straightforward Maelstrom of 3 objectives per turn
• Possible custom Maelstrom deck similar to those I made for BW and DT

There's a danger of this event being too similar to others so as to not be very interesting. However, need I remind you how generous the raffle is?!? The key issue then is army selection. The way I see it the main problem with 40K at the moment is spam. Not just the number of times the same unit is taken but also the blobs of conscripts, horrors, etc. In a similar vein to Double Trouble I think the answer is:

• Three detachments max
• No unit can be taken more than twice

A bigger issue for some factions than others of course but as I'd discussed at length before, there's such a disparity between the factions on numerous levels that trying to find a one size fits all approach is impossible. I'd considered saying troops and/or dedicated transports were exempt from this but I think a straightforward limit is easier. I'd also thought about just vetting lists but I've explored that avenue before and it's fraught with problems.

Right, as ever, I'd love to know what you guys think. Are the army restrictions too harsh? Do they go far enough? Should I vary the missions more? Basically, tell me exactly what you want from a tournament, what you haven't liked about 8th edition events you've attended so far and what you think could be done to improve them. Blog Wars worked because you guys fed back to me, I'd appreciate it if that continues.