Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
If you were building a community; Would you build it around Kill Team, Combat Patrol, or 500 Point games?
If I were also trying to get the lifetime players involved, I'd actually go with Poorhammer's Horde Mode. (Link goes the the Youtube episode about what they made, links directly to the rules are in the description.) We've been playing it at my local shop, and it's pretty fun.

For those who are unfamiliar, a summary:

Spoiler: Summary
Show
Gather 2-4 people with 40k models. Ideally, at least one of those people will have an army of at least 2000pts, if not more, and they will be The Horde. The others only need a 500pt force, and together, they are The Allies.

Set up a normal 6'x4' table, with a normal amount of terrain in No Man's Land, and no terrain in the Deployment Zones. One side of the table is shared by everyone with a 500pt army. The other side belongs to the one with a full army. The Horde gets one spawning location in their DZ for every 500pts arrayed against them.

Each round, for each spawning location, The Horde randomly generates units from a list by rolling 2d6 and choosing a unit from the section they get. So, if you roll an 8, you spawn a unit from the 7-9 section for that army. You can create nested tables if you like to speed up the process based on your collection. ("I rolled an 8, so the 7-9 section on the big table. Now there are 12 units on it that I have the models for, so I'll roll a d12...4. That's a squad of 10 Nobz. Time ta krump!")

After the Horde spawns, they take a turn using a simplified set of rules to play like an AI. This was designed so that players could actually play without a dedicated Horde player, removing decision-making as much as possible. For ease of knowing what each Horde unit's datasheet does, I'd recommend that the most experienced player act as a GameMaster for the rest of the group and run the Horde (still following the AI script, but being able to also gobble the scenery while doing it).

The Allied Players need to work together to fend off the Horde, while also holding Objectives to generate RP (a resource that lets them do cool things like gain CP, summon reinforcements, or air-strike terrain features) and contending with randomly drawn Secondary Missions (which grant big bonuses if you succeed, and big penalties if you don't), Misery Cards (all downsides, usually only drawn from Turn 3 onward), and their own Secret Objectives, which are the way each player individually claims victory. Whether you need to stockpile CP, get into or out of a specific zone, or try to get one of your allies' Warlords killed, the Secret Objectives add spice and can force players to get out of their army's comfort zone ([Heavy] Marines hate drawing "Get out of your DZ", for instance, but they still have to do it if they want to win in the end.)


Like I said, it's fun, AND it lets you have more than 2 people at each table. Heck, it even saves on terrain pieces, allowing you to have a few more boards going at the same time if your shop's terrain stores are limited. Assuming you can get enough people, obviously, but marketing is your problem.

It also, probably most importantly, turns the game from competitive to cooperative, which means the players that are lifelong casuals, or are just inexperienced, don't get smashed into the ground by those of a more hardcore tournament mindset. You could even turn it into a secret training exercise, where the better players on the team gently encourage the newbies to play better by showing them moves they didn't see. ("If you scoot to the other side of the building instead, only that group of Boyz will be able to see you, so you won't get shot by the Lootas in mid-board, and if you bait the Horde AI in with your Devilfish, the Orks won't even be able to charge your Firewarriors and you'll get to shoot them twice before they reach you.") Instead of it being your opponent obviously letting you give them a bloody nose before crushing you anyways, it's your teammate giving you advice so you can all defeat the dastardly Horde together, which is much better.

My local shop is trying to set up some kind of event where all of the...not best...most reliable players (who also have at least one big collection) will act as GMs and run The Horde for the many other players who have smaller collections, less experience, and/or are too silly to be put in charge of an official event. We're hoping it'll be cool. It should be. All of our games trying to test out the mode have gone really well, to the point where we've homebrewed rules to make it harder as we get better. Big recommend.