Hello everyone. Time has come for an event that I organize every year and is quite popular with the Polish players: Achtung, Macki Wojny doubles tournament (Macki Wojny translates into "Tentacles of War" - since the club is called "Octopus" and the tournament formula is also a legacy of WHFB tournaments under the same name). The reason for this popularity is that it is unique in its format and the rules for playing in pairs are in my opinion quite robust (have been developed for several years). With this in mind, I would like to share the ruleset/format so that anyone who finds it useful can adapt it to their doubles tournament.
Format & Rules
First of all, the format that we have been using for the last 5 or 6 years remained the same throughout the tournament's history. It is 2x1000 pts Late War. I have to say that I have tried a few times to change it (period mostly) but there was so much resistance from the players that I gave up. The reason that they usually provided is that the ruleset is a non-standard one so we should go with the most popular period. At the end of the day - makes perfect sense and my advice to TOs is: use my experience and go LW.
Also, 2x1000 points is the max. Games are scheduled to last for 3 hours but every now and again still, there are tables where the game would be at turn 4-5 when the time is about to elapse. Somehow 2x computing power of a human brain does not mean 0.5x time to process but instead, 1.5x. Do not try to go over 2x1000, trust me :)
Listbuilding rules
1. You can only combine allied+allied and axis+axis.
2. You cannot use the same briefing twice.
3. You are allowed to switch up to 5% of the points between the lists, provided the total does not exceed 2k. This means that you can transfer up to 50 points to your partner's list in case you have some left over and he needs a boost.
4. (optional) No more than 1 named hero and/or higher command per alliance.
5. (optional) No more than 1 air support per alliance.
Game specific rules
1. Special rules of one company do not affect the other - under any circumstances (e.g. 2 US rosters cannot combine their bombardments using "Hit them with everything you've got").
2. Allies rules (p. 70 of the rulebook) are used to determine how to handle the separate companies: warriors, independents cannot join platoons of your partner.
3. Company morale is played according to the rules of fielding multiple companies, described on p. 176 of the rulebook. In simple terms - if one of the companies fails its morale roll, both flee and the game is over. While it might seem punishing at first, tests have proved that this can easily be avoided if one plays smart (e.g. does not place all platoons of one company occupying one of the 2 objectives to make it easy for the opponent to force a morale check).
4. For purposes of scenarios, the alliance is treated as a single company - so only 1 ambush is available normally, when you alternate placing platoons on the table in Fair Fights, you only place one per alliance, etc.
5. You cannot use fortifications of an allied company, with the exception of trenchlines.
6. When you roll for reserves, one platoon per PLAYER arrives from reserves. This prevents games where some platoons never have the chance to take active part in the battle.
7. For situations not covered above, that create a conflict in the rules, THE OPPONENTS decide the outcome. This is often used when determining who is the attacker where the pair has mixed company types. In these cases, the opponents of such an alliance define which company do they compare themselves to.
A thing that needs to be mentioned here is that in Poland we use a customized scoring format. We utilize a system which is similar to scoring in old editions of WH40k, where Victory Points of destroyed friendly/enemy units are mapped against a score between 0-20 (with objectives beeing assigned a fixed value) to determine the outcome of the game. This way, we do not have to worry about the basic nature of the BF system. Still, with some modifications, I am sure that the rules above can be also used for BF scoring.
Overall, I really like what we designed as the tournaments run without major interruptions and the players can enjoy their games in peace :)
Hope you like it and can use it in your tournaments!
I frequently play doubles games, although a lot of them seem to go over 2x1000 per side (last night was 2x1500 EW, I was using Romanian cav actually based on your enthusiasm) and almost all of these rules make perfect sense. I could add a few in though:
ReplyDeletetry playing with a bigger table, rather than the standard 6x4. This rule is more useful for one off games, rather than tournaments where you need a large number of tables all at once. It means that the huge number of points on the table, esp during lw where everything has really long ranges, does not feel crowded.
For determining attacker/defender, use a points system: 1 per infantry co., 2 per mech, 3 per tank. You can call it an aggressiom rating or something. So two mech will have a value of 4, while an inf and a mech will have a 3, two tanks will have a 6 etc. Any always attack/defend acts as a trump, ranked 1-3 according to the above. Therefore, one inf and an always attacks tank will beat two tanks, etc, while an always attack mech will defend against an always attacks tank company.
Also, the old warhammer VP system accounted for units that were damaged but not destroyed. How do you calculate that? Anything w more destroyed than fighting counts as half?
I always enjoy reading your blog and I'm happy my group is not the only one that does doubles. Trying to convince your ally that your ideas are more likely to succeed than his is one of the most intriguing parts of a wargame (and its def a part of real war).
Hi Darko,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response. Some good suggestions regarding determining who is the attacker. Might use them one day.
Now for other stuff:
Yes, we do use the old WH system. Units that are below half of the original strength yield 0.5 of their worth in VPs.