I was just wondering....

I personally am the kind of player whose ethos is like this. Yeah designing armies to points systems is fun - not as fun or interesting as it used to be before the event of excruciatingly repressive army lists. After a while though it ends up feeling like a game of chess where you can opt to see what would happen if you traded in your pawns for two extra bishops and a queen at the start to see if that helps you win easier.... Then of course if you have regular opponents you get used to playing styles and army choices and it just comes down to tactics - of which despite all protests there are only a limited amount of possibilites.

What can you change?
The first and easiest thing is the scenery of course. With the same opponents this does start to get a bit hard to explain fluff-wise, cities to jungles to mountains to magma flats to refineries to spaceship corridors. All using the same units hurrah! Don't they seem to get around a bit?

The next thing that a lot of people I have seen do is either get a whole new army (I'm tired of the one I have) or ba.star.dize the one they have with troops from an allied-ish army. I have done both sometimes for gameply reasons sometimes because I am lusting after the minis and need to paint them to fulfil my cravings.

Basically the faces change the settings change the parameters change but in the end it is still a measured points struggle where one or the other team has an (allegedly) even chance of winning before gameplay ability is taken into consideration.

What I always loved doing was making ridiculous scenarios though hence the title. I used to like (as I think I mentioned in another post) doing battles where one or the other player is guaranteed to lose - no doubt about it.
The only issue really is NOT by how much that loser loses by, but how different and enjoyable an experience you can have without putting points to the outcome.

The example I would give would be something like an Ork (or Orc) raid on a mining complex or farming facility (or village) where the opposition has no combat troops only miners or farmers and most likely has no weapons. The objective of the civilians is to flee the hordes, not to beat them, the object of the attackers is either to kill or (harder still) capture the workers..

It sounds boring? Maybe a little pointless? It so isn't. Firstly the it makes you think a bit more than usual - an odd statement but chasing down fleeing civvies whilst keeping control of an army is harder than just facing down a belligerent and equivalent foe.

Other Ideas? Starship boarding actions, corridors everywhere, cc weapons a must, flame and plasma weaponry immediately lethal to friend or foe so very dubious in use, any firearms practically useless as they will damage the ship or whatever...
Attacks on religious facilites causing desperate last stands with scribes and priests wielding ancient relic weapons and so forth with barricades and blast doors and so forth - hindering not fighting...
Attacks on the rear area of a battlefield, commisaries, quartermasters, second line troops in a base, vehicles under repair, naval groundcrews maybe, static emplacements, maybe Hanoi style eleventh hour evacuations going on via shuttles with the standard fleeing scroll carrying administratum...


Anyhow that is the kind of things I like rather than permanenently playing I have 2500pts you have 2500pts, we have 10 trees and 2 hills and a bunker lets fight to see who wins type pitched battles. What does everyone else like?

I think those idea sound good, but the civs would die faster then they could run away. Somehow, they need to be a little more balanced.

What you do is play a game and say whee I managed to escape 4 miners then out of 50, your turn now. Then the other player plays the miners.

Change the scenery a bit maybe to restrict long range actions in subtle ways..

Then you turn it around again and give five of the miners stubbers or something and see how you both do.

Then add carnivorous plants and dangerous beasts.

IF nothing else it is hilarious just to see hapless fleeing civilians being milled under in horrifying ways even if you are on the receiving end of it...

I like that! It sounds awesome. I have another idea, based on a bit of fluff from the Sisters codex. One player has a squad of five or six sisters, all with flamers, as well as a Canoness (maybe.) The other player is a mob of unarmed, unarmored, Toughness 2 civvies. They are trying to swarm past the sisters into a cathedral. The sisters mow them down like grain, but there would be about a hundred civvies. If they can completely surround a sister model, it dies. Mob attack! Also, everyone is fearless.

Jack, I hear you.

In fact, there is (was) a miniatures game called Stargrunt II that addresses your interests. I think it's out of print, however. :( But, this game does not use a points system, relies on psychology (vets, "green" troops, heavy weapons, charismatic officers & NCOs vs. bad ones, pinning, etc.), considers scale (most big guns like lascannons would be able to hit anything within line of sight--like today's battlefield weapons), is scenario driven (easier to do when you DON'T use a points system), doesn't use buckets of dice since actions are based on unit leaders' leadership and battlefield conditions (wounded man, pinned by artillery, etc.).

Eliminating the points system in 40k/Fantasy would no doubt open things up. However, I think it exists to allow strangers to meet at the local gaming shop and start gaming, and tournaments (and sell loads of models). But, we've all seen the rules exploited for loopholes, endless Chapter Approved articles, FAQs, "Rules Clarifications," and the like.

What you propose is Pure Gaming. Fun stuff. Let me be frank, though. It takes very mature players to pull this off, ones familiar with their troops and tactics for their deployment. Unfortunately, we don't see a lot of tacticians in 40k/Fantasy, those gaming for fun, win or lose. The possibilities for scenarios would be endless, inspired by whatever we've come across in reading (military history, fiction) or saw in a movie (you know there's guys out there that put together a battle based on the opening of sequences of "Gladiator").

It's definitely a lot of fun, playing a game in which the outcome is dependent upon who's the better commander, not army list composer (although in GW games they go hand-in-hand--in theory).

Something else you can do to spice up games is "spot" your opponent points. Feel like a bad ass? Give your opponent an extra 500 points and see what you can do with that. It can get interesting, after all, if one player is better than another you can almost quantify to what degree.

Hmm, I have a son and a step son who are both 8 (nearly 9) and started playing 40K this year. in order to keep them interested and stop them squabling I take them both on, in roder that they dont get panned every game, I usually agree to a points limit and we fight with 3 armies based on that, as a result I end up fighting forces twice my size, they have won 2 games in the last 2 months, it does make life more interesting, they remain hooked on the game, my step son fought in a carnage battle in a store and came second out of four, the other 3 players, all store regulars, were all more than twice his age and had only agreed to play with him after my insistance that he was up to it (and to be honest he was damn near winning the battle too.

we usually play merry hell with the rules on deploying scenery,

Each army is from its own force but the result is an allied force of 2 armies fom one of the followingL

Son:
Blood Angels or death gaurd
Step son:
Space Wolves or Necrons

They also sometimes use one of Nillamarines, ulthwe or nightlords forces

Vastly varried and interesting battle ensue

Originally posted by Cheredanine@Nov 12 2003, 05:18
Hmm, I have a son and a step son who are both 8 (nearly 9) and started playing 40K this year. in order to keep them interested and stop them squabling I take them both on, in roder that they dont get panned every game, I usually agree to a points limit and we fight with 3 armies based on that, as a result I end up fighting forces twice my size, they have won 2 games in the last 2 months, it does make life more interesting, they remain hooked on the game, my step son fought in a carnage battle in a store and came second out of four, the other 3 players, all store regulars, were all more than twice his age and had only agreed to play with him after my insistance that he was up to it (and to be honest he was damn near winning the battle too.

we usually play merry hell with the rules on deploying scenery,

Each army is from its own force but the result is an allied force of 2 armies fom one of the followingL

Son:
Blood Angels or death gaurd
Step son:
Space Wolves or Necrons

They also sometimes use one of Nillamarines, ulthwe or nightlords forces

Vastly varried and interesting battle ensue
That sounds like a great way to have fun with the kids. I have played games like these since I was that age and honestly I think it really helped my math skills, mainly because I memorized all of the associated numbers and was always designing things in my head and had to be able to not only know all the numbers but be able to add, subtract, divide and multiply them.