Alternate Game Formats

A little while back I wrote an article espousing the benefits of exploratory deck building – playing as Timmy or Johnny once in a while instead of Spike.

To follow up, an enterprising reader shared an archived 2000-era webpage about alternate 40K CCG formats. I don’t take credit for any of the ideas below – just pasting them here for posterity.

Give them a try and let me know what you think in the comments!

Night Fight

This format uses standard deck construction rules.

This format is compatible with all planets, and can be combined with any of the other formats listed here to give you even more options!

When deploying sectors, use a single set. Turn all cards face down, and shuffle them. 

Deploy the sectors face-down. Begin play as normal. As each battle is chosen for the first time, reveal the sector card. Sector cards remain revealed after they are turned face-up.

Eye of Terror

This format uses standard deck construction rules.

Before each game, players randomly select one 21 point sector from all of the available planets. Repeat this process for each point value (i.e., one 17 point sector, one 14 point sector, etc.).

For tournament play: The tournament organizer selects random sectors as indicated, and each group of players uses the same sector set for that round. The TO should re-select for each round. Sectors are re-selected for each match-up by each pair of players.

True Die

This format uses alternate deck construction rules, as follows. Each player’s deck must consist of 10 of each die value (i.e., 1, 2, 3, etc.). Orks players may use 20 5’s if they do not have sufficient access to cards with 6’s. All other deck construction rules still apply. Play proceeds as normal.

Highlander

This format uses alternate deck construction rules, as follows. Each player may use no more than 1 (one) copy of any given card in their deck. All other deck construction rules still apply.

Play proceeds as normal.

For the curious: Just in case you don’t get the reference, Highlander style gets its name from the film of the same name, where “there can be only one.”

Grab Bag

This format uses standard deck construction rules.

Before each round of play, sectors are chosen at random from all available sectors from all available planets. It is acceptable to have more than one of any given point value sector (i.e., two different 21 point sectors). Sectors should be re-selected for each match-up and each round.

Alternate: Players may include multiple copies of the same sectors in the grab bag, potentially resulting in duplicate sectors in a single game.

Single Site

This format uses standard deck construction rules.

The tournament organizer (or both players in casual games) selects a single sector that will be used for every battle in each round. Certain sectors work better than others for this format – recommended sectors include:

• Barbican Peaks
• Chem Bogs
• Oberon Hive City
• Terminal Hive Mephidian
• Lord’s Crags
• Tevalco Refinery
• Proconius Landing
• Malogrim Underhive

If you really want a brutal game, run with Magnor Atoll or Bastion! Play proceeds as normal.