Highlander list building option.

[Chase]

So before I go and read through the degeneration of yet another thread, I'm interested in what you guys think of this.  I like it a LOT!

In fact, I'm almost positively going to incorporate it into all of our events from now on, probably tied to some sort of Store Credit bonus if you end up placing in the money at the event.  I'm a BIG fan.



At the Caledonian Uprising 2014 there was a fairly unusual phenomena. Below are the standings listed. You will notice lists marked as Highlander, those are players taking a voluntary comp. Highlander means the list only has one of each unit, no duplicates. Troops you are allowed to take more than one, if and only if you have taken all the other troop types available already. See below list:

1 - Josh Roberts ELDAR DELDAR
2 - Luke Nurser SPACE MARINES SPACE MARINES INQ
3 - Johnpaul Stevens ELDAR DELDAR
4 - Rob Sims TAU SPACE MARINES
5 - Nick Counsell HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES TAU
6 - Eric Hoath ELDAR
7 - Allen El-Sour SPACE MARINES TAU INQ
8 - Rob Madeley NECRON
9 - Matt Robertson CSM DAEMONS
10 - Matthew Edmonds DAEMONS
11 - Adam Ryland DAEMONS
12 - Paul Burke DELDAR ELDAR
13 - Mike Marlow DAEMONS
14 - Gareth Donnelly GK
15 - James Mcnaughton HIGHLANDER DELDAR ELDAR INQ
16 - Davy Sabo TAU ELDAR
17 - Daniel Sackett ELDAR DELDAR
18 - Tony Chew SPACE MARINES TAU
19 - Robert Edwards TAU SPACE MARINES INQ
20 - Christopher Choy FARSIGHT SPACE MARINES INQ
21 - Tom Adriany DAEMONS
22 - John Swallow TAU
23 - Bernard Lee SPACE MARINES DARK ANGELS INQ
24 - Lee-Gayton Badcock FARSIGHT TAU
25 - Michael Jeanes HIGHLANDER DAEMONS CSM
26 - Oliver Iyer FARSIGHT TAU
27 - Michael Collins SPACE WOLVES
28 - Dan Eatch ELDAR
29 - Myles Davies HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES SPACE MARINES
30 - Nick Hyland NIDS
31 - Tim Smith SPACE MARINES SPACE WOLVES
32 - Duncan Brown NECRON TAU
33 - Mark Pocock DAEMONS
34 - David Symcox DAEMONS GUARD
35 - Andrew Humphris FARSIGHT TAU
36 - Courtney Rhodes GUARD DARK ANGELS INQ
37 - John Holland HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES SPACE WOLVES
38 - Tom Gould FARSIGHT TAU
39 - Scott Milne CSM DAEMONS
40 - Paul Croghan HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES TAU
41 - Jon Rollinson GUARD DANGEL INQ
42 - Joe Freeman DAEMONS CSM
43 - Martin Moffat ELDAR
44 - Ben Whitnall SPACE MARINES
45 - Steven Breughe SPACE MARINES SPACE WOLVES
46 - Sam Dickinson TAU SPACE MARINES
47 - Tim Newman DELDAR ELDAR
48 - Robert Edmunds NECRON TAU
49 - Chris Cook CSM BLACK LEGION
50 - Pat Divers FARSIGHT TAU
51 - Steve Pearce HIGHLANDER CSM
52 - Tom Leighton CSM DAEMONS
53 - Paul Scott HIGHLANDER CSM DAEMONS
54 - Andy Oakham FARSIGHT TAU
55 - Martin Jeanes HIGHLANDER NIDS
56 - Graham White ELDAR
57 - Rowan Sheridan NECRON
58 - Christopher Scothorne NECRON
59 - Adam Bishop DAEMONS
60 - Joel Hume SPACE MARINES SPACE WOLVES
61 - Mathew Pridmore HIGHLANDER GK INQ
62 - Steven Henderson ELDAR TAU
63 - Gene Coates BANGELS
64 - Michael Bolton HIGHLANDER CSM
65 - Darll Dobbin SPACE WOLVES INQ
66 - Andy Frazer GUARD INQ
67 - Daniel Sergeant ELDAR TAU
68 - Gary Marsh HIGHLANDER CSM DAEMONS
69 - Alex West HIGHLANDER SPACE WOLVES
70 - Tim Ford BANGELS GUARD
71 - Stu Corbett ELDAR DELDAR
72 - James Ramsay NIDS
73 - Colm Mccarthy NECRON
74 - Robert Ayres DAEMONS
75 - David Wigley SPACE MARINES GK INQ
76 - Tama Single-Liertz HIGHLANDER BANGELS
77 - Neil Gibbons HIGHLANDER CSM DAEMONS
78 - Dave Williamson HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES
79 - Joey O'Connor HIGHLANDER GUARD SPACE MARINES INQ
80 - Dan Summers CSM
81 - Graham Sanders ELDAR
82 - Peter Sidaway HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES SPACE WOLVES INQ
83 - Ross Mason NIDS
84 - Paul Kirk BLACK LEGION DAEMONS
85 - Alex Bongers DARK ANGELS
86 - Jeroen Janssens GUARD SPACE MARINES
87 - Geoff Hamilton HIGHLANDER CSM DAEMONS
88 - Tom Carr SPACE WOLVES
89 - Gordon Wilson HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES GK INQ
90 - Phil Dobson SPACE MARINES
91 - William Hopwood CSM NECRON
92 - Scott Nicholls HIGHLANDER DAEMONS GUARD
93 - Andy Peters FARSIGHT GK
94 - Callum-Anthony Slater FARSIGHT TAU
95 - Graham Horn Orks
96 - Chris Dickinson NIDS
97 - Joel Hearity SPACE MARINES
98 - Rob Graham BANGELS
99 - Connor Bacon SPACE MARINES
100 - Iain Miller HIGHLANDER CSM
101 - Jason Miller HIGHLANDER DAEMONS
102 - Daniel Haslam GUARD
103 - Jonathan Delahaye ORKS
104 - Jamie Seddon TAU
105 - Gaz Jones DELDAR
106 - Darragh Magee IYANDEN
107 - Javen Thompson FARSIGHT TAU
108 - Reuben Sayers BANGELS
109 - Jon Higgins DAEMONS
110 - Will Appleton HIGHLANDER SPACE MARINES
111 - STAND IN TAU FARSIGHT
112 - Franco Maruffo FARSIGHT TAU

[Sir_Prometheus]

So before I go and read through the degeneration of yet another thread, I'm interested in what you guys think of this.  I like it a LOT!

In fact, I'm almost positively going to incorporate it into all of our events from now on, probably tied to some sort of Store Credit bonus if you end up placing in the money at the event.  I'm a BIG fan.



At the Caledonian Uprising 2014 there was a fairly unusual phenomena. Below are the standings listed. You will notice lists marked as Highlander, those are players taking a voluntary comp. Highlander means the list only has one of each unit, no duplicates. Troops you are allowed to take more than one, if and only if you have taken all the other troop types available already. See below list:

I like this too, and perhaps it's the simplest form of "anti-spam" comp.  Most of my lists would fit this requirement, except my recent Tau lists have all featured 2 hammerheads -- which all the newbie Tau players tell me suck

Variety is the spice of life!

[PhoenixFire]

Interesting chase, How Does It Handle Dedicated transports?

[andalucien]

I find the idea of Highlander extremely appealing.   Most of my armies kind of end up like that anyway.  It would be cool to try a highlander-ish event.

I think there would need to be some kind of a "troop exemption" though.  Purely because the way GW has set up the force org, troops are the section that you need the most copies of, and also the section with the least variety.

For example,
- Sisters can't even make a legal highlander army (they only have 1 troop choice)
- Necrons would have to run 1 unit of immortals and 1 of warriors in every game (they only have those 2 options).

[Cryptognomicon]

It is interesting. 

Also how would it handle modified HQ options.

Example:

For every HQ in the SM codex you can take a tech marine that lives outside of the FOC.  So if you were to take 2 of those but one has a bike and one a servo harness would those count as duplicates? I'm thinking yes myself, but it is a weird example that I was curious about.  I'm sure there are others out there as well.

Actually with my Templecon list it wouldn't be hard to modify to meet this requirement.  Dump one storm talon and a techmarine and replace with something else.  Easy enough to do and to be honest I don't think would effect my list too badly.

 

[Benjamin]

Highlander looks very good. It does everything to promote diversity, without changing the mechanics of the game itself. It is simple; it doesn't require pages of explanations and charts.

[Cryptognomicon]

Highlander looks very good. It does everything to promote diversity, without changing the mechanics of the game itself. It is simple; it doesn't require pages of explanations and charts.

Exactly

[Sir_Prometheus]

I find the idea of Highlander extremely appealing.   Most of my armies kind of end up like that anyway.  It would be cool to try a highlander-ish event.

I think there would need to be some kind of a "troop exemption" though.  Purely because the way GW has set up the force org, troops are the section that you need the most copies of, and also the section with the least variety.

For example,
- Sisters can't even make a legal highlander army (they only have 1 troop choice)
- Necrons would have to run 1 unit of immortals and 1 of warriors in every game (they only have those 2 options).

I think you're fine.  If there's only one troop choice, then you've already taken "all other available troop choices", right?  I don't really see a problem with every Necron player taking 1 unit of immortals and 1 of warriors, it seems like most players do that anyway.  SM would have to take at least one unit of scouts, too.  I like that.   

[Goblin]

highlander sounds like a lot of fun. i would definitely be interested

another interesting question about highlander: if i have an option to change a unit to troops (eg. 30 gants => tervigon as troop) do i HAVE to do that to fill out ALL troops options to allow repeats?

[BrianP]

Highlander looks very good. It does everything to promote diversity, without changing the mechanics of the game itself. It is simple; it doesn't require pages of explanations and charts.

I dunno, it certainly promotes list diversity but not army diversity. That list of 112 folks is still almost entirely Marines, Tau, Eldar, Daemons. Skimming, not counting, there is what - 1 guard player, 1 GK, 3 necron, 2 CSM, and 1 nid player? I missed some, so rounding up we still have only 10% of the field NOT comprised of one of the "power" dexes? That indicates the diversity problem remains unsolved. I think adopting Komp would go a much further way than highlander.

Edit for clarity: I was not counting lists with allies, as allies only allow one of anything anyway, highlander does not affect those - so necrons/tau (for example) was lumped into the "someone took tau" bucket.

[andalucien]

I think you're fine.  If there's only one troop choice, then you've already taken "all other available troop choices", right?  I don't really see a problem with every Necron player taking 1 unit of immortals and 1 of warriors, it seems like most players do that anyway.  SM would have to take at least one unit of scouts, too.  I like that.

Oh I didn't realize that was a clause... you can start repeating units if you've exhausted all possibilities for that force org slot?  That would actually solve the problem perfectly.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I think you're fine.  If there's only one troop choice, then you've already taken "all other available troop choices", right?  I don't really see a problem with every Necron player taking 1 unit of immortals and 1 of warriors, it seems like most players do that anyway.  SM would have to take at least one unit of scouts, too.  I like that.

Oh I didn't realize that was a clause... you can start repeating units if you've exhausted all possibilities for that force org slot?  That would actually solve the problem perfectly.

Only for troops.

Troops you are allowed to take more than one, if and only if you have taken all the other troop types available already.

[andalucien]

Yeah, I too would be very interested to hear about how dedicated transports are handled...  do they count as a unit in an of themselves that can't be repeated?

I kind of hope so... otherwise you could still have effectively a "spam army" even if it's only the transports rather than the force org slots themselves being repeated...  Night Scythe Spam, Wave Serpent spam, Chimera spam, etc.

On the other hand, not being able to repeat transports essentially means that mech armies don't exist in highlander, period.  Most armies only have 1 or 2 transports so mechanization as a concept would be pretty much out.  Wouldn't bother me, but it's something to bear in mind.

[PhoenixFire]

Yeah, I too would be very interested to hear about how dedicated transports are handled...  do they count as a unit in an of themselves that can't be repeated?

I kind of hope so... otherwise you could still have effectively a "spam army" even if it's only the transports rather than the force org slots themselves being repeated...  Night Scythe Spam, Wave Serpent spam, Chimera spam, etc.

On the other hand, not being able to repeat transports essentially means that mech armies don't exist in highlander, period.  Most armies only have 1 or 2 transports so mechanization as a concept would be pretty much out.  Wouldn't bother me, but it's something to bear in mind.

if their goal is to eliminate spam then it's probably out, even if it has a rule like DaBoyz allowing multiple dedicated transports it still leaves anyone playing a drop pod army or Dark Eldar in the lurch

[Sir_Prometheus]

It's good to remember it's being proposed as a purely optional system.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the exact prize/ranking/bonus implementation.

I'm thinking something like there's a second "track" of Highlander winners, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, probably a significantly smaller prize.  Then if those winners overlap with the actual winner, so be it, it's a bonus.  Whatever the value, I think it should probably be just enough that a 2nd place winner that was highlander would get more than a 1st place winner that was not.

Or you know, maybe all the highlanders are all at the bottom, but at least they got something for their trouble.