Running a Pandemonium Tournament
Recently, I had the pleasure of running a homebrewed 10-person tournament of warhammer 40k. I wanted to flex my game design muscles a bit and I wanted a tournament that emphasized creative list building over running what’s currently strongest. Enter: The Pandemonium Tournament.
What is The Pandemonium Tournament?
You are assigned a customized detachment consisting of a detachment rule (obviously), 4 random enhancements, and 6 random stratagems. Legends units were allowed to ensure maximum chaos. The only restriction was that you could not play a faction that could normally run the detachment rule you were assigned. You got Gladius Task Force? Sorry, no space marines for you. Restrictions breed creativity.
How was it made?
Using a highly advanced algorithm (a random number generator), I created 20 unique detachments. First, I grabbed a random detachment rule, then I pulled 4 random enhancements and 6 random stratagems, making sure that none of them showed up more than once (Fun fact: there are currently 72 detachments, 286 enhancements, and 416 stratagems in the game). Once I was done, I had something that looked like this:
Now comes the main issue: All of these were only designed to work within the factions they’re made for. I knew going in there were two options. First option: I tell everyone to just ignore when they see something say ‘Adeptus Astartes Vehicle’ and just go with ‘Vehicle.’ Second option: I manually change every detachment rule, enhancement, and stratagem that was selected for a detachment so that the players aren’t constantly self-editing.
Because I’m a masochist, I chose option two. I’m glad I did, because I discovered that I’d need to change way more than that. For instance, what happens when a stratagem tells someone to choose a templar vow? Or lets them make a dark pact? What classifies as a penitent unit?
Time to get to work.
My main philosophy was to go only as broad as I needed to make a rule function. A strat targets Tau Battlesuit units? That’s Walker only, not vehicle only. The aforementioned penitent question? Well, every penitent unit is either infantry or a walker, so that changes to Infantry or Walker unit. The exception to this was anything that did something and then did something else if you fulfilled a requirement. For example, Runic Wards is a Space Wolves strat that gives you a feel no pain against mortal wounds and psychic attacks, and if Saga of the Bear was completed, that feel no pain gets better. I kept the Saga of the Bear qualifier because if you wanted to choose Space Wolves as your army, you got a little something extra.
But of course, since this is Warhammer, there were some exceptions. What do you do with Vanguard Invader units, since those are a weird subset within the Tyranid faction? Here’s what I came up with:
In general, I defaulted to the fun option. This tournament was already going to be ridiculous, so why not lean into it?
The Results
On game day, we had the following armies:
Chaos Daemons with Assimilation Swarm
Imperial Knights with Penitent Host
Necrons with Outlander Claw featuring an obelisk
Imperial Knights with Fellhammer Siege Host
Imperial Fists with Kroot Hunting Pack featuring 60 crusaders and two Spartans
Imperial Guard with Ironstorm
World Eaters with Canoptek court
Necrons with Noble Lance
Ad Mech with Anvil Siege Force
Chaos Daemons with Data-Psalm Conclave
The finals came down to the two tankiest armies. On one side we had Assimilation Swarm Daemons spamming pink and blue horrors with backup from Kairos, two Lords of Change, and the legends Lord of Change. On the other was Noble Lance Necrons with Szerras, The Silent King, and a plasmancer immortal brick. Ultimately, the sheer weight of dice of the immortals got through the regenerating pinks and birds and came out the winner!
If you’d like to look through all the detachments, you can find them here!
If you’re interested in following all of Jake’s hobby-related endeavors, find him on Instagram at @warhammer40j.