Burnout - Alternate Format

[Sir Heroscape]

Burnout

Burnout is an alternate double blind format for Heroscape games. It can be implemented for casual or tournament play. The main goal of the system is to mix up the traditional format to encourage new army builds and change up the way we play.

Gameplay Video

YouTube

Maps

Maps for Burnout have a few differences from traditional double blind tournament maps. First, they use less terrain. Burnout maps should be built using only half a master set and one terrain expansion. While this isn't an absolute necessity, it does limit the maps from becoming overly large and producing longer games. When splitting a set in half, you should always round down on the terrain. For instance, with the RotV, you would only get to use 2 grass 7 hexers (5 come in the set). The idea being, that if a tournament uses two Burnout maps with RotVs, a single RotV could build both. An exception to this is the SotM set when using 2 and 1 hex grass and rock hexes. You are allowed to use either the rock or the grass. The BftU set is considered a terrain expansion and only uses have of it's hexes (but all of its rocks).

Secondly, maps should have 16-hex Start Zones (rather than the usual 24-hex startzones) and should be Symmetrical if possible (not always possible with 1/2 master sets). Deployment is normal in the Start Zone.

Thirdly, maps should have no more than 1 power glyph on them because of the small nature of the maps.

Terrain allowance per master set:

Spoiler Alert!

Rise of the Valkyrie
Grass: three 24 hex, two 7 hex, two 3 hex, two 2 hex, eight 1 hex.
Rock: two 24 hex, one 7 hex, one 3 hex, one 2 hex, three 1 hex.
Sand: one 7 hex, one 3 hex, one 2 hex, two 1 hex.
Water: 10 water
1 ruin (either short or long)

Swarm of the Marro
Swamp: One 24 hex, five 7 hex, one 3 hex, one 2 hex, one 1 hex
Sand: two 7 hex, one 3 hex
Sand or Rock: one 7 hex
Grass or Rock: one 2 hex, one 1 hex
Swamp water: 17
Water: 4

Battle for the Underdark (used as a terrain expansion)
Dungeon: one 24 hex, one 7 hex, one 3 hex, one 2 hex, one 1 hex.
Rock or Sand: three 7 hex, one 2 hex, one 1 hex
Rock: one 3 hex
Water: 6
Shadow: 4
Rock outcrops: three 1 hex, one 3 hex.

Examples:

Spoiler Alert!

Bushy Ruin (to be built with Castle Path)
Sets: 1/2 RotV, TJ


Castle Path (to be built with Bushy Ruin)
Sets: 1/2 RotV, FotA


Jungley
Sets: 1/2 SotM, TJ (to be built with Swampy)


Swampy
Sets: 1/2 SotM, FotA (to be built with Jungley)

Army Construction

3 Armies of 300pts with a 10 figure limit per army, taking up no more than 16 hexes.

NO armies controlled by a player may have the same Army Card in them (you can't have Raelin in your Army 1 and Raelin also in your Army 2). Armies will generally need to be smaller than traditional builds to work on the smaller maps. Armies can be scaled based off of the desired length of game and rounds in a tournament. For example, you could do 2 armies of 400pts or 4-5 armies of 150-200pts, but the suggested format is 3 armies of 300pts.

Deployment

Before the game, players will write down in which order their armies will be played throughout each Round of the tournament/game. Each game will consist of multiple "mini games" between each of the 3 different armies of the players.

Gameplay
The first Player to defeat their opponent's Army 3, wins.

Each player places their selected Army 1 in their SZ and plays the game as usual. If Player 1 kills off all of Army 1 of Player 2, Player 1 returns all remaining figures of their Army 1 to their startzone and Player 2 places their Army 2 in their startzone. Player 1 does NOT reset partial squads, wounds or markers (i.e. Heroes keep their wounds, Mezzo Demons wouldn't reset their markers, you wouldn't replace/reset any dead squad figures). Gameplay resets with Player 1 playing with the remainder of their Army 1 (placing units back in the Start Zone) vs Player 2's Army 2. If Player 1 were also able to defeat Player's 2's Army 2, Player 1 would reset the remainder of their army to the Start Zone again and Player 2 would place their Army 3 in their startzone. Gameplay would start with a new round as usual and if Player 1 is able to defeat Player 2's Army 3, Player 1 is the winner.

Each time an army is destroyed, no matter what turn marker you are on, you reset order markers, reset figures/armies to the Start Zone and start a new round.

Brief Summary of:
Scenario 1:
P1-A1 vs P2-A1 = P1-A1 survives
P1-A1 vs P2-A2 = P1-A1 survives
P1-A1 vs P2-A3 = P1-A1 survives --> Player 1 WINS

Scenario 2:
P1-A1 vs P2-A1 = P1-A1 survives
P1-A1 vs P2-A2 = P2-A2 survives
P1-A2 vs P2-A2 = P2-A2 survives
P1-A3 vs P2-A2 = P1-A3 survives
P1-A3 vs P2-A3 = P2-A3 survives --> Player 2 WINS

Time Limit

A limit of 60 minutes or so should work. This will allow players enough time to complete the burnout match if they each get to the final game of Army 3 vs Army 3.

[TREX]

Seems like a lot of tracking for tournament purposes. I think its asking a decent amount of the tournament players to learn all the details. Too much off board tracking and paperwork= not as much fun in my opinion. Perhaps a simpler variation would work. Ill post my ideas in the monthly thread.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by TREX

Seems like a lot of tracking for tournament purposes. I think its asking a decent amount of the tournament players to learn all the details. Too much off board tracking and paperwork= not as much fun in my opinion. Perhaps a simpler variation would work. Ill post my ideas in the monthly thread.

huh, it's actually quite simple tbh. It's really no different than a 4X400 format where you bring multiple armies etc. I just published my battle video yesterday explaining it and showing how the actual gameplay works.

There's really no off the board tracking other than knowing what order you'll be playing your armies in.

Battle Video

Spoiler Alert!

YouTube

[Chris Perkins]

Interesting. I like the mechanic of re-setting throughout a lot, especially how it forces you to build armies that are at least somewhat functional if you've lost ~200 points of them already (i.e. the Grimnak build in your video is actually not a great army for this format since once he's dead the remainder of that army doesn't make a great second wave on the re-set even if you win the round first).

I don't think it's too complex, but I think you may need to drop the hex totals by a bit to make the games more interesting. I think 10 hexes would be better, mainly because I think this set of armies:
1. 4th x4
2. 10th x4
3. Raelin, Q9, Rats x1
(honorary 4. Stingers x5)
Is just too easy of a meta to quickly reach. At that point, it's mostly guess work as to whether your opponent has their Q9 at #1, 2, or 3 because you want your own Q9 to hit theirs.

Maybe you swap out 10th x4 for something that kills Q9 instead? But that army then has to get lucky with it's timing in facing your opponent's Q9. I think that problem gets solved if you drop the hex limits though, since then 4th & 10th are no longer as clear cut, and your other 2 armies are more hero heavy. Then they have a better chance verses the Q9/Raelin matchup (I don't think there's any way to avoid that, but with lower hexes it's less game breaking).

Admittedly these aren't especially new problems for any double-blind format, but I think they can be mostly solved by dropping the hexes by 2-6.

Those are my thoughts at least. I like the concept of re-setting a lot though. Would be fun to play this some time.

[Muskie]

I like it!!! we will test it in our small group and may try it in one of our monthly. Seems pretty straight forward. The small make is key!

[TREX]

After watching the video, its not as complex but as the above comments read, possibly cutting it down a little. I still think its a lot to shove in for a 60 min round. Having to reconfigure multiple armies takes time, especially for new players.

[BiggaBullfrog]

Thoughts I hinted to in Discord: I've done a couple of games similar to this casually, and it's one of my favorite ways to play. That said, I don't think it's great for a (live/timed) tournament format for a few reasons, at least not without a good amount of tweaks.

For one, I definitely agree with Chris that the figure limit should be lower -- 10 would be great. Keeps compositions more interesting with fewer cheeseballs, as well as keeps games shorter. Even then, playing 4 or 5 games is going to take time. There's always time for set up, and then resetting between each game. Also, endgame already takes more time when you're trying to get the value you need, and after game 1 you'd be in constant endgame mode, so I'd see this hitting the time limit a lot. Some people are speed players, but that's one type of player in a format where you'd want everyone to be like that if you're hoping for games to end on time.

I also think it makes turtling/kiting armies too strong by nature of wanting a lot of value over a long period of time. Krav and Marro Warriors would be super prominent as figures that can kite extra value over a couple games, especially since Marro Warriors could clone themselves back so much (smaller maps do help here a little, but the value is real).

Another consideration, depending on the scene/players, is that casual players with smaller collections will struggle more when they have to bring 900 points worth of figures to a single event. That's something that I'd hesitate to do in our Utah scene, for example.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by Chris Perkins

Interesting. I like the mechanic of re-setting throughout a lot, especially how it forces you to build armies that are at least somewhat functional if you've lost ~200 points of them already (i.e. the Grimnak build in your video is actually not a great army for this format since once he's dead the remainder of that army doesn't make a great second wave on the re-set even if you win the round first).

I don't think it's too complex, but I think you may need to drop the hex totals by a bit to make the games more interesting. I think 10 hexes would be better, mainly because I think this set of armies:
1. 4th x4
2. 10th x4
3. Raelin, Q9, Rats x1
(honorary 4. Stingers x5)
Is just too easy of a meta to quickly reach. At that point, it's mostly guess work as to whether your opponent has their Q9 at #1, 2, or 3 because you want your own Q9 to hit theirs.

Maybe you swap out 10th x4 for something that kills Q9 instead? But that army then has to get lucky with it's timing in facing your opponent's Q9. I think that problem gets solved if you drop the hex limits though, since then 4th & 10th are no longer as clear cut, and your other 2 armies are more hero heavy. Then they have a better chance verses the Q9/Raelin matchup (I don't think there's any way to avoid that, but with lower hexes it's less game breaking).

Admittedly these aren't especially new problems for any double-blind format, but I think they can be mostly solved by dropping the hexes by 2-6.

Those are my thoughts at least. I like the concept of re-setting a lot though. Would be fun to play this some time.

Originally Posted by BiggaBullfrog

Thoughts I hinted to in Discord: I've done a couple of games similar to this casually, and it's one of my favorite ways to play. That said, I don't think it's great for a (live/timed) tournament format for a few reasons, at least not without a good amount of tweaks.

For one, I definitely agree with Chris that the figure limit should be lower -- 10 would be great. Keeps compositions more interesting with fewer cheeseballs, as well as keeps games shorter. Even then, playing 4 or 5 games is going to take time. There's always time for set up, and then resetting between each game. Also, endgame already takes more time when you're trying to get the value you need, and after game 1 you'd be in constant endgame mode, so I'd see this hitting the time limit a lot. Some people are speed players, but that's one type of player in a format where you'd want everyone to be like that if you're hoping for games to end on time.

I also think it makes turtling/kiting armies too strong by nature of wanting a lot of value over a long period of time. Krav and Marro Warriors would be super prominent as figures that can kite extra value over a couple games, especially since Marro Warriors could clone themselves back so much (smaller maps do help here a little, but the value is real).

Another consideration, depending on the scene/players, is that casual players with smaller collections will struggle more when they have to bring 900 points worth of figures to a single event. That's something that I'd hesitate to do in our Utah scene, for example.

Some good points. I think it makes sense to limit it to just 10 figures. In Fact I’ll make that change because nobody wants to deal with those armies you mentioned. Though I do think a 16 hex start zone is still valid for adding in double spaced figures. Other than that though I think the rest is still good. The maps will be small enough that the kiting potential will be really limited.

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

I think it makes sense to limit it to just 10 figures. In Fact I’ll make that change because nobody wants to deal with those armies you mentioned. Though I do think a 16 hex start zone is still valid for adding in double spaced figures.

That's an excellent point that I had overlooked - I like 10 figures / 16 hexes as dual restrictions much more than what I had originally suggested. I think that's the sweet spot right there.

I have a clarification question with respect to Marro Warriors, the Hive, and anything that brings figures back from the dead - would you allow them to come back during the next wave? Say I win with 2 MWs left, can I water clone the other 2 back on my first OM of the next wave, or can I only water clone back to the number I started that wave with?

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by Chris Perkins

That's an excellent point that I had overlooked - I like 10 figures / 16 hexes as dual restrictions much more than what I had originally suggested. I think that's the sweet spot right there.

I have a clarification question with respect to Marro Warriors, the Hive, and anything that brings figures back from the dead - would you allow them to come back during the next wave? Say I win with 2 MWs left, can I water clone the other 2 back on my first OM of the next wave, or can I only water clone back to the number I started that wave with?

Ooo, good question. I think for squads like zombies it’d be too hard to keep track of which ones transferred over and which didn’t so I’d let rebirth and cloning continue into the next “phase”. I think that keeps things interesting. Because MWs are great; but again I think the small nature of the maps will hinder their usual dominance. Just look at the maps in the OP. Quite small overall, hard for MWs to run away...though if they make it to the next round to reset that would help them. That said that’s 50pts of figures taking up almost half your figure limit.

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

Ooo, good question. I think for squads like zombies it’d be too hard to keep track of which ones transferred over and which didn’t so I’d let rebirth and cloning continue into the next “phase”. I think that keeps things interesting. Because MWs are great; but again I think the small nature of the maps will hinder their usual dominance. Just look at the maps in the OP. Quite small overall, hard for MWs to run away...though if they make it to the next round to reset that would help them. That said that’s 50pts of figures taking up almost half your figure limit.

I agree that I don't thinks MWs are too over powered here, although they are quite good still.

For reference, the army I was thinking of was: Nilfheim, Greenscales x1, MWs. Rush Nilf with a small screen, keep MWs back to try and have some survive to the next round. I actually like that mechanic quite a bit, as it makes having to keep certain figures alive more important.

[Ericth74]

Played this format with 3 other friends last night and we had a blast with it. I made up 16 different teams, we each drew 4 randomly and played 3 of them. We got 3 rounds in. Our group mostly plays 2 v 2, what we really liked was the fast and furious action right from the start and the small map size. Used both of the maps listed above, we did modify Jungley some because of lack of jungle terrain though. The format makes for some interesting end game choices. For example, being down to your last figure and knowing you are going to lose and get a new army, it sometimes makes sense to recklessly attack an opponents key figure, not because you are trying to win but to help you in the next round of the game.

The 10 figure limit makes team construction challenging but fun. The teams we used were mostly b-level teams, trying to get figures that don't hit the board that often in play.

For example my teams were(I finished 2-1, lost in the finals):

Cather Spearmen x2
Count Raymond
Deadeye Dan

Omnicron Snipers x2
Omnicron Replusors
Zetacron

Black Wyrmling x3
Red Wyrmling x3
White Wyrmling x3
Guilty McCreech

Dreadgul Raiders x2
Pel
Kha

We had some crazy match ups and outcomes. Like how is it possible for 2 Nagrubs to refuse to die and kill 5 Snipers and 2 Replusors. How can Deathwalker 8000 whiff with 9 dice to a Red Wyrmling. How can 2 Ninjas of the Northern Wind kill 4 Spearmen and Deadeye Dan.

Super fun format. Totally worth trying out. Our group will definitely play it again.