Reviews: Arc40k 2K17 - Australia's Largest 40k Event

Arc40k is a behemoth of a Warhammer 40,000 Event hosted in Melbourne. Arc40k 2k17 will be celebrating their 20th year as an event on the Victorian Event Calendar. Lets take a look at the event and give you a quick rundown, followed by a detailed analysis of their Player Pack.

Edit #1: Player Pack is now up to version 4, so another important thing to remember... Do you have the right version?

Edit #2: Received a message from the Tournament Organisers informing that Arc Forged will be played as per the Player Pack, NOT as per the Q&A on their Facebook wall

Event History

So Arc40k began 20 years ago and was originally run by the gaming group War All The Time (WATT). In 2012 the reigns of the event were handed over to the current Tournament Organiser (TO), Dan Attrill, and here is their brief message from their player pack.

From Fez to Top hat

Welcome, to Arc40k 2k17, as we celebrate our 20th event. Our 20th year on the tournament calendar. This year, will be about history, our history. What has taken place over the journey, the memories we have made, the bonds of friendship forged on the field of battle over the 120 rounds of battle. The event is a celebration of our hobby, so get your mates involved, paint your damn armies & join in! And we will see you in MARCH!!!

For Arc40k 2k17!

Event Details At A Glance

Before we dive into the player pack in detail, lets have a quick look at what this event is, and where you can find it.

• Arc40k - 2k17 have their own Facebook page which can be found here
• The event will be a 2 day event
• Starting at 8:00am on Saturday the 18th of March 2017
• Due to finish up at 6:00pm-ish on Sunday the 19th of March 2017
• This year it will be held at the Malvern Town Hall
• Army points limit of 1,350 Points.
• Determining the winner
• 1/3 of the points are allocated to Sportsmanship
• 1/3 of the points are allocated to Bringing an Awesome Army
• 1/3 of the points are allocated to Battle

Player Pack In All Its Glory

So with the highlights out of the way, we are aware that many players don't actually read the player pack, or if they do they may not always be able to gleam from it the important information. Now to try and make it clear to you the difference between what is written in the Player Pack vs what is our opinion, we have highlighted "fact" in blue. So unless it is in blue, make sure you have read that section yourself 😏
Note: Some areas we have had to make assumptions, VMG is not the TO of this event as such please only take this as a guide, when in doubt refer to the TO team of Arc40k

Sportsmanship - 120 Tournament Points

Not many people read a player pack, even less comprehend everything the TO is trying to get across. The very first category in the player pack is Sportsmanship, it is worth 1/3 of the total available tournament points, it is a big deal!

So at the end of each game you are asked to rate your opponent in the terms of how sportsmanlike they have been. Now this is super tricky, as they have stated that they believe most games will score a 7, however as I have stated previously, most people don't read the player pack.

Everything you need to know on how you can get a good sports score is in the Player Pack, and to be honest is pretty common sense.

Good Sporting Behaviours

• Easy Rules Resolution that takes into account both players interpretations, if in doubt 4+ it.

• It's not a game of millimetres it's a game of fun, toy soldiers and enjoyment of our hobby!

• Don't let the outcome of a game influence how sporting your opponent is or was.

• Help your opponent with rules that advantage them, if they are playing them wrong, i.e. reminding them about 'Feel no pain' rolls if they haven't taken it.

As an experienced tournament attendee I find that most people will fall in the 7-8 out of 10, it is very rare you will come across a player that is less than this. If this is your first Arc40k event, or even your first event with Sportsmanship, keep in mind that this is a 2 way street; people want to play against a nice guy, it keeps things fun, so try and be one and you should do well here.

After Round 5 you will be asked to nominate your Star Player from the first 5 rounds. These votes will be used to resolve tied results for Best Sports.

120 Points in a nutshell:
Now at a glance it looks like the Star Player votes are not used in the overall score (ie. not part of the 120 points). So how does 6 scores out of 10 get you 120 points? There are 2 "Safe to assume" ways to get there, and to be honest it doesn't matter which it is, just be a good opponent and hope for a good score here:

1. They simply take your 6 games of 10 sports points, and multiply it by 2 to get you a score out of 120.
2. They take your 6 games of 10 sports points and put it through some kind of "best fit" scoring system. I hear you saying, "what the hell are you talking about Difsta!", well let me tell you how I might do it, while trying to push the Don't be a Prick agenda.
• If you are familiar with Community Comp (which I was previously heavily involved with, these days less so) there was a scaled Comp Credits to Tournament Points approach.

• Basically what I would be doing is working out how many Tournament Points I thought an "Expected Arc40k Experience" should get (ie. a 7/10). Then put a curve to get there (something like below)

Now regardless of what method they use to work out their 120 points, this is massive! We will be going in to the Battle Scores in detail in a moment, but keep in mind that the difference between a Win and a Loss is 10 Tournament Points, which could be the equivalent of as much as 5 sports points (assuming a double the sports points calculation) or if they have a "best fit" approach then it could be even less. So if you push the envelope in the last couple of turns trying to get a win, and you aren't as sporting as your opponent would like, then it is not that far fetched to see your sports score drop down to a Below Standard sports score, which has cost you most likely a lot more Tournament Points than you gained for maybe getting a win.

So morale of the story, be a nice guy, have some fun, and you will do well in this section.

Bring an Awesome Army - 120 Tournament Points

Now I am going to point this out again, notice how the Bring an Awesome Army is after Sportsmanship but before Battle. This shows that above all else, the TO's of Arc40k want to see nice guys playing with well presented armies.

Once again, this section is worth 1/3 of the tournament points but is broken up into a number of categories, and this is probably the most confusing part of not only this player pack, but any player pack.

I am going to go through this section in a way that I read a player pack, rather than how it is actually laid out in the document.

Army Composition - 60 Points (broken into 4 sub categories)

Panel Composition - 24 points

Now this is tricky, as an Army's strength is very hard to gauge, especially when you may not have seen it on the table before. Now in 2016 Arc40k used the Community Comp system (which we will do a review of at a later date) but have dropped it for 2017 after only running it for 1 year and gone back to a Panel of judges. 

A Panel of 4 judges will each score your army using the following scorecard, they then add the 4 scores together to give a total out of 24:

• 1pt - This list is overpowered, wouldn't want to face it even with a Baneblade.

• 2pts - This list is slightly on the tough side, but not totally unbeatable.

• 4pts - This list has some grunt but some definite flaws, might just be competitive.

• 6pts - The Ideal Arc list. A List that you would play with or against many times.

It is really hard to gauge what the judges will say is what, it may depend on the field, but with 150ish lists to look over you can expect quite a few hard and soft lists at both end of the scale. So what should you be aiming for? Your best bet is to aim for a 4 pointer in my opinion and here is why.

There will be hard lists at Arc40k 2k17, no doubt about it, the Panel Composition score is not enough to really discourage some of the stronger lists attending, and especially after 2016 when there was list rejection due to Community Comp Credit Caps, you will have people bringing lists that they just want to bring (just take a look at 2014 when a player attended with an amazingly painted 3 Imperial Knight army in 1350 points). So why am I suggesting aim for a 4 pointer?

People will bring Composition into their Sports Scores. Now while the Sportsmanship rating out of 10 has no mention of how hard my opponents army was, many players, especially more social players, will take this into consideration when rating their opponent. So you don't want to bring the hardest list in the field, and hopefully most players will realise this and avoid some of the big bad combos. But because you will see some hard lists out there, you really don't want to bring a list that is so soft that it is just going to get smashed all weekend, no one wants to rock up and get pole-axed 6 games in a row.

If you are familiar with Community Comp, I would be aiming for a list somewhere around the 5-6 Credit mark using the Small Game System.

So bring an army that has a bit of teeth, but only grinning teeth, nothing too ferocious.

Arc Forged! - 10 Points

Now that the subjective part of the Army Composition is out of the way, lets move onto the easy parts. The Player Pack is incorrect (or was last time we checked) and has been amended on the Arc40k Facebook Page. It currently states that to get these 10 points your army needs to consist of a single Combined Arms Detachment. It has since been changed to be any army that consists of a Single Detachment. So what are the types of armies that will fall into this bracket? Well here are a short list of some examples (not limited to just this list of course):

• Combined Arms Detachment as per the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook
• Nemesis Strike Force from the Grey Knights Codex
• Black Crusade Detachment from the Campaign Supplement Black Crusade - Traitor's Hate

So this really should be a fairly easy 10 Points to get your hands on.

Since the posting of this article we have been contacted by the Tournament Organising team informing us that in fact they will be doing this as per the original Player Pack and not as per the Q&A on their Facebook wall. So to get these 10 Points your army needs to consist of a single Combined Arms Detachment (CAD). So for some armies this is impossible, and for others it may make there thematic army difficult to build.

List Submission - 10 Points

If you don't get this one then you only have yourself to blame. Simply put, get your list in on time, using the correct format, without any stuff ups and attach any theme you wish to be scored on.

Tick Composition - 16 Points

Now this section at first glance looks fairly easy to get, and for some armies that may be the case, but the first 2 points can be quite difficult to achieve depending on your Army Faction or Detachment type.

These are tick and flick points, you earn these simply by your list meeting the criteria:
+ 3pts - Choice from each selection type (excluding Lords of War Choices, and Armies that don’t use a CAD (ie Skitarii, Harelquins etc) a choice from each available selection will count for this tick)
+ 5pts - More Choices and points spent on Troops than any other category
+ 1pts - No Allies / No Unrealistic allies
+ 2pts – 0-2 AV12 or AV13 Vehicles
+ 1pts – 0-1 AV14 Vehicles
+ 2pts – 0-1 Flyer or Flying MC
+ 2pts – 0-1 1st Turn Drop Pod or 1st Turn Deep Strike unit

So from point 3 onward they are fairly self explanatory, and so I wont really go into them in any kind of detail, I will just focus on the first 2 points.

A Choice from each selection type. So this means if your Army Faction has a unit available in each Battle Role (eg. Troops, HQ, Elites, etc.) then you have to take each Battle Role to gain these points. So for armies like Inquisition who only Have HQ and Elites then you smash these 3 points in with ease. However most factions will have one of each Battle Role, and whats worse is the ones that have a Lord of War at an exorbitant points cost, or that doesn't match your theme. So if you are planning on taking a Grey Knight army, then to get these 3 points you MUST take Draigo Kaldor, or if you want to take an Eldar army then you need to have either an Avatar or a Wraithknight. It is quite restrictive, and for many players I think these 3 points will just need to be dropped and forgotten about. Especially if you are wanting to keep your army lower on the Panel Composition.

Edit: Since posting this article we have been informed that the Choice from each selection type has now changed. You do not need to take a Lord of War to achieve these points.

More Choices and Points spent on Troops. So to get these points you need to have more points in Troops than say Heavy Support, or more in Troops than Elites. In addition to the points you also need to have more actual units in Troops than any other choice.

This one once again is much easier for some. Eldar for example have great troops choices, being able to take Eldar Jetbikes up the wazoo should help you get these points. Tau taken as Farsight Enclaves can easily get these points by taking battle suits along with their other solid choices. Other armies like say Adepta Sororitas (Sisters of Battle) don't have very strong troops, and as such may struggle to gain these points, as well as Chaos Daemons who have horrible troops choices.

So most armies should be able to get a minimum of 9 out of 16 Tick Composition points, where the remaining 8 could be a little tricky for some, and really easy for others. If you are struggling to work out how to get these points while sticking to a theme drop us a line either in the Comments section or over on our Facebook page.

Theme - 10 Points

So with Army Composition out of the way we can take a look at theme. Now some players will work out their theme first, and then see how they can make it fit into a tournaments composition, others will work out what type of armies are likely going to be in attendance before working out a theme. There is no right or wrong way to do your hobby, it is up to you, however I find it easier to work out roughly what kind of army composition I am looking at first. For example if I wanted to do an army themed around Tau with stealth in mind, then I would likely go the Optimised Stealth Cadre. Now while I am not saying people wont rock up with this kind of army or that you can't, that would put your army into either the overpowered or slightly on the tough side of the Panel Composition, and I am trying to stick to the some grunt with some definite flaws.

So this is broken into 3 categories:

1. Does your army fit within the 40k universe yes/no - 4 Points
2. Has your army's theme affected your army selection - 0 to 3 Points (appears to be scaled)
3. Has your army's theme affected the way you've modelled and painted your army - 0 to 3 Points (appears to be scaled)

So these points should be fairly easy to get, and to be honest are fairly self explanatory, but here is a quick run down.

Within the 40k Universe. Simply put, if you want these points don't make an army to represent the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy. Aim to have it based on something 40k orientated.

Affect your army selection. If your army is a Khorne based army, don't take Sorcerers unless you have some really cool way to justify them. If your theme is based on speed and mobility, then maybe a unit of terminators really doesn't fit. Use some commons sense here.

Paint and Model to theme. What it says on the box 😊

Painting - 50 points

So we have come to another subjective area of a Player Pack, and one that not enough players take the time to have a good read of. Have a good read of the Painting Scores guideline that the Paint Judge(s) will use to get you a score out of 50. Now a number of these criteria are scaled from 0 to 8 points. It is fair to assume that most people will not get the 8 points, so don't be disheartened if you think your highlighting and shading is on point and you only got say 4-5 points. There are some absolutely amazing painters out there (you may be one of them) and your armies are being compared with the rest of the field.

But my army doesn't have freehand. Well for starters the Paint Scores don't say that you need it, it has been put in with one larger label "Detail Painting", but that being said... every army can have freehand, you may be playing Daemons who don't have big chunky shoulder pads, or tanks to have nice flat surfaces to do your freehand, but this doesn't mean you can get these points. Sure they may be harder, but not impossible. So here are a few of my handy tips.

• Banners: Even if your army doesn't have any banners/standards in the army list, it doesn't mean you can't have a model with one. He can either be the Sergeant of the squad, or just any other regular pleb. If you are running an army that doesn't have banners (looking at you Tyranids) then put a dead guardsmen holding a banner on the base of one of your big Monstrous Creatures, giving you a nice spot to put freehand.
• Wrecked Vehicles: Similar to the Banners tip above, if you don't like banners, or due to their curves you want a more flat surface, then put some wreckage on the bases. You could have Space Marine Rhino door on your a base, then put some Chapter's insignia on the door. Not only will this give you a good chance for freehand, but also lets you get a contrast color for your army, without having to mess with your paint scheme.

But I don't want to do custom bases. Bases is a hard one, some people love more standard bases with just a little bit of rock/flock on it. You can do some pretty cool bases using just stone, and then use weathering powders on the base as well as the lower part of the model. Or if you like themed bases that come "out of the box" like those from GW with their Sector Imperialis bases, or Scibor Miniatures Egyptian themed bases. It is really hard to gauge what the judges will do with this section, it is a scaled section of 0-8 points, and from experience at Arc40k in the recent years to get the 8 points there is some fair competition. Last year saw some amazing water effects on some Orc bases which most likely got close to the 8 points. If you want to use already made bases, then it is likely that you shouldn't expect more than half of these points, but you may not even get that depending on how they decide to judge this section.

I don't want to do conversions. There is a modelling section which once again is a 0-8 points, and another hard one to gauge how they will be judging this section. To get the 8 points here you need to have "amazing handmade marvels of the model making art", and this sounds pretty hard to get. If you don't have the desire to do greenstuff sculpting or complex conversions, then I would suggest that a bit of a kit bash here and there wouldn't go a stray, and should keep you within your theme/ideal army while gaining a couple of the points. Make sure you are clean on your mold lines, and keep things neat and you should be able to get a few points here.

What do I do with my summoning models? Each event has their own way of doing things, and Arc40k have been pretty clear on how they will be doing this section. The models count as part of your army for the purposes of painting. So if you are planning on casting some Conjuration powers, or you could turn into a Daemon Prince through a Chaos Space Marine Boon roll, make sure they are painted to the same standard as the rest of your army.

PLEASE NOTE: Summonable/spawnable models will be included as "part of your army" when judging these criteria. Paint these models at the same standard as the rest of your army, lest you lose points

With all that said and done, what should we expect? Well lets take a look at the Player Pack again, cause they are pretty clear here. Note how the total score adds up to more than the maximum paint score, so if you aren't so flash hot in the conversion, but you are on point in other areas you could still get a maximum paint score.

Note that this is a guideline only, and EXPECT a nicely painted, well presented army to arrive at between 15 - 35 points. Whilst the criteria above add to a total of 54pts, your score will max out at 50pts, giving you multiple ways to score a top score. 

Play for Fun (Battle Section) - 30-120 Tournament Points

So this is section is scored from 30-120 Tournament Points as there is no 0 for battle. So there is only really 90 points up for grabs here, which just goes to show that even though at first glance battle is worth 1/3 of your available Tournament Points, the actual battle score isn't as important as having fun with well presented armies.

Fun games are the centre of Arc40K: tough battles where you pit your tactical prowess against challenging opponents. Gaming is central to our hobby, and at Arc40k you'll play 6 games, each worth between 5 and 20 Battle points (BP).

Game Results: Loss (5BPs) / Draw (10BPs) / Win (15BPs)

Primary Bonus Points:

• +1 Mission Specific Turn 3 Condition.
• In previous years this might be something like hold more objectives than your opponent at the end of Turn 3. It will differ each round and as Arc40k keep their missions secret until the event, your guess is as good as mine as what these might be.
• +1 Mission Specific Total Victory Condition
• In previous years this might be something like hold all objectives, or kill your opponents most expensive unit while yours is still alive. Once again, each mission will be different, and in most cases this will be a fairly difficult point to gain.

Secondary Bonus Points: Secondary objectives will only be used to gain Tournament Battle Points, not in game Victory Points.

• +1BP - Slay the Warlord
• +1BP - First Blood
• +1BP - Linebreaker

What should I expect in the missions? Well the missions are kept secret until the event for Arc40k (like most of the events in Vic). That being said here is what I would expect:

• The objective of the mission to be fairly basic, ie. it is USUALLY  either objectives or kill points, and they haven't used Maelstrom objectives in the past. So think Emperor's Will, Crusade type missions.
• The mission will have a funky special rule. So it might be that your warlord gets a special rule, it might be that during the game asteroids fall from the sky and randomly do damage, it is hard to say as there have been so many cool rules (and some fairly crazy ones) over the years. From past experience, expect:
• About 4-5 our of the 6 missions to have special rules that are just flavor, they wont be game breaking, just a bit of fun.
• It is likely that 1-2 of the 6 missions to have special rules that just screw you. It happens, and there is not much you can do about it. What is just a fun/flavor based mission for one table will be a game breaking missions for another. Try not to be a poor sport about it, it is likely you will have a mission go in your favor over the weekend and you wouldn't want your opponent to be blaming you for it now would you

When in doubt, ask the TO

A Player Pack review like this can be handy for those trying to read between the lines of an events player pack, but unless the review came from the TO itself it is all a bunch of assumptions (educated assumptions, but assumptions none the less). If you really want to get some detail on a part of the player pack then simply shoot a message/email/carrier pigeon/etc. to the TO themselves and get them to provide you with the detailed explanation.

So there you have it!

So a Player Pack can be an epic amount of info to digest, and a lot of TO's will try and trim it down to make it feel like less info to get through. If you are interested in these kinds of Reviews of Player Packs, feel free to send us a message at our Facebook Page with a Player Pack you want us to review, and we will do our best to read between the lines for you.