How to make 2v2 work

I was wondering if anyone had ever made 2v2 works. I know some players on the forum have attended doubles tournament, how did that work?

The magic phase is the awkward one to work out. What I've seen happen is that people are allocated a magical opponent, and you can only attempt to dispel their spells and vice versa, and when you roll for Winds of Magic, you roll 2D6 for your power dice and your allocated magical opponent gets the highest D6 as dispel dice.

Sometimes sharing dispelling is done too, though you can't share dispel dice, which also works out relatively well.

GW has given us rules for 2v2. You use the rules for allies, simple as that.

Its when you get into 3 or 4 way battles that things break down.

Yeah the magic phase is what really bothers me... Do you have 2D6 per player or 2D6 per side?

The magic system completely breaks down once you have multiple players or hit 3000+ points, and GWs ally system is wierd.

I've mulled over a fixe for very large games.

Roll 3D6 for Winds. Total equals the Power Dice and the 2 highest rolls equal the dispel dice. In multiplayer you can distribute the way GW's ally rules.

The magic system completely breaks down once you have multiple players or hit 3000+ points, and GWs ally system is wierd.

Agreed 100% - I only play SoM games over 3K these days because the magic is not very balanced at larger games straight from the rulebook.

I would use the SoM system without the beasts, magic spells, and equipment.

The thing you have to consider is that the power dice to dispel dice ratio is very different to the power dice to dispel dice total.

To be less confusing: The current system is geared so that in theory, on average, the casting player will get one spell off. The opponent has less dispel dice that the caster's power. However, achieving the casting of a spell is also factored in - so it's about 50/50 whether you'll get at least one spell off, with a VERY high number of variables.

With Grey Templar's suggestion, it still manages to balance out, I do think that works. However, to 'escalate' it, the next total would probably be roll 5 dice, and the highest 3 would be dispel. This is to balance the increased likelihood of lower rolls coming up and pulling the dispel pool too close to the power pool. Also works for what is simply a very high point game, I reckon.

3v3 is the highest I can see a game going, mind. After that, it just gets awkward. 40k is more fluid so Apocalypse is easier, but Fantasy gets difficult to manage at certain points levels.

Well as it is you can have the natural Dispel pool total only be one away from the Power pool total. Not even including channels or silly things like Dwarfs.


I think Fantasy scales well to higher points besides magic. Its not like 40k apocalypse because there aren't models you can suddenly bring that are worth 1000+ points a pop. You are still dealing with the same units and restrictions that appear in smaller games, just more of them.

Now this can mean the game takes longer but that's different than scaling.