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I get that tournament organisers implement house rules/FAQS in order to clarify ambiguous rules in advance of the event. Whether they get it right or wrong is a debate for a different thread. But another consideration is time. As such, there is usually a points limit of 1850.

It's clear that since the release of 6th GW has tried to push points up but tournaments have generally kept their restrictions the same - maybe a small increase from the 1750 standard that seemed popular a while ago.

Now there are rumours of 40k going formation only with no points limit. This would be an absolute disaster if the formations remained the same as they do now because you can't just choose what you want to take as you can now, albeit within the boundaries of a CAD. If GW move to formations only then there will simply be a restriction in the number of formations a player can have but this would cause all sorts of headaches for TOS for obvious reasons.

So, is there no way to alter the format of tournaments to allow larger games? Maybe a player can bring a 1850 list but also have a reserves of say, 250 points which they could use to swap in and out before a game but after knowing what army your opponent will be using. It would bump up the points from 1850 to 2100. Just a thought but by trying to make the game move along quicker, TOS are having the effect of making a great many players stick at a lower level point game which is clearly what GW do not want.

Are TOS, unintentionally, pushing GW to more and more extreme measures? For the record, I appreciate the difficult job TOS have in trying to make the game work even if we don't all like the results.

Gamesworkshop doesn't do market research and has little to no interaction with it's fan base at this point. Tournaments could be 10,000 points and they would do the same thing they were going to do. As a practical note, going bigger on points has a higher likely hold of games running into the time limit and that is never satisfying for players.

But my idea wouldn't make games bigger. They would still be 1850 - you would just have a bigger pool of units to choose from each game.

I understand that it would be more difficult for each player to ensure they didn't go above 1850 in any given game but you'd just need to plan in advance. But it would be cool - say a sm player took a 1850 list and held a LR in reserve. If, when they saw their next opponents army they saw that there was no meta in their list they may choose to drop some units and deploy the LR instead - a basic example but you get what I mean. This would allow players to bring more units to a tournament but still stay within the 1850 limit. It would however allow an individual to bring more units to a tournament and give players more flexibility. ..

 ColdSadHungry wrote:
But my idea wouldn't make games bigger. They would still be 1850 - you would just have a bigger pool of units to choose from each game.

I understand that it would be more difficult for each player to ensure they didn't go above 1850 in any given game but you'd just need to plan in advance. But it would be cool - say a sm player took a 1850 list and held a LR in reserve. If, when they saw their next opponents army they saw that there was no meta in their list they may choose to drop some units and deploy the LR instead - a basic example but you get what I mean. This would allow players to bring more units to a tournament but still stay within the 1850 limit. It would however allow an individual to bring more units to a tournament and give players more flexibility. ..

Sounds a lot like what Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! do with side cards. I'd be up for it. But what's to stop their opponent from seeing the LR and adding in a Melta squad?

 jreilly89 wrote:

 ColdSadHungry wrote:
But my idea wouldn't make games bigger. They would still be 1850 - you would just have a bigger pool of units to choose from each game.

I understand that it would be more difficult for each player to ensure they didn't go above 1850 in any given game but you'd just need to plan in advance. But it would be cool - say a sm player took a 1850 list and held a LR in reserve. If, when they saw their next opponents army they saw that there was no meta in their list they may choose to drop some units and deploy the LR instead - a basic example but you get what I mean. This would allow players to bring more units to a tournament but still stay within the 1850 limit. It would however allow an individual to bring more units to a tournament and give players more flexibility. ..

Sounds a lot like what Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! do with side cards. I'd be up for it. But what's to stop their opponent from seeing the LR and adding in a Melta squad?

after viewing initial lists, both players can choose to swap in/out their allotted points? "oh he has 2 raiders, I'm bringing in some melta," meanwhile "well, I saw he has a lot of infantry in his list, so I'll drop a raider"

so a minor form of list tailoring? I don't like it. Your list at the start of the tournament should be the same to the end.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
so a minor form of list tailoring? I don't like it. Your list at the start of the tournament should be the same to the end.

I think it's more like, as jreilly89 said, a side deck in yugioh. you are stuck with that pre chosen 250 "side units", but you can opt to swap them in before the game starts.

 Brennonjw wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
so a minor form of list tailoring? I don't like it. Your list at the start of the tournament should be the same to the end.

I think it's more like, as jreilly89 said, a side deck in yugioh. you are stuck with that pre chosen 250 "side units", but you can opt to swap them in before the game starts.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. It would be an optional thing and would allow players to use more of their units over the course of a tournament without upping the 1850 limit

I have played a tournament like that in 5th. We had up to a 250 point unit we could swap out depending on the game. But that was it and any leftover points were lost so you had to plan out both armies in advance to minimize lost points.

It was fun, I never used my swap unit and I don't recall if my opponents ever did. You also didn't get to see what/if the opponent was swapping out until deployment.

That said, my favorite tournaments have always been escalation tournaments. 500, 1000, 1500. with unit restrictions in each. 500 followed our usual league rules, no 2+ or better than 5++ saves, no monstrous creatures(aside from nid warriors) no AV better than 12, 1+ troops, 0-1 every other slot with a floating free slot. Very fun games. This was before super heavies entered the scene. After 500 it went to standard force org. I think we did one where the random selected 500 point game then became a team tournament and the winner was the warlord who got an extra game point for every game the team won after that.

Well, to the first question, TOs can change anything they want in their tournaments. They're the ones who set them up, after all. If they want to permit a 40,000 point game? They can. If they want to permit 2k points games, they can. No one holds a gun to their heads and dictates how their tournaments are to be run.

The idea for the "side deck", though... it just doesn't work. It's basically limited list-tailoring, but with ally shenanigans being what they are, there's really only a few options you would need on the side... and Imperial armies have a significant advantage in the allies department for having a counter to any build. Between Imperial armies, however, it just ends up swapping something to counter something that is going to get swapped to counter your counter... and that's dumb.