I had posted my thoughts a little over a year ago on a tournament where 2 choices from each codex were banned, with underwhelming support. I ended up running a tournament where battle points were minimum and army points were high, so the guy who ended up winning the tournament actually lost his first game but won due to having a well painted army with a well written background. The local tournament scene since sixth edition was dropped on us has been quite pitiful, to say the least. The last tournament we ran had two Necron airforces dueling it out on the head table in the last round, and it's not something we want to see occur with high frequency. Until anti-air is properly introduced for every army (and our poor Tau player who doesn't even have flyers yet), how would you feel about a no-flyer tournament?

Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I think a better group to poll would be your local players.

What 1000 people on daka think doesn't stack up against what a dozen people actually playing in a tournament will think.

I doubt it would be recieved to well, some changes that might help would be to play only objective missions, which makes cron air somewhat less reliable, and have terrain that has Quad Guns on the table. Also allowing Forge World (if possible) would help considerably, as Tau have fliers, they are FW. This isn't a perfect solution, as it hurts armies that only splash a couple fliers and FW may be a problem (it probably isn't sold where you play), but FW could also be a solution by giving all armies some form of anti-air.

I think its too extreme and it seems childish to just outright ban something arbitrarily because of one army list.

If you are going to do something, perhaps put in a requirement that no army may have more then 30% of its total points in Flyers.

Flyers added a dimension that was sorely missing from the game and arbitrarily banning them doesn't make you look good.


If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

 Grey Templar wrote:
"HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

I don't think that's a convincing reason. There are people that say the same thing about tournaments that don't use book missions and such.

A tournament/event will live or die by it's ability to draw players. If a quick survery indicates the idea will fly (pun intended), go for it. But if you do it unilaterally and no one shows up, then you've got your answer.

 mikhaila wrote:
I think a better group to poll would be your local players.

What 1000 people on daka think doesn't stack up against what a dozen people actually playing in a tournament will think.

This. If you looked at tourney lists in my area, you'd never know that places like Dakka existed.

Always better to feel out your local crowd for local things then a bunch of folks scattered across the interwebs.

My personal opinion though, I wouldn't shed a tear over it. My main army doesn't have its own flyer yet, and I don't use allies, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in those regards.

That's kind of the idea, I'm not expecting anyone here to actually show up to the tournament. I was just wondering how people feel about the idea. I do like the idea of no allies, as well, possibly no fortifications as another addition. It could be considered a 40K 5.5 edition tournament, to give everyone a chance to keep playing without having to completely redesign their army lists due to the new changes (I know I am busy modelling and painting an Aegis Defense Line only because my codex doesn't have anti-air!).

I don't agree with Grey Templar's post. Only the new armies actually have fliers, and very few of them actually have defense against it. 30% of an army list when the army list can't actually take flyers doesn't really solve anything. I was just looking for a stop-gap type of tournament until the playing fields are level for every army, because right now they are not. Having a flyer transport as a troops choice for only one army is downright criminal right now.

I woildn't mind it at all, especially since the two closest things I have to flyers would be hive tyrants and daemon princes...

How about a tournament with "no terminators allowed"


How about a tournament with "no daemons allowed"


I assume you are the master of all things balance and will be tailoring the missions to punish those armies that already don't have flyers? How far ahead have you thought? Gee, let's just take away units from different factions for no real reason.

You really outta check w/ your prospective attendees, and not the internets. Many tournament players are not nearly as super worried about flyers ... and flyer-intensive armies haven't been helter-skelter crushing events. That said, many tourney players aren't necessarily YOUR tourney players, and that's really all that matters.

40k is designed to be variable and fun, to be played at the levels and in the styles intended by any given player, within the very wide framework of the rules. If your locals hate flyers and/or simply want to shake things up with an anti-flyer tourney, go for it. If they don't, go for it anyway but don't expect as much of a turn-out

From a "wide" national level, flyers aren't really an issue. Arguments about where balance actually is and whether it's fair or if you have a right to alter the game for your particular event ... well it is, and you have that right, it's your event

Yeah, that's really the main point, I suppose. Our local area is slowly crawling into sixth edition, so that may be why we're so surprised and slow to react to the new rules. I remember my big 'WTF' moment was when I assaulted an enemy flyer thinking I would hit it on 6's or something, only to be told otherwise. That kind of destroyed my CC army from fifth edition. Our last tournament was filled with local players, and we had to all witness the disaster that was the final game from two out-of-towners. The game didn't even make it to four turns, so it ended up being a bunch of Necrons that never deployed as they were all in flyers.

BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

 ph34r wrote:
How about a tournament with "no terminators allowed"


How about a tournament with "no daemons allowed"


I assume you are the master of all things balance and will be tailoring the missions to punish those armies that already don't have flyers? How far ahead have you thought? Gee, let's just take away units from different factions for no real reason.

You know, if there was no such thing as an armor save until 6th edition, and suddenly we have these units with a 2+ save... I could see arguing that maybe terminators shouldn't be allowed until there are more than a handful of codices that have AP2. Of course, 2+ saves and plasma guns have been around since at least 4th edition so it's pretty silly to suggest that they should be banned in a more or less standard game.

Banning fliers is certainly one way to balance out some of the armies, so is adding IA: Aeronautica. Or just deal with a slightly awkward situation while we wait for more fliers and AA options to come into the game. It doesn't seem like everyone and their mom is playing flier spam so things are probably more or less okay. But, hell, if you really want balance play something other than 40k.

What I think would be more interesting is an arbitrary "no more than 2 fliers" rule. It would let people run their cool new Dakkajet/Helldrake/Razorwing, yet prevent Necron or IG Airforce from dominating.

 Oaka wrote:
BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

"stop deciding things you can't deal with are imbalanced; stop further imbalancing the game"

 ph34r wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

"stop deciding things you can't deal with are imbalanced; stop further imbalancing the game"

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning...

Wow... sounds like that whaaambulance is arriving...

Sounds ok to me but the amount of butthurt WAAC lamers would be ridiculious.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
What I think would be more interesting is an arbitrary "no more than 2 fliers" rule. It would let people run their cool new Dakkajet/Helldrake/Razorwing, yet prevent Necron or IG Airforce from dominating.

I think the OP's idea is terrible.

This is a better one, if for whatever reason you feel you MUST limit flyers.

It may be cool. You'd eliminate the WAAC powergamers and you may have a more calm setting.

However, none of us (well, most of us maybe) don't know your group, and therefore there may be issues.

You'd eliminate WAAC players? Such a strong statement, and wrong, imo.

The most powerful lists atm are also all-foot lists. See Tony Kopach's Nova-winning list.

Deleting one type of list does nothing to balance the game, imo.

Ok, calm down!

As he stated in the OP, there were 2 Aircron lists at the top table. So flyers may be how his local metagame works. Getting rid of flyers may mean many of the WAAC players in his area may not take part in the tourney.

Id say it would be better if you set a restriction that only allows so many flyers. Cutting them out completely not only leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but also some people have pumped out several hundred dollars to have flyers in their armies, not to mention Im sure some of the players have some really nicely painted/converted flyers. But I also see the problems with some armies, namely IG and Necrons, since they can take SO MANY flyers

So restriction? Yes. Complete cut out? No

So your stopping people who painted for thier models and painted them to use them?

I don't think that will go down well. at all. Alot of players will probably leave and find a new gaming club or will be angry.

Well there very much IS a problem currently with the 2 armies that can field 9 or more fliers in a single sub 2k point game. How can you handle that without taking a gak load of ADL with the quadguns? And what do you do when facing other armies that DONT have a bunch of fliers? Well all those ADL will be fairly useless otherwise. So youd HAVE to build your list to specifically take out fliers, which leaves you open to an easy loss against other armies.

SO really the only way to fix it, would be to limit or get rid of flyers, and Im sorry, but if I bought,built and painted some flyers, I damn sure would want to at least have SOME in a tourny, then none

Why not just add your own anti air options that can be captured and controlled in the game?

Or a scenario where all fliers are grounded (in game immobilised) until x happens?

Don't ban stuff - that's just stupid. Instead find a fun and engaging work around.

 KingCracker wrote:
Id say it would be better if you set a restriction that only allows so many flyers. Cutting them out completely not only leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but also some people have pumped out several hundred dollars to have flyers in their armies, not to mention Im sure some of the players have some really nicely painted/converted flyers. But I also see the problems with some armies, namely IG and Necrons, since they can take SO MANY flyers

So restriction? Yes. Complete cut out? No

Agreed that a restriction (i.e. Comp) is much more reasonable than an outright ban.

ExNoc- You seem to be assuming that the two Necron Air Cav players who got to the top table at his local tourney are WAAC. I think that's a silly assumption. Just because someone takes a powerful list and does well with it certainly does not mean they are WAAC. Hence my responding to you as I did- people should not toss that label around without knowing all the facts (in fact, they shouldn't toss it around at all... I have only encountered a Very few players who I would mentally characterize in such a manner, and certainly not on the internet).

Also, OP, regarding this:

Oaka wrote:I ended up running a tournament where battle points were minimum and army points were high, so the guy who ended up winning the tournament actually lost his first game but won due to having a well painted army with a well written background.

It's clear you're looking for a more comped / heavy on soft scores environment, which is totally fine. However, I don't necessarily think that sentence is something to be proud of. Still, I don't think there's anything wrong with comp for a local tourney if your players want it, but banning flyers outright seems to target 2 players in particular.

If it works for you to alienate them and have your tourney with "everyone else" that's one thing. But a good compromise is simply to set a comp limit on the number of flyers that can be taken.

Or maybe use custom scenarios for the tournament, 1 or 2 of which put flyers at a disadvantage. Like the quadrant missions used at NOVA Open and Battle for Salvation.

Honestly I am against banning. But I firmly believe in strict company scores. No one likes to play d bag lists.

The problem there is that one person's "d bag list" is frequently another person's "competitive but reasonable" list.

While I've been a long time supporter of composition scoring and restrictions, they need to be used carefully, and if I judge other players as being bad people because they have different tastes in list-building than I do, that just makes ME a dick.

If the 'tourney' attitude is bringing out the worst in people or turning off a lot of the playerbase... and there seems to be a need to try to balance things to keep people happy, why not run a different kind of event?

Lots of people simply want a day of organized play and the tourney format provides that. I would say a large chunk of people who attend tourneys have no illusions of being at the top table and just find it as a way to get back-to-back good games.

Instead of comping the meta... change the event. Do a single-day campaign or narrative event where players can get 3-4 games in, there can be winners and losers and even the sealclubbers can participate. Having formats where individuals can do missions to win battle or even ETC parings where you can nominate people to 'battle' the other faction and people of comparable skills can be matched up.

If the goal is organized play where non-meta list people can have fun, then change the event type. I don't think everyone will get butthurt because it isn't a tourney format. I would rather a narrative or campaign than a comped tourney.

 Mannahnin wrote:
The problem there is that one person's "d bag list" is frequently another person's "competitive but reasonable" list.

While I've been a long time supporter of composition scoring and restrictions, they need to be used carefully, and if I judge other players as being bad people because they have different tastes in list-building than I do, that just makes ME a dick.

Agreed!

And agreed with nkelsch about a narrative / campaign being preferable to a comped tourney... or, at least, a comped tourney that is singling out one type of list so severely as to say an entire type of unit can't be used...

I think if you really must limit flyers then limit 2 is way more reasonable than none allowed at all. Also, people honestly Cannot complain that a list with only 2 flyers is unbalancing. Every single codex can find a way to deal with that.

I would not like it at all.
My main lisst has a flyer, and its balanced to fit around it.
Now if you banned other things aswell for balance, Like no special characters, nothing above AV 13 or anything that disrupts balance then maybe. But Banning one thing because so few armies have them is kinda asinine.
10 out of 14 armies have flyers, or monstrous creatures that fly.
Only 4 do not, and very few of them are played.

Bad idea. Almost every list can field a flyer or flying monster now. Adapt and overcome don't ban what you don't like. If people are taking tons of flyers the counter flyer armies should start showing up... or more flyers.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

10 out of 14 armies have flyers, or monstrous creatures that fly.
Only 4 do not, and very few of them are played.

Of course, the lack of flyers might be one reason why they aren't played.

I doubt SoB, DAs, BTs, and Eldar arn't being played because they don't have Flyers. Its because their codices are old/bad. Totally not related to having no Flyers.

And guess what?

They do have Flyers if you allow Forge World.

Once again, I screwed up with the nomenclature. Really, any type of organized day-long event should be called a 'tournament', but I forgot that to many people that automatically means a competitive environment. Yes, I run narrative based events, but just don't refer to them as such because I've found in the past that interest is low for a 'Day of fun with toy soldiers and other dudes'.

I think a nice compromise may be 3 or less flyers. That will allow lists to take a full allotment of heavy support flyers if that is their theme. I think the problem really stems from transport vehicles that are flyers, not flyers in general. I believe that the new reserves rules (only allowing half your units to be placed in reserve) are meant to prevent a player from having a lack of targets on the board that could occur in fifth edition. But by placing all your models in flyer transports, it allows you to circumvent the spirit of the new reserves rules and remove targets from the board.

Hopefully, once the new edition has been out for 6+ months everyone will be able to adapt to the changes, but these first few months are definitely rough for anyone who simply wants to use their 5th edition army with the new rules. The argument that preventing someone who paid $$$ from using 9 new flyer models can easily be used for the opposite group- those that don't have the $$$ to purchase the necessary counters.

Oaka, I think you are overvaluing flyers in this current edition. Please do not take offense at this but it honestly sounds like you got the short end of a battle because you did not know the flyer rules fully, and therefore suffered in game for it. Your comment on the first few months being rough for people who want to use their 5th edition armies in the new rules is another troubling point that I'll address later.

Your argument in the most recent post that "Some folks don't have the $$$ to purchase necessary counters" is a poor one at best. That would be like saying I couldn't use hive tyrants or tervigons unless I know my opponent has the models to deal with them. You also mention transports that are flyers being the large issue. So keep in mind that you're including Stormraven's and Valkyries. There is an extreme difference between restriction for fair play, banning for fair play, or either of the former simply because I personally feel things aren't balanced/fair. To also complicate the money argument, the aegis defense line is ridiculously cheap both points and dollar wise, and is very good anti flyer for any army. Another argument is that new player who just started out would not be able to play because he bought his models, with flyers, and cannot afford other models to replace the ones that would not be restricted/banned. Using money as a balancing factor never works.

Your other example of the last tournament having two Necron lists battling it out may also stem from the fact the Necron book is very, very good, even without its flyers. We had a Necron air cav list at a tournament here in the area, and while it was dangerous it actually did not place very well. If that was due to player skill or opponents I can't comment on, but those were the end results. Restrictions don't balance armies, they simply punish those who have certain options.

Now, as has been said, this discussion would be much more valued in your group of players than here, but ultimately you don't need 6+ months to adapt. If you are saying that, it sounds more like you are refusing to adapt to the new changes, rather than needing time for change. Feeling that you should be able to go from edition to edition without making proper adjustments to your list is, frankly, unrealistic, even in the most optimistic light possible.

As the TO this is your call and you shouldn't feel afraid of discriminating against the types of players that might ruin your tourney. I wouldn't think limiting flyers would alienate many players, just a minority of types you probably don't want at your tourney in any case. My tuppence.

 Marrak wrote:
Oaka, I think you are overvaluing flyers in this current edition. Please do not take offense at this but it honestly sounds like you got the short end of a battle because you did not know the flyer rules fully, and therefore suffered in game for it. Your comment on the first few months being rough for people who want to use their 5th edition armies in the new rules is another troubling point that I'll address later.

No offense taken, mate. In fact, I'm very thankful for your well-thought out response, and I certainly respect it while disagreeing with parts of it. I actually agree with you about the $$$ argument, I was using a different example to show that it is not a good argument (one poster mentioned it hurts players that just spend money buying flyer models). I also agree that six months is too long to expect most people to adjust to a new rules set, but I was actually throwing out there that six months should be long enough for every army to get necessary updates to adequately respond to flyers. Unfortunately, that will probably not happen. GW has famously said that they are a model company and not a rules company, so the rules obviously are written in order to sell new models. I personally have an issue with this when the rules are written in a certain way to almost punish someone who may not want to buy new models.

It hit me as odd that flyers were immune to assaults, but you are right that it caught me off guard because I wasn't familiar with the new rules. Fortunately I learned this in friendly play before taking my models to a tournament! I had always thought that the game allows you to do damage either by ranged weapons or swords and claws. Eliminating one of those options seems quite unusual to me. Here is a hypothetical, but what if the new Tau codex allowed battle suits to take a wargear upgrade worded like, "This Tau suit uses a plasma impact field for defense, and as such is immune to all ranged weapons. This model may only be wounded in assaults." I think that would upset some people that build gunline-style armies. That's how a lot of us local players feel, we don't want to be forced to buy new models (flyers and aegis lines) just to have a chance in a tournament setting. It looks like from the various responses my opinion is in the minority, but that's why I started the thread, to figure out how others feel.

the problem with this, as all of these discussions, is that it is a slippery slope.

Here's another example: Psyker Powers. The new Chaos Codex just gave Chaos...and only Chaos...cool, specialized-to-the-army powers. Is that fair? Do you ban psyker powers until all codexes have their own list? Or just ban Chaos players from using their cool new powers?

I don't have answers, just an observation: GW designed 6th edition to be narrative and fluffy. And until ALL the Codexii are updated, people are just going to have to do the best they can.

I also think Jervis' column in this month's White Dwarf may have some insight into the GW thought process as well. Jervis advocates for many tournaments with their own house rules.

 Oaka wrote:
I think a nice compromise may be 3 or less flyers. That will allow lists to take a full allotment of heavy support flyers if that is their theme. I think the problem really stems from transport vehicles that are flyers, not flyers in general. I believe that the new reserves rules (only allowing half your units to be placed in reserve) are meant to prevent a player from having a lack of targets on the board that could occur in fifth edition. But by placing all your models in flyer transports, it allows you to circumvent the spirit of the new reserves rules and remove targets from the board.

This would be a lot better. If your OP title had been "What do you think of this comp?" limiting flyers and maybe a few other things, you'd have gotten a lot less dramatic a response than "No Flyers Allowed" which, imo, is a very large over-reaction.

Limit it to 2 or 3 if you must, try it out, and see how it goes!

I don't condone banning.

I advocate limiting. Maybe 1 per FOC slot max or just a strict 2-flyer max if you are really having problems with flyers in your area.

Players need to move forward in 6th. Don't keep them trapped in the past. Move them forwards slowly.

 jy2 wrote:
I don't condone banning.

I advocate limiting. Maybe 1 per FOC slot max or just a strict 2-flyer max if you are really having problems with flyers in your area.

Players need to move forward in 6th. Don't keep them trapped in the past. Move them forwards slowly.

I like this suggestion. Flyers are going to be part of the game from now on, so you shouldn't just stick your head in the sand and hope they'll go away, but if people aren't acclimated to the existence of flyers yet it might be reasonable to restrict them and give people a chance to build up first.

I agree with the limiting to 2-3 flyers, sounds fair to me.

It is a double-edged sword for tournament organizers. To use myself as an example, I am a modeller and a gamer... I don't focus all my energy on competitive play, but I enjoy tournaments. So before I look at joining a tournament and throwing down the money and time to play it helps to feel confident that my games will be fun to play... playing against a list of nine flyers just doesn't do it for me. I won't refuse to play those games, it's just that I won't go out of my way to play them.

Any decision is likely to piss off somebody, somewhere. So the question is are there more people wielding nine flyer lists that you will piss off, or are there more people such as myself that begin on the fence about tournaments, and just get turned off by the lists.

But there are some other good points raised.... mass flyer lists aren't the only scariest list out there. Now you have Tzeentch Daemon spam that can be incredibly annoying to play against... do you comp that too? At a certain point it gets ridiculous.

 jy2 wrote:
I don't condone banning.

I advocate limiting. Maybe 1 per FOC slot max or just a strict 2-flyer max if you are really having problems with flyers in your area.

Players need to move forward in 6th. Don't keep them trapped in the past. Move them forwards slowly.

Agree

Flyers are a new dimension of the game to go with tanks and infantry, you need to include them as they are now are part of the game.

Limiting to 2 will prevent necron flyer spam, but still allow people to use flyers effectively in the game

As the TO this is your call and you shouldn't feel afraid of discriminating against the types of players that might ruin your tourney. I wouldn't think limiting flyers would alienate many players, just a minority of types you probably don't want at your tourney in any case. My tuppence.

Agreed overall, however, just be aware of limiting (read: in some players eyes discriminating against!) a certain style/army build/ideology and hence not having those players come to your tournaments in the future.

If you feel limiting Flyers will help your local community/interest/groups, go for it, but just be wary of the above caveat.

Having said all that! - everyone should have a chance to try out their army, even if others percieve it to be "cheesey".
GW made a 6th ruleset (hell it aint perfect!) but should a TO preclude others from trying out their ideas/theme/playstyle?

I wont comment on that but just bear it in mind

You have to make a judgement call within your local group and remember, maybe some of that group (if handicapped by non-flyers) might not come back (or maybe even need to fight Flyers for experience).

Tough call

Instead of limiting flyers cut down the points. Flier lists don't do so well at 1500 points.

Boss GreenNutz wrote:
Instead of limiting flyers cut down the points. Flier lists don't do so well at 1500 points.

I'm a fan of that too. I hate it when there's not enough time for a game... makes for less horde armies and reserve armies... or penalizes you if that's what you have to work with.

Why be a martyr for GW by not allowing flyers (or allies)as well?

Lets face it, it's a tournament. It's meant to be competitive. Telling someone they can't use their legal army is a slap in the face. Almost every army can use allies, so therefore everyone in a way has access to anti-flyer/flyers of their own.

Adapt and overcome, or be left in the dust of the past.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Lets face it, it's a tournament. It's meant to be competitive. Telling someone they can't use their legal army is a slap in the face. Almost every army can use allies, so therefore everyone in a way has access to anti-flyer/flyers of their own.

Adapt and overcome, or be left in the dust of the past.

Except for the codexes which can't adapt and overcome to due gross imbalance and unbalanced and unfair allies matrix... Those codexes are already in the dust of the path with 2-edition old codexes.

Telling someone you beat them with 'skill' in a 'competitive game' in such a fundamentally broken gaming system like 40k is a slap in the face to a lot of people.

Perhaps I missed its mention in this thread, but isn't there an objective piece that gives skyfire? IIRC its random, but insted you could have each player place two objectives inside of their deployment zone or place an objective in the center of each table quarter that gives skyfire to whatever controls it.

Indeed, one of the random objectives is Skyfire. But only for the unit that controls it.

Thats actually a great idea.


Have one objective on each table side be a Skyfire Nexus automatically. Or say a player may choose to make an objective be a Skyfire Nexus instead rolling normally.

That would be like running a 'No psychic powers' tourneyment, or a no plasma weapon tourneyment.

Flyers aren't anymore broken than psychic powers or plasma weapons. You just need to learn how to take them into account in your game plan. You can mitigate much of their effectiveness (shooting) with smart movement.

Limiting their number by rule is also pretty dumb, IMHO. Would you also limit an army to 2 psychers or 2 plasma weapons?

If you playtest flyers a lot, and still find them overpowered for your missions... you can cut the points down or modify your missions.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed, one of the random objectives is Skyfire. But only for the unit that controls it.

Thats actually a great idea.


Have one objective on each table side be a Skyfire Nexus automatically. Or say a player may choose to make an objective be a Skyfire Nexus instead rolling normally.

I though so too. Least the way I see it if you have one or two units with Skyfire it would help even things out greatly, and that would make it so if you wanted to limit flyers you could still allow 4-5. Personally I hate banning/ limiting anything that is in the book. Its one thing if its an obscurity they are taking advantage of, but its another to just have a good unit. To counteract these in our games, least tourney level, we use missions to limit their effectiveness.

 Oaka wrote:
Our last tournament was filled with local players, and we had to all witness the disaster that was the final game from two out-of-towners.

Make it a closed tournament. If your local group is unwilling to embrace the new facet flyers bring to the game in 6ed. Don't invite "out-of-towners" that have. That being said, fortifications, allies, scenario's, not to mention tactics, are all parts of 6ed that can equal the playing field when it comes to flyer based armies.

 Oaka wrote:
Yes, I run narrative based events, but just don't refer to them as such because I've found in the past that interest is low for a 'Day of fun with toy soldiers and other dudes'.

If thats the case, then why would two "out-of-towners" facing off on the last table be any form of "horror"? If the spirit of "Day of fun with toy soldiers and other dudes" is the spirit of your events. Getting to meet two new players who showed you what 6ed has to offer is a good thing, isn't it?

 Oaka wrote:
I believe that the new reserves rules (only allowing half your units to be placed in reserve) are meant to prevent a player from having a lack of targets on the board that could occur in fifth edition. But by placing all your models in flyer transports, it allows you to circumvent the spirit of the new reserves rules and remove targets from the board.

In 6ed a player will lose if they end ANY turn with ZERO models on the table. Reserve Units in Flyer transports cannot arrive until the 2nd Turn. If they want to get to the 2nd turn, they have to start with something that starts on the table. The less there is, the easier it is to Table the player on turn one.

I wouldn't favor banning any units. If you don't want "out-of-towners" rolling in to your event and walking off with whatever loot is up for grabs, ban the "out-of-towners". That way nobody gets their feelings hurt. If you're worried about flyers, 6ed allows flyers to every army in the game through allies except for Tyranids, who have FMC to deal with them. Allowing flyers and not the "out-of-towners" who play outside your local meta will encourage your players to embrace the new rules. You'll probably see a few flyers show up. Players will learn what they can do, what they need to deal with them, and things will be fine.

Having fliers doesn't instantly equate to being able to counter flyers. Also having allies doesn't instantly equate to balance as some armies completely lack battle brothers. And ADL lines are unfairly slanted to higher BS armies as well.

Some armies can counter flyers easily, others do so with great difficulty and have to sacrifice a lot of its core functionality to compensate which makes them useless against other builds.

To ignore some codexes are simply under equipped to fight the psychic/flyer spam/allies doesn't do anyone a favor. It ends up telling people "adapt or die" means buying the new top meta codex and army or line up to be meat for the meat grinder.

That's a good point, nkelsch, but points to why this tourney is imo a bad idea- it addresses Only flyers by outright banning, and doesn't address any of the other top builds.

A flyer restriction, rather than an outright ban, is a much better solution and a good compromise, I think.

At the 6E events I've attended so far, I found the majority of flyers being included were there either because they were abuseable (necron airshows, vendettas, etc) or provide some sort of defense against said abuseable flyers, not really because most people found them "cool" or whatnot.

I've yet to see the Ork or Dark Eldar flyers at any event yet, nor really any of those offered via Imperial Armor when allowed, aside from one blight drone.

That, to me at least, implies a problem.

I like the idea of flyers, however their execution in 6th edition has been very poor, and ultimately the ones you end up seeing are those that fulfill the role of battle tanks (but are much harder to destroy and have a great deal of mitigation to the HP system 6th added that makes vehicles so fragile), or those that are good at fighting other flyers, or both.

While tournaments are ultimately, tournaments and you go to bring the best stuff and fight the toughest battles, a no-flyer tournament would be interesting to attend just to see how much that changes the game without them.

 Vaktathi wrote:
At the 6E events I've attended so far, I found the majority of flyers being included were there either because they were abuseable (necron airshows, vendettas, etc) or provide some sort of defense against said abuseable flyers, not really because most people found them "cool" or whatnot.

I've yet to see the Ork or Dark Eldar flyers at any event yet, nor really any of those offered via Imperial Armor when allowed, aside from one blight drone.

That, to me at least, implies a problem.

I like the idea of flyers, however their execution in 6th edition has been very poor, and ultimately the ones you end up seeing are those that fulfill the role of battle tanks (but are much harder to destroy and have a great deal of mitigation to the HP system 6th added that makes vehicles so fragile), or those that are good at fighting other flyers, or both.

While tournaments are ultimately, tournaments and you go to bring the best stuff and fight the toughest battles, a no-flyer tournament would be interesting to attend just to see how much that changes the game without them.

Really? We have seen every flyer represented at our tournaments, including FMC.

If you ban flyers you'll just be returning to 5th and GK will be ruining everyone's day again. Put a max on fliers, I would say 4 or 5 max at 1750+ is good. Or just play 1500 with no restrictions.

nkelsch wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Lets face it, it's a tournament. It's meant to be competitive. Telling someone they can't use their legal army is a slap in the face. Almost every army can use allies, so therefore everyone in a way has access to anti-flyer/flyers of their own.

Adapt and overcome, or be left in the dust of the past.

Except for the codexes which can't adapt and overcome to due gross imbalance and unbalanced and unfair allies matrix... Those codexes are already in the dust of the path with 2-edition old codexes.

Telling someone you beat them with 'skill' in a 'competitive game' in such a fundamentally broken gaming system like 40k is a slap in the face to a lot of people.

Which armies are those?

Eldar? Oddly enough it can still be a competitive codex. Tau, same story. It's showing its age and they both struggle a bit more than they did in 5th.

Chaos Daemons is pretty old itself...

Orks, still going strong.

The adapt and overcome is more of a player mentality thing than an actual ingame piece but w/e.

To me when someone would say no flyers allowed would be a slap in the face. If someone doesn't want to play 6th ed. By all means go play in "your" friends basement. Times change, rules change. Deal with it or lose. It's competitive for a reason.

Enable FW, spam Hyperios air defence launchers and see demons and fliers destroyed during their own movement phase, they also work very well against MEQ and AV. We had one tourny with these allowed and afterwards a big kick off in the uk on TWF that the next tourny was interceptor units 0-1. Funny that.

Flyers are here to stay, for better or worse outside of a friendly game nothing should be banned

There is nothing wrong with imposing restrictions, either for balance of enjoyment reasons. Lots of games ban or limit normaly legal parts of the game for competitive events. Moba games with their character bans, MTG has an extensive heap of ban configurations.

The way warhammer is balanced leaves a lot to be desired. The fact bans and restrictions on army composition are so rare probably has more to do with the difficulty of determining a baseline and continual power creep than the quality of codex writing and release schedule.

The first GW warhammer tournaments had some pretty major restrictions on characters and magic in particular. After we saw that format in WD we pretty much never went back to the raw configuaration.

Working on the assumtion that GW rules are balanced and fair is unwise. If you want to alter them however make sure you know exactly what you are hoping to achieve with your changes and that they are what the players want to play.

If you want to pull fliers from the game, then lets pull Jaws and Paladins out too, since people get annoyed by those and they completely bulldose some armies. In fact, why not toss both the SW and GK books entirely?

Slippery slopes and all that.....

Grey Templar wrote:

If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

You just described the majority of tournaments actually.

Most have arbitrary limits, requirements and rules addendums...

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Lets face it, it's a tournament. It's meant to be competitive. Telling someone they can't use their legal army is a slap in the face. Almost every army can use allies, so therefore everyone in a way has access to anti-flyer/flyers of their own.

Adapt and overcome, or be left in the dust of the past.

Except for the codexes which can't adapt and overcome to due gross imbalance and unbalanced and unfair allies matrix... Those codexes are already in the dust of the path with 2-edition old codexes.

Telling someone you beat them with 'skill' in a 'competitive game' in such a fundamentally broken gaming system like 40k is a slap in the face to a lot of people.

Which armies are those?

Eldar? Oddly enough it can still be a competitive codex. Tau, same story. It's showing its age and they both struggle a bit more than they did in 5th.

Chaos Daemons is pretty old itself...

Orks, still going strong.

The adapt and overcome is more of a player mentality thing than an actual ingame piece but w/e.

To me when someone would say no flyers allowed would be a slap in the face. If someone doesn't want to play 6th ed. By all means go play in "your" friends basement. Times change, rules change. Deal with it or lose. It's competitive for a reason.

Sure some of the codexes can 'get by' but they take more player skill to do so and it is on average harder to do... And their useful allies due to no battle brothers and their quality of flyers and anti air is suspect. I can't see why it is fair for someone to get a BS 4 ADL for the same price another gets a BS2 ADL.

You can say that you prefer a specific 'meta' of the game and it is 'good enough' for no one to be default auto-lose, but to say it is fair and people's complaints should be summarily dismissed is also the wrong attitude as well. The fact that people have to 'struggle' at all to make these armies work shows they are overcosted, lack flexibility and are out of balance with newer, easier to play armies which have un-paid for advantages like the new allies combos and fortifications simply being statistically better.

I think it is fine for a group of people to change the META of an event to try to include more people, especially people who can't go buy a 6th edition super optimized GT army. Local events usually have more unoptimized armies than what you see at NOVA or Adepticon. If you have a few people kicking teeth in, thne alternative is people stop playing in the events. I feel like narrative play and organized gaming instead of a 'tourney' which makes people's attitudes change due to intense reading of the dictionary may help out.

 CT GAMER wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

You just described the majority of tournaments actually.

Most have arbitrary limits, requirements and rules addendums...

Such as?

I have found the tournaments I attend to only have rules clarifications for things GW has neglected in their FAQs. I have never encountered "arbitrary limits, requirements, and rules addendum". I have encountered arbitrary and poorly designed scenarios that have skewed a tournament toward a specific army build, book etc but scenarios aren't any of the things you mentioned.

Isn't the REAL problem that GW didn't release counters to fliers?
How hard would it have been to do a micro update to every army to include some kind of AA wargear?
I mean, FFS, that's just oversight on a MAJOR level.
Either that, or pure unadulterated greed.

Where was all this concern trolling when JotWW made about one third of the armies out there unplayable? Suck it up and adapt. Oh, and stop running scenarios that fall too far out of line with the book ones, because the whole "chose your own 40k Victory Conditions Adventure" style of scenario is what is allowing flyer spam armies to be so annoying.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

You just described the majority of tournaments actually.

Most have arbitrary limits, requirements and rules addendums...

Such as?

I have found the tournaments I attend to only have rules clarifications for things GW has neglected in their FAQs. I have never encountered "arbitrary limits, requirements, and rules addendum". I have encountered arbitrary and poorly designed scenarios that have skewed a tournament toward a specific army build, book etc but scenarios aren't any of the things you mentioned.

The NOVA Open removed the second force org at 2000 points. (I believe they officially worded as something like a 1999 point tournament, but you could be 1 point over.) In addition, the only fortifications allowed were the ADL and Bastion.

Heck, if you use special/custom missions you're deviating from the core game. It's incredibly easy to turn the game into

"HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer".

It's so easy to deviate that it strikes me as borderline ridiculous to even bring such an idea up. I've played the core rules twice. The first time was the first game of 6th ed I played with a buddy, and we just wanted to see what the full rules were like. The second was a random pick up game. I can understand wanting to play a full core game for a random pick up, but tournaments are organized events... not random pick up games.

 Phazael wrote:
Suck it up and adapt.

Which for most people turns this into 'moneyhammer' because unlike a video game where you can use skill and different options to adapt to a tactic, you have to possibly buy an entire new army or change codexes to 'suck it up and adapt.'

So as people grow into 6th edition, what good does it do to run a tourney at a store, where 80% of the people can't afford to buy new armies or are slowly adapting to 6th edition through upgrades and army changes and one person who dropped 800$ to flyerspam is kicking everyone's teeth in for months? This isn't people complaining about attending a GT where the expectation is everyone participating is literally spending hundreds of dollars just to attend, this is for events where the reality is, someone with money and a meta list can insta-win the event due to the imbalance of the core rule-set and the limitations on the playerbases local ability to change.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging reality.

At the risk of getting flamed...

I think an occasional tournament putting severe restrictions on the FOC or on certain types of units would be very enjoyable, especially as part of a series. You could come up with some (BUILD THE NARRATIVE) reason as to why these types of units couldn't be allowed for each game of a tournament series... the trick would be to make sure that the restrictions impacted everyone... if not equally, then at least significantly at some point in the series.

For example, I might propose in a 3 tournament series...

- no flyers
- no ground vehicles
- "troop units" must (by point value) make up half your army

It would force each participant to think outside the box in their army construction and come up with non-standard ways of competing. Sure, some of these restrictions will hurt some armies more than others, but over the series things should equal out. The final game (i.e. championship tourney) could be invite only to the top players of each primary round (or the best aggregate scores... whatever) and have no restrictions. That way the finals are decided on an open playing field but everyone has had an opportunity to experiment with something new.

I think the above would be boatloads of fun. The various restrictions should see a variety of armies rise to the top in the qualifying games, while the unrestricted finals will allow everyone to field whatever they'd like.

I don't have a problem with altering the game for fun, but banning something just because you think its unfair is wrong IMO.

I would play a special tournament series like Gitsplitta mentioned because it would be really fun. Its also not something thats directed at one particular person so its more fair overall.


Then again, there may be 2 types of tournaments. There is the purely competitive tournament, which most would fall into IMO. This is the tournament where there should be no alterations to the game. Play like you've got a pair, no whiners allowed, balls to the wall and that sort of thing.

The second type is a for fun tournament. Real casual. just the sort of thing where you pay $5-10 entry fee and the winner gets a gift card or something.

I like both types equally. But I hate a major tournament(like 20+ people) trying to pretend its the friendly for fun tournament.

If you are getting people from all over, it should be a competitive tournament without Comp.


So unless something is totally breaking the game(such as a FoR messing up pre-setup terrain) it shouldn't be altered.

Why not allow people to "sideboard?"
Let people bring up to 1k pts (your tournament, your points limit) to change their army composition to be (more) optimal against opponents.
You'll have to allow a good amount of time for people to substitute between matches but I think that would allow people to possibly play the best game possible against whatever opponent.
It's bad enough that we have to deal with the "dice gods."
The sideboard will have to follow all other rules the tourney has imposed as well as be fully disclosed as part of the list.
Any easy way to implement this (ridiculous?) idea is to allow each play to bring X amount of points of models and allow them to build a list of Y amount of points from that pool of models.
Hell, its your tourney, your group of players and we're just fictional hand puppets you'll probably never meet giving you our ideas, use/abuse what you will and let us know what you choose and how the players liked it.

 Gitsplitta wrote:

For example, I might propose in a 3 tournament series...

- no flyers
- no ground vehicles
- "troop units" must (by point value) make up half your army

I quite like this idea, in fact, with the right group of gamers, I think it could be done in a single tournament. 3 different lists, and each round uses one of these different restrictions. That would be a very interesting tournament. No ground vehicles and 50% troops is probably a bit too much for the casual gamer to make a 1500 point army from their collection of miniatures, but something close to that could work very well. Thanks for the idea!

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

Most have arbitrary limits, requirements and rules addendums...

Such as?

I have found the tournaments I attend to only have rules clarifications for things GW has neglected in their FAQs. I have never encountered "arbitrary limits, requirements, and rules addendum". I have encountered arbitrary and poorly designed scenarios that have skewed a tournament toward a specific army build, book etc but scenarios aren't any of the things you mentioned.

Well, in my opinion, as soon as a time limit per round is enforced (usually 1.5 hours for most tournaments), it restricts any type of footslogging horde army, as you won't be getting 5 turns in a regular game due to time involved in model placement and movement, and that's usually without any rules debates. We were joking at the last tournament that many of us may spend too much effort playtesting our army lists if we don't try to finish a game in under an hour. Also, any tournament that doesn't have a good collection of terrain for every table (which is most of them), also restricts some army types. Again, playtesting an army is different at home with a nice collection of scenery than the actual tournament when you get 2-3 bases of ruins and a hill or two.

are flyers really that overpowered......my land raider savaged one up the other day......a few 6's soon sorts the men from the boys lol

TL-BS1 is almost exactly the same as straight BS2.

Twin-linking really helps against flyers.

so there we go then.......honestly sometimes we all need to breathe a bit and remember its just a game.........

Although looking at IA Aeronautica the Sabre Weapons battery.the Hyperios Air Defence battery, the Helical Targeting array on the mortis Contemptor and the Whirlwind Hyperios I 100% wouldn't be worried attending a game that allowed items from the book...some of those things are just wrong I tell you ...lol

 Alpharius wrote:
Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I would support this and the No Flyers rule.

You know... (and this has probably been said before)... if you want no allies... can't you just run a sub-2k tournament? Or am I misinterpreting that rule (haven't played with allies myself yet).

Misinterpertation. Allies can be taken at any point value. At 2k you can actually have 2 allied detachments(as a FoC is the previous FoC, plus a fortification and an Allies detachment)

The only way I would is if it was like Gits posted, part of a narrative / series or "for fun" event. Not simply banning flyers and allies because someone wants to play 5th edition... it is there for the playing if people choose to!

Even as someone who is starting tyranids (when the Trollforged models are made/delivered ) I think allies are a cool addition that really mixes things up. I think the same is true of flyers at least in Moderation. 10 of them of course can be darn annoying...

But as Gits said:

Gitsplitta wrote:For example, I might propose in a 3 tournament series...

- no flyers
- no ground vehicles
- "troop units" must (by point value) make up half your army

Done in an interesting way and for the right reasons, this could be cool.

Done simply to punish a single type of build and/or to revert to a more 5th edition type of game, this would Not be something I'd be interested in.

So... it's all context!

Ah, got it. Thanks GT.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I would support this and the No Flyers rule.

Then we may as well just go back to playing 5th edition.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I would support this and the No Flyers rule.

Then we may as well just go back to playing 5th edition.

Until all armies are brought in line with 6th, then yes, that's actually the point of my original post.

Except thats not how the games works, has worked, or ever will work.

You can't just ignore an edition till everyone gets updated because some armies go multiple editions without an update.


If you are going to do that, just have a 5th edition tournament.

 Oaka wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I would support this and the No Flyers rule.

Then we may as well just go back to playing 5th edition.

Until all armies are brought in line with 6th, then yes, that's actually the point of my original post.

I honestly don't know how to respond to that.

You'll never have all armies brought in line with 6th before 7th edition comes out...

I hardly think a game without any flyers would be the same as playing 5th edition. Flyers are not the defining hallmark of 6th edition, they're just the one people are having trouble dealing with because they've been really poorly implemented (e.g. most flyers being overarmored and undercosted as originally introduced as Skimmers, few AA defenses except other fliers, etc).

The game is still very different from 5th even without flyers. The changes to CC, reserves, vehicles, characters and wound allocation make for a far different game either way.

Yeah, but they are relativly minor. Flyers are one of the bigger changes. Visually anyway.

They're visually impacting yes, and are notable right now because of their "must take" nature in many cases, if for nothing else as a defensive mechanism to counter an enemy's flier.

Aside from just being hard to deal with, they don't add that much to the game or fundamentally change how it's played.

Solution: Play one of the other far superior wargames out there.

Regardless, they are a major part of 6th edition.

This would be on par with a 5th edition tournament saying you can consolidate into combat. Its a major alteration of the rules to simply harken back to last edition.

If you want to do that, play the previous edition. Don't change the new edition to fit your whims.

 IdentifyZero wrote:
Solution: Play one of the other far superior wargames out there.

That doesn't address the question.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Misinterpertation. Allies can be taken at any point value. At 2k you can actually have 2 allied detachments(as a FoC is the previous FoC, plus a fortification and an Allies detachment)

Wrong. Common misconception, actually.

Read the rule; at 2000pts+ you can take another "Primary Detachment".

Your primary detachment is labeled as everything except your Allied detachment and fortification.

Ya might want to reread that again.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 IdentifyZero wrote:
Solution: Play one of the other far superior wargames out there.

That doesn't address the question.

It does, because flyers are part of the rules and if you don't like them or want them banned, you need to play another game.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Except thats not how the games works, has worked, or ever will work.

You can't just ignore an edition till everyone gets updated because some armies go multiple editions without an update.


If you are going to do that, just have a 5th edition tournament.

So, then, you agree with me. I'm trying to have a tournament for those codexes that get left behind.

Oaka wrote:(and our poor Tau player who doesn't even have flyers yet)

Tau currently have the Barracuda and Remora Stealth Drones for standard 40k.
I actually rather want a Barracuda myself.

As for the tournament - as has been said already, a limit (2-4 flyers max) would be the best way about it.

I'd have no particular problem with a special / themed (as a rare / random thing) no flyers tourney though.

 Oaka wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Except thats not how the games works, has worked, or ever will work.

You can't just ignore an edition till everyone gets updated because some armies go multiple editions without an update.


If you are going to do that, just have a 5th edition tournament.

So, then, you agree with me. I'm trying to have a tournament for those codexes that get left behind.

Just don't use the 6th ed rules. Use 5th edition, because that is clearly what you want.

No flyers? Wait for your updated codex just like everybody else.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Regardless, they are a major part of 6th edition.

This would be on par with a 5th edition tournament saying you can consolidate into combat.

Not in the same way. It's only that way because the execution of flyers and counters on the codex end has been so poorly carried out, and not a core rules thing. Aside from a movement mode and being hit on 6's, they're not really a huge alteration to the rules. Consolidation into combat was a complete game changer at he core level in the way the game was played for many armies, flyers are different in their impact and primarily because they've GW handled them very poorly and it's a matter of responding to about half the examples of a single unit type. Had they been implemented close to FW's original rules, the issues would be much less, particularly in that flyers wouldn't be running around with medium tank armor.

If you want to do that, play the previous edition. Don't change the new edition to fit your whims.

I'm just noting what I've been seeing and where I think the problem lies, and it is a problem in many ways. I'm not saying flyers should be banned from tournaments, only that there is a very real implementation issue and it would be interesting to see what would happen if they weren't there. Though I will note that if people are talking about playing tournaments and "the way it's meant to be played", then something's already off as the design studio came right out and said at their Open Day event they didn't design anything in 6th edition with competitive organized events in mind.

Flyers are not the embodiment of 6th edition, their inclusion does not make the game 6th edition nor does their absence suddenly turn the game back into 5th edition, please stop framing it in those terms because it's simply not true.

Consider allowing them, but then create a mission that hammers their use. Perhaps "Astral Winds: all Flyers take a Glancing Hit at the end of their turn" or "Comms Delay: do not roll for Flyers until Turn 4" or some such.

I've seen several missions in 5th Ed. that would mess with Kill Points, mess with Scoring Units, etc. Book missions usually get old and several big tournaments make their own anyway.

Also consider that your previous tournament winner did not win every game so a single mission that is geared to punish Flyers wouldn't mean they coult not win the tournament, it would just boost the morale of your non-Flyer guys.

I think the goal should be inclusion, not exclusion.

The idea of the tournament is to include players whose armies don't have fliers and/or allies.

chipstar1 wrote:
I think the goal should be inclusion, not exclusion.

Inclusion of rules over say player enjoyment?

What happened to if you don't like a rule change it?

 Wildstorm wrote:

I've seen several missions in 5th Ed. that would mess with Kill Points, mess with Scoring Units, etc. Book missions usually get old and several big tournaments make their own anyway.

The infamous 'ard boy missions where any unit who could move over 6" in a single phase were impacted. And 'ard boyz was seen as the most competative, uncomped format ever created when it was really one of the events with the most drastic mission-based comp I have ever seen.

just allow forgeworld. a few lists with sabres or the missle systems will tone down flyers since they then have a hard counter.

Thank you everyone for expressing your opinion. I think we can end discussion on this now. I'm not surprised to see that feelings towards no-flyers are divided, but I am happy to see that they are divided almost evenly. It seems like a lot of players would favor a no-flyers tournament, although it will probably be limited to 3. I think it would be an interesting way to have a local tournament that allows players to slowly build their armies into an appropriate 6th edition list without getting sucker-punched by an all-flyer army list that is doing very well under the current conditions.

We are also considering that this tournament be 1500 points, but everyone gets a free Aegis Defense Line with two Quad Guns. That may be enough to remove the flyer restriction entirely, I think.

That would be a very fair compromise.

Just play 5th edition. Seriously. Or allow Aeronautica in. Really, everyone of us Nid/Xenos players was expected to suck it up when JotWW hit the scene, but flyers get added and the sky is falling? If you limit it to three flyers and give people to free ADSes, then you might as well just say "Bring Guard or play in the back half of the room", because thats whats going to occur.

There is unique tournament formats and then there is "I hate this army" format. Maybe you should consider a Highlander format "there can be only one" where an army can only ever have one of a given unit in it, because that would greatly temper down the cheese across the board. What you are suggesting is just targeting one specific army build, which leads to dividing the community.

 Phazael wrote:
Just play 5th edition. Seriously. Or allow Aeronautica in. Really, everyone of us Nid/Xenos players was expected to suck it up when JotWW hit the scene, but flyers get added and the sky is falling? If you limit it to three flyers and give people to free ADSes, then you might as well just say "Bring Guard or play in the back half of the room", because thats whats going to occur.

There is unique tournament formats and then there is "I hate this army" format. Maybe you should consider a Highlander format "there can be only one" where an army can only ever have one of a given unit in it, because that would greatly temper down the cheese across the board. What you are suggesting is just targeting one specific army build, which leads to dividing the community.

Or....just play 6th edition, with no fliers. Seriously.

If the dude's local group wants to play with no fliers, play with no fliers! Anyway, Oaka, whatever you do, I'd suggest polling your local players and weighting their feedback a tad more heavily then what you see here on the interwebs.

 Oaka wrote:
how would you feel about a no-flyer tournament?

It would be full of noobs scared of flyers, fluff bunnies whose list can't stand up to flyers, and 5th edition powerlists.

Sounds worse.

 Oaka wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I would support this and the No Flyers rule.

Then we may as well just go back to playing 5th edition.

Until all armies are brought in line with 6th, then yes, that's actually the point of my original post.

Giving everyone a free Aegis and 2 quad-guns sounds like a great way to have everyone take all-infantry lists.

I agree that the discussion is exhausted, but if your point all along was that you wanted to play 5th edition (seemingly the gist of your comment above) then there is an amazingly easy solution.

Another less controversial title (other than the ones I suggested earlier) would be "How well would a 5th edition tournament be received"...

I'm not sure why you threw out the idea of putting a simple cap on the number of flyers that could be taken. Seemingly, you were open to it earlier. No big deal really- for a local tourney, just do whatever your player base wants, but it'll hardly translate to their playing anywhere else. Most players like to get ready for the larger meta, and completely banning flyers doesn't accurately reflect that.

We should make all vehicles be flyers even dreads and then make invulnerables be ward saves

 Oaka wrote:
We are also considering that this tournament be 1500 points, but everyone gets a free Aegis Defense Line with two Quad Guns. That may be enough to remove the flyer restriction entirely, I think.

This is a bad idea for two reasons:

1) The lists it penalizes the most aren't the ones that are the worst offenders. A true flyerspam list can deal with a couple quad guns (it has so many flyers that even if you shoot one down it doesn't care), but the people who bring 1-2 flyers are going to have them instantly shot down. Besides being unfair to the people who aren't the ones causing balance problems it's also bad because it makes the fundamental problem with flyers even worse: you either bring none of them, or nothing but them. The middle ground of "a flyer or two as support for my ground forces" is excluded even more strongly.

2) Free aegis lines = bring more gunlines. Even when the quad guns aren't needed the extra cover (in addition to a third aegis bought as part of the army!) still provides a benefit, and the biggest benefit is to gunline armies. Gunlines (IMO) don't produce fun games, and you shouldn't be changing the rules to make them even more effective and encourage people to bring them.

Adding an Aegis and two quad-guns would cause pretty serious problems, and not just for flyer-based armies. Transports in general would become much weaker when every army gets 4 twin-linked autocannons for free.

Generally speaking, Peregrine has good points here. Adding lots of free Interceptor weapons removes Flyers as a viable "splash-in" option. "A flyer or two as support for my ground forces" is fairly strong right now-- I would say it's the basic all-comers choice in 6th edition, and have been doing well in local tournaments (1500-1850) with this approach. But if I had two free quadguns and my opponent did too, I would ignore that and take a gunline.

You know, you could add some tourny wide special rule that could have a bad effect on flyers. Example, the atmosphere holds very high charges and arcs of lightning flash across it constantly. Its high up, so doesnt affect ground troops, only flyers. So everyturn before they move anything thats a flyer, on a roll of 5+ it takes an auto pen hit. And roll on damage chart as normal.

Something along those lines would help people that didnt bring flyers, AND can penalize those that bring many, because they now have more chances of possibly blowing up their flyers. Thoughts?

 KingCracker wrote:
You know, you could add some tourny wide special rule that could have a bad effect on flyers. Example, the atmosphere holds very high charges and arcs of lightning flash across it constantly. Its high up, so doesnt affect ground troops, only flyers. So everyturn before they move anything thats a flyer, on a roll of 5+ it takes an auto pen hit. And roll on damage chart as normal.

Something along those lines would help people that didnt bring flyers, AND can penalize those that bring many, because they now have more chances of possibly blowing up their flyers. Thoughts?

this is the 'ard boys tactic. Making a mission which can hand an auto-loss to the overdone metalist of the day.

This was like when tourneys had super night fight for leaf blowers, extra perils for jotww spam and slowed movement for assaults speed armies. If someone doesn't like it, they can bring something else, or battle through the penalty.

Mission based comp is still comp, but people seem to accept or enjoy it better than the banhammer.

Having one missile with sky fire objectives or delayed reserves can sink a flyer army and those are core rule set both from objectives and warlord traits. I think having static mission rules where you force a specific objective or warlord trait is very reasonable. Mission comp is ok sometimes.

I love how all these threads boil down to "I can't beat WAAC players so I feel I have a right to create arbitrary rules to hobble them instead of adjusting my own playstyle."

We have a philosophy that revolves around winning. Clearly you care about winning or else you wouldn't be trying to add these asinine restrictions. The problem is that you think your style of play is more valid than people who have devoted their time and money into winning instead of whatever reason you put your army together for. You want to create an environment allows for people who didn't focus on winning to win, which is so ridiculously selfish and hypocritical that I can't even believe I have to point that out.

If you want to win, do as the WAAC-ers do. It's as simple as that. Trying to change the rules instead of your playstyle is just an implicit admission that you're a terrible player.

 Ostrakon wrote:
I love how all these threads boil down to "I can't beat WAAC players so I feel I have a right to create arbitrary rules to hobble them instead of adjusting my own playstyle."

We have a philosophy that revolves around winning. Clearly you care about winning or else you wouldn't be trying to add these asinine restrictions. The problem is that you think your style of play is more valid than people who have devoted their time and money into winning instead of whatever reason you put your army together for. You want to create an environment allows for people who didn't focus on winning to win, which is so ridiculously selfish and hypocritical that I can't even believe I have to point that out.

If you want to win, do as the WAAC-ers do. It's as simple as that. Trying to change the rules instead of your playstyle is just an implicit admission that you're a terrible player.

If you pay attention, it's a TO trying to make it fun for everyone that enters his tournament, being other players aren't really having fun. (And if it's not fun, less people will take part.)
Which personally, I find amicable, but you feel free to not actually read the thread and have your little rant.

At the end of the day, if it's only 2-3 people out of say, 15-20 that are WAAC, major tourney style players, and the remaining 13-18 players are semi-casual players just wanting to have fun, you ideally want to follow the feelings of the majority.

Either you play the game or you don't.

If you feel the need to ban for logistic reason (Banning Fortress of Redemption because it is too big to place on the table without moving the scenery) I think people can understand this.

Banning or limiting Codex units because YOU feel inadequate facing them goes beyond list tailoring.

I think it is a low and cheap tactic.

I know that nobody here would stoop to playing "P***yhammer" because they are afraid of facing flyers.

 Ostrakon wrote:
I love how all these threads boil down to "I can't beat WAAC players so I feel I have a right to create arbitrary rules to hobble them instead of adjusting my own playstyle."

We have a philosophy that revolves around winning. Clearly you care about winning or else you wouldn't be trying to add these asinine restrictions. The problem is that you think your style of play is more valid than people who have devoted their time and money into winning instead of whatever reason you put your army together for. You want to create an environment allows for people who didn't focus on winning to win, which is so ridiculously selfish and hypocritical that I can't even believe I have to point that out.

If you want to win, do as the WAAC-ers do. It's as simple as that. Trying to change the rules instead of your playstyle is just an implicit admission that you're a terrible player.

So your logic is either DONT play a game you enjoy because of WAAC players, or become one? How is that fair? I wouldnt joina tourny with the intentions of winning it in a total sweep, Id join a tourny to enjoy the game at a higher skill level, having to change my army to that of a WAAC army or just forget playing at all is just BS. So yes, handicap WAAC players so its everyone is on a more level playing field

 KingCracker wrote:

 Ostrakon wrote:
I love how all these threads boil down to "I can't beat WAAC players so I feel I have a right to create arbitrary rules to hobble them instead of adjusting my own playstyle."

We have a philosophy that revolves around winning. Clearly you care about winning or else you wouldn't be trying to add these asinine restrictions. The problem is that you think your style of play is more valid than people who have devoted their time and money into winning instead of whatever reason you put your army together for. You want to create an environment allows for people who didn't focus on winning to win, which is so ridiculously selfish and hypocritical that I can't even believe I have to point that out.

If you want to win, do as the WAAC-ers do. It's as simple as that. Trying to change the rules instead of your playstyle is just an implicit admission that you're a terrible player.

So your logic is either DONT play a game you enjoy because of WAAC players, or become one?

Yeah, actually. Tournaments are fundamentally about trying to win. If you don't care to put as much effort into winning as WAAC players, stick to casual club games instead of trying to hobble WAAC players by enforcing arbitrary rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ovion wrote:

 Ostrakon wrote:
I love how all these threads boil down to "I can't beat WAAC players so I feel I have a right to create arbitrary rules to hobble them instead of adjusting my own playstyle."

We have a philosophy that revolves around winning. Clearly you care about winning or else you wouldn't be trying to add these asinine restrictions. The problem is that you think your style of play is more valid than people who have devoted their time and money into winning instead of whatever reason you put your army together for. You want to create an environment allows for people who didn't focus on winning to win, which is so ridiculously selfish and hypocritical that I can't even believe I have to point that out.

If you want to win, do as the WAAC-ers do. It's as simple as that. Trying to change the rules instead of your playstyle is just an implicit admission that you're a terrible player.

If you pay attention, it's a TO trying to make it fun for everyone that enters his tournament, being other players aren't really having fun. (And if it's not fun, less people will take part.)
Which personally, I find amicable, but you feel free to not actually read the thread and have your little rant.

At the end of the day, if it's only 2-3 people out of say, 15-20 that are WAAC, major tourney style players, and the remaining 13-18 players are semi-casual players just wanting to have fun, you ideally want to follow the feelings of the majority.

Why even have a tournament then? If you're a casual player, who cares if you win or lose, right?

This is why these threads always astound me - complain about WAAC players who will do anything to win while proposing to change the rules to allow themselves to win. All you're doing is proposing a shortcut to victory instead of earning it via modifying your tactics. There's no sportsmanship in unbalancing the playfield to better suit yourself when everyone else is perfectly content to use the default ruleset.

Actually, this thread is about TO attempting to run an event which doesn't end up being about handing auto losses to a majority if the participants because not everyone can run out and buy 800$ worth of models to stay on the bleeding edge of the meta. Poor sportsmanship is a player who pretends the 40k ruleset is balanced and refuses to acknowledge "using better tactics" almost always takes hundreds of dollars and months of modeling. They are defending a paid for advantage, not one granted by skill in a fair system. This is not a video game where every player is equal. There is nothing wrong with a TO blunting the meta game to allow a local casual player base have an event of organized play. Most events including 100% of GW tourneys already do this with mission based comp for over a decade. Most events even today use custom missions designed to speed bump the army of the week.

You can argue the arbitrary default gw meta is "best" but no one can argue it is fair or perfect. And to browbeat people with "learn to play better" in such an unbalanced game which requires massive investments of time and money to change an army list is disingenuous and arrogant.

There is plenty of room for all sorts of tourneys, you don't like it, don't attend. Run your own facesmashing event. If people attend, great. You can't force people to attend and be meat in the grinder so one or two people can have fun board wiping them all day. Most of the players in an event have to lose, and if they stop attending because it is unfair the event never happens.

Moreover: All you're doing by blanket-banning what you perceive as OP is treating the symptoms. WAAC players are still going to faceroll you using whatever is most powerful for a given environment. We adapt to the metagame. The only thing you do by banning things is create an environment with a new optimum, which you'll then need to consider banning. Where does it stop? 2+ armor infantry is OP, ban it? Invuln saves are OP, ban it? AV 14 is OP, ban it? Pie plates are OP, ban them? We hear this all the time and it boils down to the same thing.

Adjust your fething tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:
Actually, this thread is about TO attempting to run an event which doesn't end up being about handing auto losses to a majority if the participants because not everyone can run out and buy 800$ worth of models to stay on the bleeding edge of the meta. Poor sportsmanship is a player who pretends the 40k ruleset is balanced and refuses to acknowledge "using better tactics" almost always takes hundreds of dollars and months of modeling. They are defending a paid for advantage, not one granted by skill in a fair system. This is not a video game where every player is equal. There is nothing wrong with a TO blunting the meta game to allow a local casual player base have an event of organized play. Most events including 100% of GW tourneys already do this with mission based comp for over a decade. Most events even today use custom missions designed to speed bump the army of the week.

You can argue the arbitrary default gw meta is "best" but no one can argue it is fair or perfect. And to browbeat people with "learn to play better" in such an unbalanced game which requires massive investments of time and money to change an army list is disingenuous and arrogant.

There is plenty of room for all sorts of tourneys, you don't like it, don't attend. Run your own facesmashing event. If people attend, great. You can't force people to attend and be meat in the grinder so one or two people can have fun board wiping them all day. Most of the players in an event have to lose, and if they stop attending because it is unfair the event never happens.

So it's okay to invalidate somebody else's purchase then? Nothing is stopping other players from adopting new tactics, but you want to create an environment where it's okay to infringe upon other players when the real problem (if it can be described as a problem) is with the players who want to win with less attention to winning. You do not have a right to win. Victory is earned.

Nobody could ever say that default GW rules are balanced, but it is what it is. Imagine a new player starting some army, only to find that the models and choices defined in his army are illegal according to the local balance czars. It's better to leave things as is because everyone can make the same assumptions instead of having to deal with armchair game developer TOs.

I have never, ever, ever heard anyone complain about people running victory-oriented lists anywhere but this website. This is the only place I've found where subpar players circlejerk about strawmen WAAC players because at any of the three LGSs I frequent people just play what's written down in the fething rules.

Different areas have different expectations. Good job trying to tell groups of local players how they should enjoy the game. TOs and store owners listen to their players.

You must be new to 40k as people like you were literally laughed out of the store nationwide in the 90s due to the insurmountable imbalance of 3rd edition 40k. No one could seriously defend the default meta in any capacity. People have been setting arbitrary standards of how the game is played for decades. And while the game is much better than it was, I don't begrudge people running their events for them, their way. If I don't like it, I can attend another event or run my own.

What I won't do is hold one meta up as perfect then browbeat people who lose as whiners or bad players and that they lack skill as there is very real an often skill-eliminating imbalance in 40k. Saying someone with iron shoes should beat a person on a bike by running faster or buying a bike is disingenuous.

nkelsch wrote:


What I won't do is hold one meta up as perfect then browbeat people who lose as whiners or bad players and that they lack skill as there is very real an often skill-eliminating imbalance in 40k. Saying someone with iron shoes should beat a person on a bike by running faster or buying a bike is disingenuous.

But that's the problem, isn't it? In this game, there's a nontrivial amount of people who insist on wearing iron shoes and complain about not being able to win. "I'm not going to use this model because it looks stupid." "I'm not fielding any sorcerors because my army is Khornate and he thinks sorcerers are pussies". "I'm not going to use allies because my Tau won't work with anyone." "I'm not going to change my army because I like mine too much".

When you start making concessions that impact your chances of victory, you're not allowed to complain about how other players steamroll you. It's asinine to think it's okay to take options away from others simply because you can't or won't use them. The game is what it is. Learn to adjust or stick to casual games like 95% of players. Don't show up to the tournament scene and expect them to compensate for your unwillingness to adjust.

 Ostrakon wrote:

nkelsch wrote:


What I won't do is hold one meta up as perfect then browbeat people who lose as whiners or bad players and that they lack skill as there is very real an often skill-eliminating imbalance in 40k. Saying someone with iron shoes should beat a person on a bike by running faster or buying a bike is disingenuous.

But that's the problem, isn't it? In this game, there's a nontrivial amount of people who insist on wearing iron shoes and complain about not being able to win. "I'm not going to use this model because it looks stupid." "I'm not fielding any sorcerors because my army is Khornate and he thinks sorcerers are pussies". "I'm not going to use allies because my Tau won't work with anyone." "I'm not going to change my army because I like mine too much".

When you start making concessions that impact your chances of victory, you're not allowed to complain about how other players steamroll you. It's asinine to think it's okay to take options away from others simply because you can't or won't use them. The game is what it is. Learn to adjust or stick to casual games like 95% of players. Don't show up to the tournament scene and expect them to compensate for your unwillingness to adjust.

Translation 'I should use the exact same army as everyone else, full of the most powerful possible units'

Using fluff, or personal taste is all well and good, people recognise and understand that they'll probably have a harder time of it.
HOWEVER, when there's certain glaring balance issues, things that are effectively unstoppable, then it'll take the fun out of it for a lot of people.
Yes, the WAAC players will switch to something else, but other things have more counters and aren't always as clear cut, which will make it a closer tournament and more interesting.
But not everyone wants to sink that much cash into the game.

YOU want to play a game where everyone runs the same damn thing, and it's purely based on luck and minute skill differences, other people want to play a fun game.
They should be allowed to do that.

That's the difference, you want everyone to bend to your own narrow view of the game, other people here want a solution where everyone can have fun.

 Ostrakon wrote:

Nobody could ever say that default GW rules are balanced, but it is what it is. Imagine a new player starting some army, only to find that the models and choices defined in his army are illegal according to the local balance czars. It's better to leave things as is because everyone can make the same assumptions instead of having to deal with armchair game developer TOs.

This cracks me up. Obviously you've never played one of the most aggressive and, more importantly, successful tournament games - Magic the Gathering. Every few months your winning deck is rendered obsolete and you need to upgrade and buy new cards, or the company will ban certain broken cards & combos if they are dominating and creating a broken meta-game. There are still good cards & great cards but there is very rarely a "best list" that everyone is forced either play or build to try and beat. By banning the extreme outliers you end up with everyone clustered somewhere near the center and create a much better game for it.

I think it's hilarious that the so-called "serious" and "skilled" tournament players can be playing a game the creators admit flat-out is NOT intended to be a tournament game, that the players themselves admit is not balanced and still claim that if you're not playing by the "pure" rules you're not as skilled or serious as they are. Laughable.

 Ostrakon wrote:

I have never, ever, ever heard anyone complain about people running victory-oriented lists anywhere but this website.

You must be new to the internet. Welcome! Enjoy your stay! I hear they have cookies and naughty pictures.

BTW, Ostrakon is trolling, so just stop feeding.

So.... what if you were to propose a "no spamming" tournament?? Say put a two unit limit on all units, characters & vehicles. That way you aren't preventing anyone from playing with a 6th edition army using 6th edition tactics... you're just curtailing some of the worst abuses that usually results from spamming armies.

Everyone should be able to build a decent army with these restrictions, so everyone should be in the mix.

Thoughts?


To clarify... what I mean by a two unit limit is... no more than two razorbacks, two vindis, two storm talons, two assault squads, two sanguinary priests, etc.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
So.... what if you were to propose a "no spamming" tournament?? Say put a two unit limit on all units, characters & vehicles. That way you aren't preventing anyone from playing with a 6th edition army using 6th edition tactics... you're just curtailing some of the worst abuses that usually results from spamming armies.

Everyone should be able to build a decent army with these restrictions, so everyone should be in the mix.

Thoughts?


To clarify... what I mean by a two unit limit is... no more than two razorbacks, two vindis, two storm talons, two assault squads, two sanguinary priests, etc.

it's an interesting idea, but if I was playing my Ultramarines, I normally run 3 tac squads, I'd have to drop one for a scout squad right?

Yes. It probably limits standard marines (like my MWs) as much as anyone because we have the fewest options in the "troop" category.

Ovion wrote:YOU want to play a game where everyone runs the same damn thing, and it's purely based on luck and minute skill differences, other people want to play a fun game.

What do you imagine the "same damn thing" is, anyway? There are a ton of competitive builds in 6th Edition, many more than 5th offered. It's not like the top tables at every tournament are all Necron players hoping they have better dice than their opponent. The top 16 at the Feast of Blades GT, for instance, included only one Necron player (who wasn't spamming Flyers at all). Besides that we had Tau, Eldar, Guard, Sisters, Tyranids, GK, SW, Orks, and Daemons represented---only one or two Flyer-heavy lists among them, I should mention. I doubt many 5th Edition tournaments had results nearly that diverse.

The thing I find funny about a "No Flyers" tournament is that Flyers are not dominating the competitive scene by any measure. They might be dominating at your FLGS, but that probably has more to do with your FLGS than 6th Edition. It could just as easily be Daemons, horde Orks, CWE/DE, or Tyranids winning all the local events, but there probably aren't many local competitive players who are bringing those builds.

If your local meta isn't that competitive and can't handle Flyers (or doesn't want to be competitive/doesn't want to handle Flyers), then sure, banning/limiting them might allow more people to enjoy your tournaments. But what if you had a Tyranid player consistently winning, making events "less fun" for everyone else? Would you consider a "No Tervigons" tournaments? If Daemons start kicking ass left and right, would you go "No Flamers"? I'm guessing not. So rather than single out Flyers, why not just enforce comp? I'm not a fan of comp by any stretch, but I think it's worlds better than arbitrarily banning one slightly troublesome unit type because of a local meta unwilling or unable to adapt. Screw everyone or screw no one. Either option seems a lot more desirable than screwing only the handful of players who had the temerity to play with one of the defining units of 6th Edition.

 whitedragon wrote:
BTW, Ostrakon is trolling, so just stop feeding.

"Everyone who disagrees with the Dakka hivemind is trolling."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
So.... what if you were to propose a "no spamming" tournament?? Say put a two unit limit on all units, characters & vehicles. That way you aren't preventing anyone from playing with a 6th edition army using 6th edition tactics... you're just curtailing some of the worst abuses that usually results from spamming armies.

Everyone should be able to build a decent army with these restrictions, so everyone should be in the mix.

Thoughts?


To clarify... what I mean by a two unit limit is... no more than two razorbacks, two vindis, two storm talons, two assault squads, two sanguinary priests, etc.

No more than two ork boyz, no more than two tac marines, no more than two necron warriors... No thanks.

Is spamming really the problem here? When you spam, you pidgeonhole yourself and anyone equipped to counter you will wipe you out, making it a poor strategic move. Air forces are counterable by any race with an ADL at lower point ranges, and and the relatively low AV of most of them (and the high penalty of taking pens, since a stunned flyer is pretty much useless) makes mass fire pretty effective, since if they sunk all their points into flyers they're not going to have a lot of infantry to shoot up.

It's like Draigowing - imposing but not without simple and effective counters.

 Ovion wrote:

 Ostrakon wrote:

Spoiler:

But that's the problem, isn't it? In this game, there's a nontrivial amount of people who insist on wearing iron shoes and complain about not being able to win. "I'm not going to use this model because it looks stupid." "I'm not fielding any sorcerors because my army is Khornate and he thinks sorcerers are pussies". "I'm not going to use allies because my Tau won't work with anyone." "I'm not going to change my army because I like mine too much".

When you start making concessions that impact your chances of victory, you're not allowed to complain about how other players steamroll you. It's asinine to think it's okay to take options away from others simply because you can't or won't use them. The game is what it is. Learn to adjust or stick to casual games like 95% of players. Don't show up to the tournament scene and expect them to compensate for your unwillingness to adjust.

Translation 'I should use the exact same army as everyone else, full of the most powerful possible units'

Using fluff, or personal taste is all well and good, people recognise and understand that they'll probably have a harder time of it.
HOWEVER, when there's certain glaring balance issues, things that are effectively unstoppable, then it'll take the fun out of it for a lot of people.
Yes, the WAAC players will switch to something else, but other things have more counters and aren't always as clear cut, which will make it a closer tournament and more interesting.
But not everyone wants to sink that much cash into the game.

YOU want to play a game where everyone runs the same damn thing, and it's purely based on luck and minute skill differences, other people want to play a fun game.
They should be allowed to do that.

That's the difference, you want everyone to bend to your own narrow view of the game, other people here want a solution where everyone can have fun.

Tournaments aren't about fluffbunnies who are awful at the game having fun.

Tournaments are where good players go to escape that horrible mindset and actually play in a competitive environment.

So a person with a poor, fluffy list showing up to a tournament and complaining about all the lists being too strong is as ridiculous as a WAAC Tourney player showing up to your Pre-Heresy Campaign packing Necron Flying Circus and bagging on you for losing so much.

Translation: If you want to play tournaments; deal with the high tier of competitive players and competitive lists. If you don't want to do that, don't do tournaments. They're not for you.

nkelsch wrote:
Mission comp is ok sometimes.

Mission comp is awful. It's just a clumsy way of saying "X is not allowed". If X is such a problem that you have to add mission comp to cripple it then you should just accept that it needs banning and ban it. The only reason to use mission comp is if you're obsessed with pretending that you're running a no-comp event (like 'ard boyz) but still need to re-balance the metagame. Remove that obsession and the obvious best option is to use clear bans (or restrictions) on the undesired unit/strategy/etc.

nkelsch wrote:
You must be new to 40k as people like you were literally laughed out of the store nationwide in the 90s due to the insurmountable imbalance of 3rd edition 40k. No one could seriously defend the default meta in any capacity. People have been setting arbitrary standards of how the game is played for decades. And while the game is much better than it was, I don't begrudge people running their events for them, their way. If I don't like it, I can attend another event or run my own.

Both the 40k community and the default meta have substantially improved since the 1990s, though. Arbitrary standards are both less desired-- as evidenced by the fact that comp is dead or dying in most areas of the US-- and less necessary.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Yes. It probably limits standard marines (like my MWs) as much as anyone because we have the fewest options in the "troop" category.

I like the idea but in practice I would not want to be sisters of battle.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Yes. It probably limits standard marines (like my MWs) as much as anyone because we have the fewest options in the "troop" category.

I like the idea but in practice I would not want to be sisters of battle.

I don't know... Yes they only have BSS squads for troops, but forced 2 means you get to take more other toys.

2 HQ, 2-3 Elites, 2 Troops, 2-3 Fast Attack and 2-3 Heavies wouldn't be difficult to do at 1500pts , and wouldn't be bad xD. And worse case, there's always allies for 2 more troops if you have a burning need for more.

It'd be rather interesting actually, and I'd quite happily take part

 Kingsley wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
You must be new to 40k as people like you were literally laughed out of the store nationwide in the 90s due to the insurmountable imbalance of 3rd edition 40k. No one could seriously defend the default meta in any capacity. People have been setting arbitrary standards of how the game is played for decades. And while the game is much better than it was, I don't begrudge people running their events for them, their way. If I don't like it, I can attend another event or run my own.

Both the 40k community and the default meta have substantially improved since the 1990s, though. Arbitrary standards are both less desired-- as evidenced by the fact that comp is dead or dying in most areas of the US-- and less necessary.

Oh I agree. 3rd edition was unplayable without comp. 5th edition was the first edition which could be played without comp but still had 1/3rd of the codexes in an unplayable tier. So for people to forget where we came from and the reality of how absurd "adapt or die" really is, is terribly insulting.

I can accept when people say " it isn't perfect, but as long as everyone is capable fielding real 6th edition armies, the default meta is fair enough." That is a supportable attitude and works well for events like NOVA because everyone there is willing and capable of upgrading to adapt by spending hundreds of dollars.

But what I can't accept is this blind dogma which I have heard for decades of "adapt or die." In a rule system which is fundamentally unfair, unbalanced, not designed by the creator for competitive play and costs hundreds of dollars to adjust a minor tactic or change a list, let alone army. I feel it is fine for a large event like nova to expect participants to change everything. I feel like small store, 1 day RTTs are a different focus, includes different players and I think it is fine for TOs to plan to be inclusive of a different group of people.

I also disagree with people who claim there is only one way to play this game and want every TO to use their format of adapt or die. It doesn't hurt anyone if one group uses comp, especially if that is what the participants want.

Oh, and people don't insist on wearing iron shoes, GW gave them iron shoes and they can't afford to buy a new bike on a dime, nor should they always be expected to every time a new unit comes out. Defending a broken unfair game in the name of crushing skulls and defending how skillful you are for racking up credit card debt doesn't impress me.

My local gaming club recently ran its first 6th ed tournament and it wasn't the flyers that caused the problems, it was more the allies.

Now this is a successful tournament thats been running in the outskirts of London for 10 years + but the allies option really divided the organisers, who spent 2 weeks online and 4 hours face to face before reaching a decision and the competitors to the point that some of our "regular attendee's" have asked if we can run an Allies Free tournament.

These are people who have been in the hobby for a number of years (i've been playing some of them now for almost 10 years at the tournament and they're a great bunch) but the allies thing has caused some of them to switch over to square bases for a while.

That being said, if you are going to a Tournament and you chose to take a fluffy non optimal list, then don't be surprised when you get curb stomped......

 Ovion wrote:

I don't know... Yes they only have BSS squads for troops, but forced 2 means you get to take more other toys.

2 HQ, 2-3 Elites, 2 Troops, 2-3 Fast Attack and 2-3 Heavies wouldn't be difficult to do at 1500pts , and wouldn't be bad xD. And worse case, there's always allies for 2 more troops if you have a burning need for more.

It'd be rather interesting actually, and I'd quite happily take part

Yeah, with restrictions like that you wouldn't want to make it too large a battle... but it might knock some folks out of their army building comfort zone & expose them to new ways of thinking.

You could just have a "Hostile Air Space" special rule. If you zoom you roll on a chart. On a 1 you get shot out of the sky and lose the model and all unit in transport.

 Necroshea wrote:
You could just have a "Hostile Air Space" special rule. If you zoom you roll on a chart. On a 1 you get shot out of the sky and lose the model and all unit in transport.

Ideas like this are why game development is best left to professionals.

 Necroshea wrote:
You could just have a "Hostile Air Space" special rule. If you zoom you roll on a chart. On a 1 you get shot out of the sky and lose the model and all unit in transport.

I've played with wonkier rules in tournaments and still had fun.

I love how you shoot it down without giving much of a reason why. Please keep up the great discussion.

If everyone played Codex: Space Marines, the players who talk about banning flyers would be the same players that would want to ban specific units or army comp within the codex because 'everyone has to play the same list' if they don't.

Codex differences aren't fair, so a better approach would be to give a benefit to those armies that are considered under powered in a specific area than messing with the total metagame for all armies.

Two more reasonable approaches:
Give a player that plays Tau with no allies a free ADL instead of messing with everyone else's army through heavy handed approaches.

Give armies the option to upgrade existing weapon options to skyfire for X points in line with the updated codexes.

This fills in the missing options that are the given reason for why those armies aren't able to handle flyer spam in the same way as how they have the options to counter other types of spam (2+ saves, vehicles,mass infantry, etc.)

Well, here's what we decided. Every player is going to get a free Icarus Lascannon emplacement that does not have the Interceptor special rule, which can be placed anywhere in their deployment zone. There will be no restrictions on flyers, rather everyone will be getting a free counter to them that, due to the loss of the Interceptor rule, will only be able to take snap shots at anything else. There will also be an extra VP at the end of the game for each of these emplacements that you control, for an extra 2 possible VPs in each game. The guns will be indestructible, and you have to place one in your deployment zone, even if you don't intend on using it, so the opponent has an opportunity to use it. We decided on using the Icarus Lascannon rather than the Quad Gun because it won't have as much of an impact with only one shot as opposed to four, and it will be much easier for me to build 16-20 lascannon emplacements rather than quad guns due to the availability of bits!

Thanks to everyone who helped come up with a compromise- it actually helped to be able to come up with a way to get the desired result without actually having to take anything away from anyone.

 Necroshea wrote:
I've played with wonkier rules in tournaments and still had fun.

I love how you shoot it down without giving much of a reason why. Please keep up the great discussion.

It's so manifestly stupid that I can't believe it needs to be explained.

Your proposed rule makes the most effective anti-flyer weaponry to simply let it move around. 1/6th of the time it will be outright destroyed - you've a greater chance of it blowing up than if someone tried to shoot it with a TL railgun. How does that make any fething sense?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Oaka wrote:
Well, here's what we decided. Every player is going to get a free Icarus Lascannon emplacement that does not have the Interceptor special rule, which can be placed anywhere in their deployment zone. There will be no restrictions on flyers, rather everyone will be getting a free counter to them that, due to the loss of the Interceptor rule, will only be able to take snap shots at anything else. There will also be an extra VP at the end of the game for each of these emplacements that you control, for an extra 2 possible VPs in each game. The guns will be indestructible, and you have to place one in your deployment zone, even if you don't intend on using it, so the opponent has an opportunity to use it. We decided on using the Icarus Lascannon rather than the Quad Gun because it won't have as much of an impact with only one shot as opposed to four, and it will be much easier for me to build 16-20 lascannon emplacements rather than quad guns due to the availability of bits!

Thanks to everyone who helped come up with a compromise- it actually helped to be able to come up with a way to get the desired result without actually having to take anything away from anyone.

That's actually not nearly as terrible as it could have been. Good show.

I think it would be extremely lame, and would not attend such a tournament.

 Necroshea wrote:
You could just have a "Hostile Air Space" special rule. If you zoom you roll on a chart. On a 1 you get shot out of the sky and lose the model and all unit in transport.

Are you being serious?

1/6 chance to be utterly destroyed everytime you wish to move? Including coming on from reserves?

Lets take away Invuln saves too. And psychic powers.

A more 'sensible' rule for "Hostile Air Space" would be something along the lines of:

Hostile Air Space:
Whenever a Flyer enters play from Reserves it takes an automatic Str8 Ap- hit on its Front Armour.

(I feel this would represent the aircraft dropping through masses of Flakk fire as it swoops in for a low-level strafing run)

And even then, it's still a bit silly to use.

Hostile Air Space is literally the worst idea I've ever heard regarding proposed rules.

Hostile land space: All infantry take a Str 3 AP- hit when they are deployed representing hostile artillery barrages. That will show those horde players who ruin it for everyone by taking longer to deploy and move!

 snooggums wrote:
Hostile land space: All infantry take a Str 3 AP- hit when they are deployed representing hostile artillery barrages. That will show those horde players who ruin it for everyone by taking longer to deploy and move!

I never do this, but I exalted this post.

Well played, sir.

Wow, utter reading comprehension failure. I said if you zoom it happens. You don't have to zoom. Instead of dealing with a spam list of things you might have trouble hitting, you have to deal with vehicle spam that is much less oppressive. If the opponent wishes to zoom, the rule takes effect.

I run a squadron of vendettas, and this rule wouldn't bother me in the least. Considering the point of the rule is to stop fliyer spam builds, and how some of you are taking it like an insult, I think it's safe to assume that the rule was concieved because of people like you in the first place.

Actually, you do have to zoom. Speaking of reading comprehension...

Funny thing is, these special missions to hurt flyers and horde are straight up out of GWs play book. If they still had 'ard boys, we would see those exact missions and then people would say " ard boys is true competition! Adapt or die". Apparently it doesn't have to be fair to be competitive, just arbitrarily set by GW to be competitive.

 Monster Rain wrote:
Actually, you do have to zoom. Speaking of reading comprehension...

Well that isn't entirely true. While the Ork, Necron, and I believe Eldar planes don't have the option to hover the others I believe do... Yay Imperials! I agree with you that I do not like the rule and think that it would be simpler to just allow more skyfire options opposed to this.

If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

nkelsch wrote:
Funny thing is, these special missions to hurt flyers and horde are straight up out of GWs play book. If they still had 'ard boys, we would see those exact missions and then people would say " ard boys is true competition! Adapt or die". Apparently it doesn't have to be fair to be competitive, just arbitrarily set by GW to be competitive.

GW was smart enought to realize this game shouldnt be played as a sport. Hopefully in time the idea takes hold...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

You just described the majority of tournaments actually.

Most have arbitrary limits, requirements and rules addendums...

Such as?

I have found the tournaments I attend to only have rules clarifications for things GW has neglected in their FAQs. I have never encountered "arbitrary limits, requirements, and rules addendum". I have encountered arbitrary and poorly designed scenarios that have skewed a tournament toward a specific army build, book etc but scenarios aren't any of the things you mentioned.

Where the scenarios optionl? IF not then they are in effect an arbitrary requirement...

@Rain

I bet you'd be much more enjoyable to discuss things with if you didn't make a point to sound like you live in OT, ready to argue and make any small desperate jabs you can.

I admit, I'm not familiar with flyers outside of IG. No one in my local meta uses them , only IG and MC's. In light of that, no, my idea would not work, as it would favor certain armies over others, when all of the mentioned armies have an advantage over those with no AA defenses.

I agree that limiting is better than banning, as no one except those who use forge world ever expect to be told they can't use their painted figures.

 SkaerKrow wrote:
If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

Soft Scores?

You mean the stuff that shouldn't matter in a competitive environment?

 TheCaptain wrote:

 SkaerKrow wrote:
If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

Soft Scores?

You mean the stuff that shouldn't matter in a competitive environment?

we all know that a true competitive game requires an uneven playing field where people have large advantages before the dice are rolled. The more skill is eliminated through imbalance, the better measure of competitive skill it is right?

 Necroshea wrote:
@Rain

You have my attention.

 Necroshea wrote:
I bet you'd be much more enjoyable to discuss things with if you didn't make a point to sound like you live in OT, ready to argue and make any small desperate jabs you can.

Amusing. You said this:

 Necroshea wrote:
Wow, utter reading comprehension failure.

I responded, in the context that unless a unit has a specific special rule stating otherwise, the only move they can ever make is a zoom.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

 Necroshea wrote:
I admit, I'm not familiar with flyers outside of IG.

I'll just let that stand on its own.

nkelsch wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 SkaerKrow wrote:
If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

Soft Scores?

You mean the stuff that shouldn't matter in a competitive environment?

we all know that a true competitive game requires an uneven playing field where people have large advantages before the dice are rolled. The more skill is eliminated through imbalance, the better measure of competitive skill it is right?

How is it an uneven playing field when literally everyone has the same options? It's not like the second you buy a Tau codex you're stuck fielding Fire Warriors until the end of time.

You're never going to remove imbalance from a faction-based game, especially when the rules are always written by different people. WAAC players trend towards the local optimum because it works, and once you're there the only difference is pure skill. Changing the field via whatever the whims of the balance czar carebears of the week simply shifts where that optimum is, and they're still going to faceroll you. All of these discussions boil down to "the faction I'm sticking to without qualification deserves new gak to make up for the stuff <most recent codex> got", or "<most recent codex> got cool gak that I can't have, they shouldn't be allowed to have it until my army gets it". feth that noise. Reconstruct your forces, take allies, learn probability, adjust your fething tactics. Yeah, there are above average lists out there, but people on Dakka complain like they're insurmountable because they're fielding the same damn models against a new enemy and expecting to not have to adapt.

This game operates on two levels - the strategic and the tactical. Feeling out your metagame and reacting accordingly is an important component of competitive play of any similar game. Every strategy has a counter, although some of them might require buying and painting new units to stay on the bleeding edge. If you're not willing to do that, stop chasing the idea that you can play competitively. It's like MtG - every few months you need to throw out most of if not all of your deck and rebuild to stay competitive. Yeah, that's expensive to do with wargames, and that's why 99% of play is casual. It's simply more enjoyable to most people to field whatever they feel like. But the second you start trying to affect competitive play because you, the casual player, can't compete with these heavily optimized lists and tactics... it's like walking into someone else's house uninvited and demanding that they cater to what YOU want.

nkelsch wrote:
Funny thing is, these special missions to hurt flyers and horde are straight up out of GWs play book. If they still had 'ard boys, we would see those exact missions and then people would say " ard boys is true competition! Adapt or die". Apparently it doesn't have to be fair to be competitive, just arbitrarily set by GW to be competitive.

I don't really know where you get this idea from, the general consensus I remember is that 'ard boyz was laughable as a "competitive" event and the only reason anyone paid any attention to it was the prizes.

And sure, those proposed missions are right out of 'ard boyz, but that's because 'ard boyz missions were embarrassingly poor game design. GW trapped themselves in a corner with the whole "ZERO COMP, ZERO PAINTING, BRING YOUR HARDEST LISTS RAR!!!!!!!" marketing of the event, so when they wanted to add comp they had to add it to the missions and pretend that it was still a no-comp event. Someone who doesn't suck at competitive game design, on the other hand, would have made appropriate changes through bans/errata/etc to fix the game properly instead of making a clumsy attempt at "fixing" it without admitting that there was ever a problem.

I hate to keep bringing it up, but look at competitive MTG: does WOTC use special game scenarios that punish "overpowered" decks? Of course not. If a deck is too powerful and breaking the game they admit there's a problem and the offending cards. And yet somehow they still have a very competitive and balanced game.

 Ostrakon wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 SkaerKrow wrote:
If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

Soft Scores?

You mean the stuff that shouldn't matter in a competitive environment?

we all know that a true competitive game requires an uneven playing field where people have large advantages before the dice are rolled. The more skill is eliminated through imbalance, the better measure of competitive skill it is right?

How is it an uneven playing field when literally everyone has the same options? It's not like the second you buy a Tau codex you're stuck fielding Fire Warriors until the end of time.

You're never going to remove imbalance from a faction-based game, especially when the rules are always written by different people. WAAC players trend towards the local optimum because it works, and once you're there the only difference is pure skill. Changing the field via whatever the whims of the balance czar carebears of the week simply shifts where that optimum is, and they're still going to faceroll you. All of these discussions boil down to "the faction I'm sticking to without qualification deserves new gak to make up for the stuff <most recent codex> got", or "<most recent codex> got cool gak that I can't have, they shouldn't be allowed to have it until my army gets it". feth that noise. Reconstruct your forces, take allies, learn probability, adjust your fething tactics. Yeah, there are above average lists out there, but people on Dakka complain like they're insurmountable because they're fielding the same damn models against a new enemy and expecting to not have to adapt.

This game operates on two levels - the strategic and the tactical. Feeling out your metagame and reacting accordingly is an important component of competitive play of any similar game. Every strategy has a counter, although some of them might require buying and painting new units to stay on the bleeding edge. If you're not willing to do that, stop chasing the idea that you can play competitively. It's like MtG - every few months you need to throw out most of if not all of your deck and rebuild to stay competitive. Yeah, that's expensive to do with wargames, and that's why 99% of play is casual. It's simply more enjoyable to most people to field whatever they feel like. But the second you start trying to affect competitive play because you, the casual player, can't compete with these heavily optimized lists and tactics... it's like walking into someone else's house uninvited and demanding that they cater to what YOU want.

funny you reference MTG which bans cards, adjusts by reliving or limiting overpowered cards and strives to maintain a balance which 40k doesn't event attempt to do and actively says their came cant be played in a competitive fashion.

I also don't have to spend weeks assembling and painting magic cards to use them and it isn't as if specific colors in mtg are unusable for having an entire faction of overprinted, old broken rules and lacking options units. When magic updates all the colors get equal and balanced rerelease a and additions.

Everything that makes mtg able to be actually fair and competitive is totally missing in 40k which shows just how ignorant "adapt to die" is. You say it is as simple as taking allies but the allies matrix is beyond broken as some factions lack battle brothers or any codex which make synergy between allies and core units non-existing while other armies not only get synergy but game breaking combos which dominate. Add in fortifications which due to different balistic skills, some armies are more equal than others... Paying the same points for something which hits half as much.

Claiming list building as a skill is also laughable. Tourneys are not about who can download the best net list and shows no skill. All of your suggestions are empty platitudes. Learning probabilities doesn't make your units work better, just helps you see how unfair and imbalanced the game really is. It isn't goi g to make a grossly over costed unit work better or take codexes which are 2edition old with broken rules be worth their points and compete fairly.

But your answer is throw your old codexes in the garbage, break out the credit card and buy the new army of the week or become meat for the grinder right?

And you then say "don't come into other people's house uninvited and blah blah blah." Well that is exactly what you are advocating. It is the TOs house, his guests don't like how the 6th edition meta is unfair, and they choose to change the game to attempt to make it better for them in their own house... And because you advocate only one way of playing, you are the one kicking in the door to their house and saying "line up for your bullets to the head because I paid for an advantage by tactically making the flavor of the month top army and I deserve to beat you today."

Your delusion of personal skill and ignoring of imbalance is disturbing. There are hardly any events that are run which don't have comp, tweaks, missions or FAQs which boil down to a shift in the meta to how that group or TO feels the game should be played. The community is better off for these differences as it allows people to see what works and what doesn't. What every reasonable person can agree to is 40k is not designed for competitive play, is incapable of being a true test of skill due to imbalance and that changing the meta doesn't make the event any less competitive, just shifts the meta. As people run variety of events, the "better" meta changes spread, the bad ones die. But to think that intelligent educated people who see the glaring imbalance should simply pretend it is not there simply doesn't work. If you honestly believe the random location the meta falls after every codex release is fair and a legitimate example of balance, then enjoy carving notches on your Shillelagh and believe your wins are based on skill and not influenced by a imbalanced and sometimes broken gaming system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

I hate to keep bringing it up, but look at competitive MTG: does WOTC use special game scenarios that punish "overpowered" decks? Of course not. If a deck is too powerful and breaking the game they admit there's a problem and the offending cards. And yet somehow they still have a very competitive and balanced game.

but wotc actually supports and promotes competitive play and makes their system designed for it. And when they make mistakes and imbalance pops up, they address it.

Games workshop has never fixed a unit via increasing or decreasing stats or power due to balance, only due to fixing rule interpretation. GW has never changed a point value due to imbalance or changes in the meta... Only misprints.

So how is GWs explicit architecture of an imbalanced, unfair game, and no attempt to ever address it somehow make it equally as competitive and fair as MTG?

As soon as people realize the system is not balanced and every codex can't compete equally, then reasonable people can play a flavor of 40k which best suits their goals. Shifting the meta doesn't make it any less competitive. And it is ok to shift the meta,WOTC does it as they care. GW doesn't care about balance or competitive play.

nkelsch wrote:
So how is GWs explicit architecture of an imbalanced, unfair game, and no attempt to ever address it somehow make it equally as competitive and fair as MTG?

Err, what? I think you've just completely missed the point of what I'm saying. I'm not arguing that 40k is as competitive as MTG (which would be insane), I'm arguing two entirely different things:

1) That mission-based comp (for example, the proposed "every turn on a 1 your flyer dies" mission) is stupid as hell and incredibly poor game design. If balance issues to exist, the solution is to learn from real competitive games (like MTG) and use bans and/or errata to fix them (whether it comes from the TO or from the publisher), not to make awkward special mission rules that effectively say "no X allowed" but in a less efficient way.

2) That GW's mission comp with 'ard boyz (just like everything else about 'ard boyz) is an example of laughably bad game design. GW trapped themselves by marketing 'ard boyz as an extreme competitive no-soft-scores-no-comp event, and so when it became obvious that balance changes were needed they were limited to mission comp because it was the only option that let them pretend that they weren't using comp at all.

Fortunately a third-party TO isn't limited by the stupidity of GW's marketing department, so they can use the far superior option of bans and/or unit rule/point changes to fix balance issues (if/when balance issues exist).

nkelsch wrote:

 Ostrakon wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 SkaerKrow wrote:
If you want a tournament that isn't ruled by WAAC players, then reward soft scores (Painting, Presentation, Sportsmanship) and make them just as important as battle points. Don't go about banning an entire unit type from the game. That just makes your event seem incomplete.

Soft Scores?

You mean the stuff that shouldn't matter in a competitive environment?

we all know that a true competitive game requires an uneven playing field where people have large advantages before the dice are rolled. The more skill is eliminated through imbalance, the better measure of competitive skill it is right?

How is it an uneven playing field when literally everyone has the same options? It's not like the second you buy a Tau codex you're stuck fielding Fire Warriors until the end of time.

You're never going to remove imbalance from a faction-based game, especially when the rules are always written by different people. WAAC players trend towards the local optimum because it works, and once you're there the only difference is pure skill. Changing the field via whatever the whims of the balance czar carebears of the week simply shifts where that optimum is, and they're still going to faceroll you. All of these discussions boil down to "the faction I'm sticking to without qualification deserves new gak to make up for the stuff <most recent codex> got", or "<most recent codex> got cool gak that I can't have, they shouldn't be allowed to have it until my army gets it". feth that noise. Reconstruct your forces, take allies, learn probability, adjust your fething tactics. Yeah, there are above average lists out there, but people on Dakka complain like they're insurmountable because they're fielding the same damn models against a new enemy and expecting to not have to adapt.

This game operates on two levels - the strategic and the tactical. Feeling out your metagame and reacting accordingly is an important component of competitive play of any similar game. Every strategy has a counter, although some of them might require buying and painting new units to stay on the bleeding edge. If you're not willing to do that, stop chasing the idea that you can play competitively. It's like MtG - every few months you need to throw out most of if not all of your deck and rebuild to stay competitive. Yeah, that's expensive to do with wargames, and that's why 99% of play is casual. It's simply more enjoyable to most people to field whatever they feel like. But the second you start trying to affect competitive play because you, the casual player, can't compete with these heavily optimized lists and tactics... it's like walking into someone else's house uninvited and demanding that they cater to what YOU want.

funny you reference MTG which bans cards, adjusts by reliving or limiting overpowered cards and strives to maintain a balance which 40k doesn't event attempt to do and actively says their came cant be played in a competitive fashion.

I also don't have to spend weeks assembling and painting magic cards to use them and it isn't as if specific colors in mtg are unusable for having an entire faction of overprinted, old broken rules and lacking options units. When magic updates all the colors get equal and balanced rerelease a and additions.

Everything that makes mtg able to be actually fair and competitive is totally missing in 40k which shows just how ignorant "adapt to die" is. You say it is as simple as taking allies but the allies matrix is beyond broken as some factions lack battle brothers or any codex which make synergy between allies and core units non-existing while other armies not only get synergy but game breaking combos which dominate. Add in fortifications which due to different balistic skills, some armies are more equal than others... Paying the same points for something which hits half as much.

Claiming list building as a skill is also laughable. Tourneys are not about who can download the best net list and shows no skill. All of your suggestions are empty platitudes. Learning probabilities doesn't make your units work better, just helps you see how unfair and imbalanced the game really is. It isn't goi g to make a grossly over costed unit work better or take codexes which are 2edition old with broken rules be worth their points and compete fairly.

But your answer is throw your old codexes in the garbage, break out the credit card and buy the new army of the week or become meat for the grinder right?

And you then say "don't come into other people's house uninvited and blah blah blah." Well that is exactly what you are advocating. It is the TOs house, his guests don't like how the 6th edition meta is unfair, and they choose to change the game to attempt to make it better for them in their own house... And because you advocate only one way of playing, you are the one kicking in the door to their house and saying "line up for your bullets to the head because I paid for an advantage by tactically making the flavor of the month top army and I deserve to beat you today."

Your delusion of personal skill and ignoring of imbalance is disturbing. There are hardly any events that are run which don't have comp, tweaks, missions or FAQs which boil down to a shift in the meta to how that group or TO feels the game should be played. The community is better off for these differences as it allows people to see what works and what doesn't. What every reasonable person can agree to is 40k is not designed for competitive play, is incapable of being a true test of skill due to imbalance and that changing the meta doesn't make the event any less competitive, just shifts the meta. As people run variety of events, the "better" meta changes spread, the bad ones die. But to think that intelligent educated people who see the glaring imbalance should simply pretend it is not there simply doesn't work. If you honestly believe the random location the meta falls after every codex release is fair and a legitimate example of balance, then enjoy carving notches on your Shillelagh and believe your wins are based on skill and not influenced by a imbalanced and sometimes broken gaming system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

I hate to keep bringing it up, but look at competitive MTG: does WOTC use special game scenarios that punish "overpowered" decks? Of course not. If a deck is too powerful and breaking the game they admit there's a problem and the offending cards. And yet somehow they still have a very competitive and balanced game.

but wotc actually supports and promotes competitive play and makes their system designed for it. And when they make mistakes and imbalance pops up, they address it.

Games workshop has never fixed a unit via increasing or decreasing stats or power due to balance, only due to fixing rule interpretation. GW has never changed a point value due to imbalance or changes in the meta... Only misprints.

So how is GWs explicit architecture of an imbalanced, unfair game, and no attempt to ever address it somehow make it equally as competitive and fair as MTG?

As soon as people realize the system is not balanced and every codex can't compete equally, then reasonable people can play a flavor of 40k which best suits their goals. Shifting the meta doesn't make it any less competitive. And it is ok to shift the meta,WOTC does it as they care. GW doesn't care about balance or competitive play.

WotC rarely has to ban cards in its most popular constructed formats. It releases the next set, makes some generally minor banlist adjustments to older formats (equivalent to something getting FAQd by GW realy) and that's about it. Most standard environments will have 3-4 top decks with minor variations and everything else is unviable for competitive play outside of functionally casual gak like FNMs.

List building is absolutely crucial to not sucking in whatever environment you play in. If there really was a true optimum list it would be all you see WAAC players running.

Learning probabilities absolutely helps you perform better. Sucking at math is why players charge the wrong units, and shoot at the wrong target. Knowing what gaussian distribution says about enemy threat range is crucial. If you really think all it does is "helps you see how unfair and imbalanced the game is" then you probably just suck at basic, middle-school level discrete prob.

Yeah, MTG is a different beast as far as investment is concerned (at least time-wise) but that's precisely why you shouldn't get into competitive play unless you're prepared to deal with the format as-is. Don't like shelling out cash for new units to adjust to the new metagame every time a codex comes out? Why the feth are you playing competitively then?

The problem here is individual TOs deluding themselves into thinking they're capable of balancing 40k by simply making it conform to what they want it to be. It's presumptuous as feth and encourages stupid little bubbles of whiners to circlejerk about how things feel broken when the game as a whole is actually relatively balanced - it's really only the older codices that are ever far behind the curve. I've taken the neutral position - play the game as defined by the fething rules. Everyone has access to the same things by default, and arbitrarily limiting a different set of things according to the whim of armchair developer TO Fred to armchair developer TO Hank to armchair developer TO Tiffany just empowers people who should probably stick to casual games anyway as you're free to houserule as much as you want there.

I think the MTG analogy is only cool if you think that only having 3-4 decks which change radically every time WotC releases a new set is a good thing.

Variety is a good thing. We have all these different armies in 40k, would you like it if you only ever saw 3-4?

Is your tournament still enjoyable if you only see those lists/armies every single time? Maybe for those who kick on pure skill vs skill only, but to me it would get boring. The last tournaments I attended limited flyers to 4 only and I saw every single army represented (and most of the space marine codexes).

I laud any attempt to provide more variety in absence of GW changing its ways in how they release/design.

Just write the tournament setting fluff appropriately:

"Operation: Skyfall - The world of Tempesta Majora was once an Imperial Hab World, with hives towering almost to orbit and extending many klicks below ground. Huge armies converged to claim the world for their own, and slowly, decade by decade, the world became a hellish Warworld, condemned to seemingly never-ending battle.

Until Skyfall.

Maybe the Emperor was angered by what he saw. Maybe some minor god of Chaos decided to have a bit of fun. Maybe some especially insane Ork Mekaniak scorched the sky with his latest ill-conceived master weapon. No-one knows, but all that fought there were now trapped.

The sky burned, churning with chemical fury. No flying machine could navigate it. No dropship fly could through it. Orbital bombardments were swallowed up by the sky. Teleporters delivered writhing piles of screaming flesh and bone instead of valiant warriors.

But still the factions fought on, for the enemy was still at their door..."

If the 12 people that come to your store every week want to play a no-fliers tournament, then have a freaking no fliers tournament. Asking DakkaDakka is rather silly.

There's nothing wrong with a themed tournament now and again.

 ph34r wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

"stop deciding things you can't deal with are imbalanced; stop further imbalancing the game"

Seriously this.

The OP literally posted that his 5th edition army started to suck because 6th edition came out. That is his justification for banning a unit choice. If anyone is a man-baby it's the OP. What will you do when a new codex drops for your army and your favorite unit sucks? What is your plan then because that is what you are doing now but on an edition scale?
Welcome to 6th edition OP. The rules have changed. There are flyers now. Cover saves have also changed. Wait till you read the section about snap fire and assaulting. You will gak a train.


Also, the Necron Airforce list sucks and the Space Wolf vs Necron video you watch 100 times and has you frothing at the mouth is the perfect example of who you are trying to be. The Space Wolf player played a great 5th edition list in 6th edition. That list is no where near as good now and he played it very poorly. He never focused his fire at all when, statistically, he should have killed 1.3 flyers a turn. Or he could have won the game turn one by killing all the Necrons on the table. All like 5 of them. Statistically, he could have done this too.

You say you want constructive criticism? How about this. Don't try to gain an unfair advantage in 40k by outlawing units you don't like because you havent figured out how to deal with them. Update your list to deal with them and kill them on the table. Good on you for getting a Defense Line. That's a great start. Remember that you can ally with just about anyone. Some on those 'anyones' have flyers. So take an allied flyer. I do.

I have commented on something like this in the past. As a former TO myself I found it my responsibility to structure missions that would balance what I expected to see at the tourney. You can give each player a token that can be used as a reward for a single unit, something like skyfire or tank hunter or scoring. You can have environmental effects like acid rain (-1 armor save) or solar flares (glancing hit on all vehicles on roll of 4+).

Point is that there is a lot that you can do as TO to balance the armies, you just have to make sure that whatever you do is even-handed across all armies represented. This is not neccessarily easy, it often took a month or more for my design partner and I to develop fun mission that were balanced. But all of our events were great and had a lot of positive feedback because we didn't just fall back on banning what we felt was abusing the current rules.

Interesting thing about all of this. Early on I've seen the meta approach with each addition. In this case going comp would tone down the flying circuses a great deal without banning flyers from a tournament.

But people would complain just the same.

I really have a great deal of sympathy for many of the TO's who try to organize an event only to get monkey poop slung back at them.

 Kwosge wrote:
. Remember that you can ally with just about anyone. Some on those 'anyones' have flyers. So take an allied flyer. I do.

If you are an imperial player. My Codex, Orks, has no battle Brothers and Nids has no allies. My ADL costs the same as everyone else but is statistically inferior due to my BS. My max number of flyers in a force org is 3, and 2 of the 3 variants are useless against other flyers. It is kinda hard to tell and ork player that he needs to take an ADL, spam 3 dakkajets and take 10+ lootas just to have a hope at standing up to these 5+ flyer armies. And then the rest of his list is that much poorer for having to invest in so much AA which isn't even that good at AA in the first place. To play in a tourney, the best static is to keep your head down and pray you don't face flyer spam... that is not fair to players and not fun when people don't have the units or the rules at their disposal to play fair games because GW doesn't maintain their game.

If I was allowed to take flakka trukks, My Codex copes much more easily... It allows me to defend myself against air while keeping with the synergy of an assault army and KFF opposed to Dakkajets which really screw with Ork gameplans, especially when you have Ghaz and use his Waaagh for ork actions and his 2++ and you practically need waaaaghshooting for dakkajets to reliably take down other flyers. Hell, Ork Kannons with the skyfire missiles which no one has would have also worked.

Seems like simple codex updates from GW would have prepared an aging game system for fliers... and they missed the boat.

Don't get me started on how imbalanced and unfair the Allies matrix is...

I think Orks are fine in this edition- many changes help them. And you don't need battle brothers to have useful allies.

My next army is going to be Nids, whenever Trollforged sculpts/ships all those bugs . I'd love allies, but them's the breaks!

 RiTides wrote:
I think Orks are fine in this edition- many changes help them. And you don't need battle brothers to have useful allies.

My next army is going to be Nids, whenever Trollforged sculpts/ships all those bugs . I'd love allies, but them's the breaks!

If you keep your head down and pray for no flyer spam... It still doesn't make Flyerspam hard for orks and other armies unless they load up on massive lootas or tri-dakkajets because PKs and deffrollers are nullified.

And while you don't need battle brothers, other people's allies are 'even more useful for no additional points' so while you can use them, you are still at a disadvantage. All of those little unbalanced things add up and you then get armies which are just easier to play, statistically superior and have synergies which make other codexes poorer in comparison.

I just don't see how arbitrary things that work differently depending on your codex for the same points is 'fair'. Why is my ADL BS2 for the same points as someone who has one at BS5. Why is my ally harder to use and integrate into my army than my opponent who has the same units but as battle brother. None of that was done due to power or balance... Just arbitrary GW narrative design.

nkelsch wrote:
Seems like simple codex updates from GW would have prepared an aging game system for fliers... and they missed the boat.

But that's exactly what GW gave you: an entire book (IA:Aeronautica) dedicated to ensuring that every army has flyers and most of them have ground-based AA. If you aren't able to use those units the solution is to complain to your TO and tell them to stop house ruling away units like flakk trukks, not to complain that GW didn't give you the tools you need.

 Peregrine wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Seems like simple codex updates from GW would have prepared an aging game system for fliers... and they missed the boat.

But that's exactly what GW gave you: an entire book (IA:Aeronautica) dedicated to ensuring that every army has flyers and most of them have ground-based AA. If you aren't able to use those units the solution is to complain to your TO and tell them to stop house ruling away units like flakk trukks, not to complain that GW didn't give you the tools you need.

You do realize the people defending the default meta as being perfect and decrying any and all comp which alters it vigorously oppose any and all forgeworld from being used in competitive play... They See allowing forgeworld as equally damaging to their superiority and unwelcome as 'Ban all flyers'.

This is the thing... they are not defending balance, simply the default meta which gives them the most advantage as being a player able and willing to codex hop to the flavor of the month.

nkelsch wrote:
Don't get me started on how imbalanced and unfair the Allies matrix is...

This made me smile. And I agree. The allies matrix was made on fluff, not balance. And not even good fluff, as I'm still looking for where the Tau and SM got to be so buddy buddy, and the Nids forgot about genestealer cults.

 mikhaila wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Don't get me started on how imbalanced and unfair the Allies matrix is...

This made me smile. And I agree. The allies matrix was made on fluff, not balance. And not even good fluff, as I'm still looking for where the Tau and SM got to be so buddy buddy, and the Nids forgot about genestealer cults.

To be fair, Genestealer Cults are a bit of a weird thing for fluff.

They aren't really "allied" with the Tyranids. They're a factor of the Tyranids going to war. If the Tyranids come across them during combat, there's a high likelihood the Tyranids will kill them same as they would Imperial/Ork/Tau forces.

Tau and Space Marines being "buddy buddy" has been around for a long time(since the first Tau book, where the Damocles Gulf Crusade had the Marines disagreeing with exterminatus on the Tau worlds since they had "earned their respect as warriors" or some such tomfoolery), but really only fleshed out with Calgar allowing the Tau to evacuate their forces from a world he was going to condemn to exterminatus after fighting the Tyranids.

nkelsch wrote:
You do realize the people defending the default meta as being perfect and decrying any and all comp which alters it vigorously oppose any and all forgeworld from being used in competitive play... They See allowing forgeworld as equally damaging to their superiority and unwelcome as 'Ban all flyers'.

This is the thing... they are not defending balance, simply the default meta which gives them the most advantage as being a player able and willing to codex hop to the flavor of the month.

Sure, I'm familiar with the arguments, and I agree that it's a thinly-veiled fear of having their precious metagame changed and risk no longer being able to win as easily, it's just silly to accuse GW of not giving out enough AA updates when they devoted an entire book to it. If people won't allow FW units like flakk trukks then you have a problem with the TO, not with GW.

Also, it's just amusing to see that argument in a thread about banning flyers. First you impose comp restrictions (banning FW), then you have to impose more comp restrictions (banning flyers) to fix the unbalanced game that your first comp restrictions created. And then I'm sure we'll see another thread suggesting more comp restrictions to limit whatever wins the no-flyer tournament...

nkelsch wrote:
If you are an imperial player. My Codex, Orks, has no battle Brothers and Nids has no allies. My ADL costs the same as everyone else but is statistically inferior due to my BS. My max number of flyers in a force org is 3, and 2 of the 3 variants are useless against other flyers. It is kinda hard to tell and ork player that he needs to take an ADL, spam 3 dakkajets and take 10+ lootas just to have a hope at standing up to these 5+ flyer armies. And then the rest of his list is that much poorer for having to invest in so much AA which isn't even that good at AA in the first place. To play in a tourney, the best static is to keep your head down and pray you don't face flyer spam... that is not fair to players and not fun when people don't have the units or the rules at their disposal to play fair games because GW doesn't maintain their game.

Have you actually played 6th edition? This all reads like the chicken littling going on before the book was released.

Orks don't use flyers to counter flyers. They clog the board and take advantage of flyers' forced movement. Green Tide is better now, if anything, because of flyer movement and Fearless changes. If flyers really make you pee yourself, ally in a pair of Scythes for anti-flyer and late game objective grabbing.

As for allies, Orks have one of the best set ups around. Necrons, CSM and Tau are all solid options. Battle Brothers aren't the be-all, end-all. All you really need from allies are the right units and some extra scoring.

The super scary flyerspam lists don't win GTs. They will punish 5th ed lists and bad players, but they're too lopsided to win out against good players with balanced lists. Again, real experience trumps regurgitating net wisdom.

nkelsch wrote:

 Kwosge wrote:
. Remember that you can ally with just about anyone. Some on those 'anyones' have flyers. So take an allied flyer. I do.

If you are an imperial player. My Codex, Orks, has no battle Brothers and Nids has no allies. My ADL costs the same as everyone else but is statistically inferior due to my BS. My max number of flyers in a force org is 3, and 2 of the 3 variants are useless against other flyers. It is kinda hard to tell and ork player that he needs to take an ADL, spam 3 dakkajets and take 10+ lootas just to have a hope at standing up to these 5+ flyer armies. And then the rest of his list is that much poorer for having to invest in so much AA which isn't even that good at AA in the first place. To play in a tourney, the best static is to keep your head down and pray you don't face flyer spam... that is not fair to players and not fun when people don't have the units or the rules at their disposal to play fair games because GW doesn't maintain their game.

If I was allowed to take flakka trukks, My Codex copes much more easily... It allows me to defend myself against air while keeping with the synergy of an assault army and KFF opposed to Dakkajets which really screw with Ork gameplans, especially when you have Ghaz and use his Waaagh for ork actions and his 2++ and you practically need waaaaghshooting for dakkajets to reliably take down other flyers. Hell, Ork Kannons with the skyfire missiles which no one has would have also worked.

Seems like simple codex updates from GW would have prepared an aging game system for fliers... and they missed the boat.

Don't get me started on how imbalanced and unfair the Allies matrix is...

Takes green tide no flyer has enough shots to statistically impact a mob of 30 boys

 captain collius wrote:


Takes green tide no flyer has enough shots to statistically impact a mob of 30 boys

Yes, we all know an unplayable extreme spam list is the best way to stay competitive against another unreasonable extreme spam list. But there are flyers who do a number on Orks, you just mean the flyers which are usually highpowered, accurate single shot weapons for destroying tanks won't do much. But part of Green Tide's success is you bet on most people not taking the anti-troop variant of their weapon options due to the 3+ armor of the majority of the playerbase.

Green tide is statistically sound but logistically unfeasible... Not to mention we are back to telling players to drop 300$ on new models or they should accept to have their throats kicked in.

Green tide is basically impossible to play in any timed event or tourney and even if you are a master of model-moving proportions, most opponents will get annoyed watching you move models while he does nothing, even if you are fast about it. And the people who are the first to say 'Play better buy buying a better army' will be the first to accuse you of 'slow play' and demand equal time which the game is also not designed for and 'equal time' is just another form of comp as you are forcing players to stay within an arbitrary average time for all armies per phase so extremely fast or extremely slow armies are punished.

There is already so much comp in competitive play which requires modifications to the ruleset. Points values and time limits are also comp, Every version of an event FAQ is comp. You can't get away from it.

Yeah and of course you can just carpet the table with green tide and literally give the fliers nowhere to go. The fact of the matter is the sheer dominance of Space Wolves and the complete shutdown of 2/3 of the builds that JotWW causes did more to hamper Nids than fliers ever can or will. As much as I hate what Crudface did to Nids, flyer armies are nowhere near as impactful as the SW codex was.

You can also play LOS for flyers 'correctly' where they only have a 45 degree arc and that means 22 degrees down, which gives them huge blindspots, but yet I still see people basically loading up on flyers, angling them custom angles because 'flyers are dynamic' and shooting at models which they shouldn't be able to see in their LOS.

They have added their own version of COMP by using a house rule. I have to say the argument over vertical LOS, modifying flight stems and how flyers should be 'dynamic' has come up in every tourney I have seen in the past 6th months. It was the only shouting match I saw at NOVA where the people next to me got into a huge fight about it.

I don't think such a rule would fly. Who with me?

Why not ban Fast Attack units too, because not all armies have good choices there.

 undertow wrote:
Why not ban Fast Attack units too, because not all armies have good choices there.

GW already did that at 'ard boyz by making a mission designed to auto-lose 'fast' units which move over 6" in a single phase. And people still claimed it was the most competitive tourney ever run and proof why comp is uneeded.

 undertow wrote:
Why not ban Fast Attack units too, because not all armies have good choices there.

Banning troops choices might be better. The sheer unbalanced nature of the different troops choices per codex is staggering. That's it, I vote we ban the troops choices too.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 undertow wrote:
Why not ban Fast Attack units too, because not all armies have good choices there.

Banning troops choices might be better. The sheer unbalanced nature of the different troops choices per codex is staggering. That's it, I vote we ban the troops choices too.

Good call, I forgot about how good some troop choices are.

 Phazael wrote:
Yeah and of course you can just carpet the table with green tide and literally give the fliers nowhere to go.

Of course even if this wins it's an incredibly boring strategy. Instead of a wargame with shooting and movement and back and forth action you reduce it to a game of "fill the table with models, and hope you can't kill them fast enough" while doing no damage back to your opponent.

Not actually at all representative of how a high model count army works.

While horde lists do take more time to play, and thus you have to practice and work hard to fit in full games in with tournament time limits, they are certainly viable and interesting armies. They can be great spoilers, and along with multi-flyer forces, are one of the clear obvious strong build concepts in 6th. Green tide, Tyranid horde with spawning, IG blobs (with or without SM allies), etc. All can put a significant enough number of bodies on the table to absorb a lot of firepower and restrict flyer movement.

Remember actually COVERING the table is an exaggeration. It's actually about covering important areas and positioning so that you get within flyers' forward blind spots, to force them to fly over their preferred targets or slow to hover (if they can), thus either losing turns of fire or slowing down so they can be killed.

Chumbalaya and I usually aren't on the same page, but on this topic I have to agree with him.

In what game, exactly, is a Green Tide not capable of damaging their opponent? It is certainly not 40k.

Not my first pick. I enjoy playing with and against flyers. They are part of the game now.

With that being said, I would still play in it, IF there were no other options around the same time frame.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Phazael wrote:
Yeah and of course you can just carpet the table with green tide and literally give the fliers nowhere to go.

Of course even if this wins it's an incredibly boring strategy. Instead of a wargame with shooting and movement and back and forth action you reduce it to a game of "fill the table with models, and hope you can't kill them fast enough" while doing no damage back to your opponent.

Even if you never fire a shot and simply win by "filling" the board, by denying the flyers the ability to move over 18 and causing them to crash you are damaging the enemy. Simply because you are causing damage to your opponents forces in a passive way doesn't mean you aren't damaging them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
In what game, exactly, is a Green Tide not capable of damaging their opponent? It is certainly not 40k.

The kind that exists purely on internet forums.

 Monster Rain wrote:
In what game, exactly, is a Green Tide not capable of damaging their opponent? It is certainly not 40k.

I'm talking about the proposed anti-flyer strategy of "cover the table and sit on objectives". You might win, but it's boring as hell because all you can do is remove casualties until the game ends and you win.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
Even if you never fire a shot and simply win by "filling" the board, by denying the flyers the ability to move over 18 and causing them to crash you are damaging the enemy. Simply because you are causing damage to your opponents forces in a passive way doesn't mean you aren't damaging them.

I mean damaging as in "using your guns effectively, then charging something while yelling WAAAAAAGH!!!!!!", not just passively removing casualties and exploiting stupid problems* in the flyer rules to auto-kill them. It might work and win games, but it isn't fun, and there's something seriously wrong with the game if it's a serious proposal.



*It makes no sense that a fighter jet flying a thousand feet above the battlefield would crash because an ork is standing underneath its flight path. You're just exploiting a rule that only exists because of the reality of playing a game where flyers have to sit on bases on the table and can't be placed on top of someone's delicate models.

If you want to play without Flyers, just allow FW. Be sure to also allow proxying FW models so people can make the switch easily. Flyers will become obsolete in only a few cycles thanks to the various highly unbalanced Skyfire/Interceptor options, and once the local meta adapts you won't have to worry about them. Dæmons and drop pod armies will get screwed too, but it sounds like you don't care about preserving everyone's list integrity anyway, since you'd prefer to disallow flyer-based armies, which are a fair subset of 6th edition play.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
In what game, exactly, is a Green Tide not capable of damaging their opponent? It is certainly not 40k.

I'm talking about the proposed anti-flyer strategy of "cover the table and sit on objectives". You might win, but it's boring as hell because all you can do is remove casualties until the game ends and you win.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
Even if you never fire a shot and simply win by "filling" the board, by denying the flyers the ability to move over 18 and causing them to crash you are damaging the enemy. Simply because you are causing damage to your opponents forces in a passive way doesn't mean you aren't damaging them.

I mean damaging as in "using your guns effectively, then charging something while yelling WAAAAAAGH!!!!!!", not just passively removing casualties and exploiting stupid problems* in the flyer rules to auto-kill them. It might work and win games, but it isn't fun, and there's something seriously wrong with the game if it's a serious proposal.



*It makes no sense that a fighter jet flying a thousand feet above the battlefield would crash because an ork is standing underneath its flight path. You're just exploiting a rule that only exists because of the reality of playing a game where flyers have to sit on bases on the table and can't be placed on top of someone's delicate models.

Umm... We are playing a game based in a medieval scifi future, how does "sense" even enter into it? By your logic it makes no sense that superhuman Space Marines would die in large numbers to blobs of guardsmen whom they should just shred through. Does that mean IG blobs should be banned too? Does it mean that if I play an IG blob I am just exploiting a rules quirk that allows Space Marines to die too easily to normal humans? Lets not try to bring reality into this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:
If you want to play without Flyers, just allow FW. Be sure to also allow proxying FW models so people can make the switch easily. Flyers will become obsolete in only a few cycles thanks to the various highly unbalanced Skyfire/Interceptor options, and once the local meta adapts you won't have to worry about them. Dæmons and drop pod armies will get screwed too, but it sounds like you don't care about preserving everyone's list integrity anyway, since you'd prefer to disallow flyer-based armies, which are a fair subset of 6th edition play.

Which is why allowing FW basically takes you back to playing 5th edition. Flyers are not worth taking, Drop pod armies and Daemons aren't good, and IG, GK, and SW are once again top of the heap.

Generally what I am getting out of a lot of this is that people don't want to adapt to the "meta" and want to be able to play whatever they want and win...

Sorry the game does not work that way, I cannot field armies of bad units and expect to win.

That said to the OP if your local group wants to run without flyers that is up to your group and no one else.

IF you are looking at transitioning I would say to do something like limit flyers per army to a particular number (1, 2 ,3 whatever.) for one tournament, then up the number each event after that allowing players to adapt more slowly.

 Ovion wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Yes. It probably limits standard marines (like my MWs) as much as anyone because we have the fewest options in the "troop" category.

I like the idea but in practice I would not want to be sisters of battle.

I don't know... Yes they only have BSS squads for troops, but forced 2 means you get to take more other toys.

2 HQ, 2-3 Elites, 2 Troops, 2-3 Fast Attack and 2-3 Heavies wouldn't be difficult to do at 1500pts , and wouldn't be bad xD. And worse case, there's always allies for 2 more troops if you have a burning need for more.

It'd be rather interesting actually, and I'd quite happily take part

Two troop choices , you've got to be fething kidding , make it even easier for my guard to Win , 2 troop choices are 2 fully kited infantry platoons , which are dirt cheap and leave me with a 5:1 numbers advantage , in trying to change the game is stupid , improvise , adapt and overcome - if you don't adapt you die