Eldar doing just as strong as predicted
3 eldar on top 8
2 necron (shocker)
1 space marine battle co
1 dark angel space wolf list (kinda funny in respect to current campaign)
1 chaos demon

No tau! Maybe need bat was a little to strong.
Overall the results are kinda predictable the other 2 in top 10 was eldar and necron again. There is a couple token dark eldar formations but they aren't really the focus on any of the above lists. Abc as strong as warp spider spam still is I'm kinda glad about thd ITC rule on them.

And final four is 2 eldar, demons, and battle co

What?! No Tau in top 8? But they were OP? And even after all the nerfs people loudly claimed they had several strong units/formations.
I am shocked, shocked i tell you.

Anyway, i for one welcome our new metallic overlords!

Round 7 finishes. 2 Eldar, a Daemon, and Battle Company left. Basically as expected imo

Great live stream, for the record.

Tau Unit or Formation - ITC Ruling

Ghostkeel - Changed

Stormsurge - Changed

Hunter Contingent- Changed

Optimised Stealth Cadre - Changed by default

Riptide Wing - Not Changed

Piranha Formation - Changed

Drone Network - Not Changed

These are the new things we got that are good and what ITC voted or did to them prior to this event. The fact that Tau did not top 8 despite having a new codex is not surprising and these issues will most likely be addressed and there is a thread where you can discuss your issues.

I am not sure if any of the big names actaully brought Tau but the good Tau players did not have an OP formation such as the Necron Decurion Detachment to use because our formation had its power taken from it. Our only hope was probably a riptide wing or a list that took the forge world riptides but thats besides the point.

To the players that did top 8 job well done! Anyone knows who won the tournament?

I'd say tau could have been in the top 8 if any of the guys currently there were playing them. Seriously...a lot of familiar names there. They're playing on the final day for a reason.

I agree with you voidwraith which is the reason why you should not nerf a formation for everyone because you see one of the best players decimate another good or average player with it in a battle report.

Even if a known great player is decimated the next game after he has played a new formation will be totally different. A formation should be nerfed after it has consistently affected the tournament scene not because you think its over power or a few games!

The best eldar units getting bs 5 for the tax of buying a sergent has won more touranments than I can count. There is no one raising flags, so the idea of nerfing Tau before it has accomplished anything is almost idiotic in my opinion and is one of the reason why I left 40k for a year or two. No one gets credit for winning a tournament with a formation that was broken! Its like winning a card game tournament with the banned cards after the tournament no one is going to give you any credit which lets be honest the reason why we go to these events we do not benefit in any other way from winning. You have alot of fun but winning to gain recognition from your peers is why you go!

But once more I am interested to know if there were any new comers among the top 8 or if it was the same guys!

There were Tau players on Table 3 and 4 of the last round of the LVO before the Top 8, they both lost and didn't make top 8. Had the games gone slightly differently we'd have two Tau in the top 8, it's not that Tau are bad, it's just the got a little unlucky in the last round before top 8.

Also, the finals are now double Eldar, who had more or equal entries in the top 8 as the Imperium, but clearly the ITC is Imperium biased.

Edit: Oh, and here's another fun one, there was no War Convocation in contention for the top 8 at all going into the last round, so they did worse than Tau as a whole...

Top placing armies are and always have been totally irrelevant in terms of being meaningful metrics for what armies are good. The same players would have, as often as not, done about as well in the upper standings so long as they took a highly optimized list.

MVBrandt wrote:
Top placing armies are and always have been totally irrelevant in terms of being meaningful metrics for what armies are good. The same players would have, as often as not, done about as well in the upper standings so long as they took a highly optimized list.

Top players also don't play Uncompetitive armies. There is a reason why Sean didn't play tyranids and instead chose eldar this time.

gungo wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Top placing armies are and always have been totally irrelevant in terms of being meaningful metrics for what armies are good. The same players would have, as often as not, done about as well in the upper standings so long as they took a highly optimized list.

Top players also don't play Uncompetitive armies. There is a reason why Sean didn't play tyranids and instead chose eldar this time.

I didn't say it wasn't somewhat useful for helping identify which armies are bad.

I fully believe Sean could have competed with Lictor shame again...probably just felt like a new list for a new challenge.

Of course...I don't know him at all, so.....

I doubt it
Lictor shame is almost a 3 year old list he made and tyranids are one of the oldest codexs currently and no tyranid list was even close to the finals. I'm not saying he wouldn't of done well with tyranids but there is a reason it's a eldar vs eldar tournament.

No, it's two phenomenal players. In both cases, they had plenty of close calls against other phenoms who lost by the barest of margins not playing Eldar. Which isn't to say Eldar aren't super good. But you can't really credit the codex much when your final is Harrison and Nayden.

 Voidwraith wrote:
I fully believe Sean could have competed with Lictor shame again...probably just felt like a new list for a new challenge.

Of course...I don't know him at all, so.....

Sean took the corpsethief claw formation so he gets a victory point for every unit he kills in assault which almost guarantees him the maelstrom mission every game.

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
I fully believe Sean could have competed with Lictor shame again...probably just felt like a new list for a new challenge.

Of course...I don't know him at all, so.....

Sean took the corpsethief claw formation so he gets a victory point for every unit he kills in assault which almost guarantees him the maelstrom mission every game.

I don't know Sean but it seems he has the gift to identify amazing things such as his Lictor Shame List and now he has found this claw formation that in certain matchups almost guarantees a victory! I mean he faces a gladius strike force he gets a victory point for killing a free rhino! Wow, that seems broken but I am not familiar with the formation and I cant say for sure as the units in it may be slackers!

But if that formation has the good units and they get free victory points for destroying stuff, how did something that powerful not get voted on! The answer is that only the things that they feel are over powered are voted on! Which is another flaw in this voting system they have, good players are going to find the broken stuff regardless of your effort!

So in conclusion Sean ability to find these gems is the thing I am trying to highlight here!

Good job, Sean!

Well it's looking like eldar need some more nerfs now. The twitch was a lot of fun to watch.

Playing lists that aren't top tier, but rather home brew, has always been a pro-player past time in any game. Not every player will do it, but there will always be those that Top 8 with wacky stuff, we only don't see it in 40k as much because there aren't that many events. In more popular games like Magic or Hearthstone people like Brian Kibler or Patrick Chapin have a long history of bringing "sub-par" things to pro-tours, grand prix, and even Worlds, and making top 8. Some of those things even went on to break the format once enough people got their hands on it and refined it more, despite it being considered a "pet project" at first.

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
I fully believe Sean could have competed with Lictor shame again...probably just felt like a new list for a new challenge.

Of course...I don't know him at all, so.....

Sean took the corpsethief claw formation so he gets a victory point for every unit he kills in assault which almost guarantees him the maelstrom mission every game.

Only in assault though. Didn't look like he got many from them in the 2 streams he was on, so theres that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Playing lists that aren't top tier, but rather home brew, has always been a pro-player past time in any game. Not every player will do it, but there will always be those that Top 8 with wacky stuff, we only don't see it in 40k as much because there aren't that many events. In more popular games like Magic or Hearthstone people like Brian Kibler or Patrick Chapin have a long history of bringing "sub-par" things to pro-tours, grand prix, and even Worlds, and making top 8. Some of those things even went on to break the format once enough people got their hands on it and refined it more, despite it being considered a "pet project" at first.

What was sub par in the top 8?

The necron list had wacky stuff. It was a bunch of random units with an obelisk, and I heard another necron player basically say 'how'd he win with that?'.

I'm not really in the tourney loop so this might be obvious, but man those top lists look MSU-heavy! Especially the winning list, of course. Lists are halfway down this page:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/02/07/lvo-40k-championships-day-3-live-blog/

It was really neat being able to watch the live stream in Super Bowl breaks . Love Sean Nayden's weird list ideas!

 DarkLink wrote:
The necron list had wacky stuff. It was a bunch of random units with an obelisk, and I heard another necron player basically say 'how'd he win with that?'.

I mean, it's not "random". Praetorians are quite good overall, as are Deathmarks, they can all Deep Strike and shoot relatively well. The Obelisk/Monolith formation is a bit odd, but it lets you almost null deploy and start plopping down stuff responsively.

Null Deploy armies seemed to be quite the rage in this format (and possibly in general?), so I would imagine it was basically just using Living Tomb to deal with that or mimic it. I don't know if that's the best way to run an army like that, but it's not a bad way to do so. The Obelisk is also very good at taking out MSU units, with lots of S7 shooting.

I would like to see what opponents he ran against. I don't know how this would have dealt with Eldar. Deathmarks have a decent shot at killing a WK outright on the Deep Strike, but it doesn't have much else to do against one, and it doesn't have the mobility or range to deal with Warp Spiders jumping in and out.

 RiTides wrote:
I'm not really in the tourney loop so this might be obvious, but man those top lists look MSU-heavy! Especially the winning list, of course. Lists are halfway down this page:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/02/07/lvo-40k-championships-day-3-live-blog/

It was really neat being able to watch the live stream in Super Bowl breaks . Love Sean Nayden's weird list ideas!

The ITC missions are biased towards armies that are good at scoring. Every mission has modified maelstorm, 4 of 6 primaries are 4+ objectives, etc. There are a lot of nuances that favor highly mobile armies with lots of scoring units.

 DarkLink wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
I'm not really in the tourney loop so this might be obvious, but man those top lists look MSU-heavy! Especially the winning list, of course. Lists are halfway down this page:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/02/07/lvo-40k-championships-day-3-live-blog/

It was really neat being able to watch the live stream in Super Bowl breaks . Love Sean Nayden's weird list ideas!

The ITC missions are biased towards armies that are good at scoring. Every mission has modified maelstorm, 4 of 6 primaries are 4+ objectives, etc. There are a lot of nuances that favor highly mobile armies with lots of scoring units.

Yup.

Tournament missions generally favor some builds over others. The maelstrom objectives in the LVO format places a premium on a lot of fast moving scoring units.

I was one of the Tau players (table 3) playing to get into top 8. The changes to tau definitely hurt them, and some would benefit from a vote I feel.

That being said, I missed top 8 because I played against Alan, good friend, fellow ETC team member, and the guy that made it to the semi-finals and won the ITC season. That game was not a loss due to the Tau nerfs, it was a truly atrocious matchup and not one that tau handle very well, and it showed. Tau are still a good book, but they have been hit a bit hard in the rulings and would benefit from a second look going forward. I'm unsure the voting will help them out a lot as Tau have a smaller palyerbase than eldar or space marines, but it's definitely worth a shot.
Cheers to Reece and the FLG crew - it was a great event, ran extremely smoothly, and I had a blast.

 Red Corsair wrote:

What was sub par in the top 8?

In this top 8, not that much, though things like the Monolith and Obelisk are considered such by many people.

The idea isn't that it's actually sub-par, but rather it's seen as such until used in the right way. The idea is that you take something off the wall and different, and win the event, or at least top 8, as it's much more memorable than bringing what's known as good. Plus you get a surprise factor.

Again, Brian Kibler's Caw-Blade deck was seen as a fun pet deck that was sub-par, and it was better to play the UB Control deck... Then it was refined for a while by the player base and ended up getting the first bans in standard in the ten years of Magic since the previous bans in that format. Think about that, ten years without any bans, and this "cute pet project" that isn't seen as serious at first forces bans in the future.

Edit: The play mat Kibler inspired:

I am a really good player from the past I have played the panjamas guy place in top eights and all that jazz! I decided to quit because I didn't like how GW was jacking up the prices for no reason. In the past 2 years I have gone to maybe 4 tournaments just to see if I still had it I placed first in one event third in another so I know I am still good but I have never won the big one! I have the itch to play again mainly because of my friend and I have come close but never won. I decide to come out of retirement and all the tournaments around me is using ITC I investigate it and I love it! Than when Tau comes out the army I was plan on using to make my quote on quote come back with it is nerf to hell! I haven't even bought a single model!

So needless to say I am frustrated with Tau's treatment but in reality I don't have a single model just the codex, I am really a marine player! My criticism is not based off of the fact that they made my stuff not as good its because its just not right! If I am going to invest large amounts of cash into this game again (because GW has made it impossible not to) and I am to attend tournaments where the rules are decided by a political process I want my voice to be heard!

I use marines which based off of my research when it comes to voting they seem to get the most love! I am not trying to gain an unfair advantage when I play these big names again because I will be playing these big names once more and if I am able to win, I want it to be because I was the better player that day!

This comment that the ITC favors scoring units is not fair because as a player it is your job to figure out what to bring! If you know that its best to bring a lot of scoring units than why don't you bring a lot of scoring units to the tournament? Each tournament has something like this so make a list to take advantage of it. I know you are going to say what if my army isn't good at doing that well be like the players that top 8 have multiple armies!

So it is up to you to decide what is best to bring to win an ITC tournament if you know what it is just do it! I am a big critic but that's not fair to the ITC now if you were to say all of my scoring units are not as good because of a rule change that the ITC implemented than you have a case!

The things that won is exactly as I predicted, I mean Eldar with scatbikes and bs 5 fire dragons or warp spiders. I mean you get to choose which one you want to use and all you have to do is pay for a sergent who is going to give you another special rule! Combine that with the fact that the codex has the best unit in the game the wraithknight you can not be surprise at the results and the fact that all list are similar.

Do not mistaken that to mean that they only won because they took Eldar, I am saying that the best players made the decision to use Eldar and that validates why Eldar is the best codex to use for the ITC. And was the reason why I was slowly building an Eldar army!

Now to the average player, I will explain why the Necrons did so well! A 4+ save followed by another 4+ save is literally crazy! My friend used to use something similar except it was better as it had a 4+ invulnerable that he could re-roll but that was Seer council and it was one unit. Necrons can do this for an entire army! You shouldn't be surprised at all when a great player has this type of durability places in the top 8. Most players don't know how to handle that type of durability! The only reason why Eldar is better is because they have the wraithknight who just charges them and that's the end of the conversation! However the 4+ re-roll I am talking about is the Necron Warriors what about the other stuff that have a 3+ save and are t5 they get a 3+ followed by the 4+. So to be surprised that the Necrons did so well means you don't know the game that well. There isn't a single list in the top 8 that you should be surprised by and the one that had the sniper necron unit is a stroke of genius to handle those wraithknights!

Anyway Kenpachi is back and I will most likely be coming to a top table near you! And I will be a critic of everything that ITC does if it is going to impact what I can play which has an impact on my wallet as well. So please do not mistaken me for a bad guy I am just willing to play this theory craft game before votes to try to influence players to make the right decision especially if it is going to impacted what players play which I know affects their wallets.

Especially when it comes to Tau the army I want to make my comeback with but, if the voters vote a certain way strike force it is!

Target wrote:
I was one of the Tau players (table 3) playing to get into top 8. The changes to tau definitely hurt them, and some would benefit from a vote I feel.

That being said, I missed top 8 because I played against Alan, good friend, fellow ETC team member, and the guy that made it to the semi-finals and won the ITC season. That game was not a loss due to the Tau nerfs, it was a truly atrocious matchup and not one that tau handle very well, and it showed. Tau are still a good book, but they have been hit a bit hard in the rulings and would benefit from a second look going forward. I'm unsure the voting will help them out a lot as Tau have a smaller palyerbase than eldar or space marines, but it's definitely worth a shot.
Cheers to Reece and the FLG crew - it was a great event, ran extremely smoothly, and I had a blast.

As a Grey Knight player, my heartfelt sympathies for "how hard your book has been hurt". It's a real shame you couldn't go into the event with a full power codex.

 DarkLink wrote:

Target wrote:
I was one of the Tau players (table 3) playing to get into top 8. The changes to tau definitely hurt them, and some would benefit from a vote I feel.

That being said, I missed top 8 because I played against Alan, good friend, fellow ETC team member, and the guy that made it to the semi-finals and won the ITC season. That game was not a loss due to the Tau nerfs, it was a truly atrocious matchup and not one that tau handle very well, and it showed. Tau are still a good book, but they have been hit a bit hard in the rulings and would benefit from a second look going forward. I'm unsure the voting will help them out a lot as Tau have a smaller palyerbase than eldar or space marines, but it's definitely worth a shot.
Cheers to Reece and the FLG crew - it was a great event, ran extremely smoothly, and I had a blast.

As a Grey Knight player, my heartfelt sympathies for "how hard your book has been hurt". It's a real shame you couldn't go into the event with a full power codex.

This is so ironic the recent tournaments that I have won with uses a Draigostar with centurions but it would not have been able to compete in a tournament such as the LVO. They cant make your codex good that's GW's job, but if your codex is capable of Top 8 but rule changes forces you to play something that is not as effective is another story! Which is unfortunately what happen to the good Tau players such as Target, I know it was done out of time restraints but, when it comes to things that are not even over powered such as the ability to make one unit snap fire! You can potentially do this 3 times but as a Judge you should see that it is good but not broken just because the average player cant see it doesn't mean nerf it on the spot! Things like that should not happen and I will do my best to influence the voters when these votes happen especially with Tau!

Oh no guys, everyone in the ITC votes fairly, reece even said the vote was close but fair. Nobody voted to nerf the tau decursion because that would make playing them easier. When have people ever taken the dirty route just because its easier? Nobody I know.

Good thing we nerfed tau though, I would have hated to see the status quo of marines, eldar and necrons be broken for the finals. Oh hey theres a demon player too.

 DarkLink wrote:

Target wrote:
I was one of the Tau players (table 3) playing to get into top 8. The changes to tau definitely hurt them, and some would benefit from a vote I feel.

That being said, I missed top 8 because I played against Alan, good friend, fellow ETC team member, and the guy that made it to the semi-finals and won the ITC season. That game was not a loss due to the Tau nerfs, it was a truly atrocious matchup and not one that tau handle very well, and it showed. Tau are still a good book, but they have been hit a bit hard in the rulings and would benefit from a second look going forward. I'm unsure the voting will help them out a lot as Tau have a smaller palyerbase than eldar or space marines, but it's definitely worth a shot.
Cheers to Reece and the FLG crew - it was a great event, ran extremely smoothly, and I had a blast.

As a Grey Knight player, my heartfelt sympathies for "how hard your book has been hurt". It's a real shame you couldn't go into the event with a full power codex.

I'm not sure how this kind of comment or sentiment is at all productive. Grey Knights spent years on top, and now they're suffering a bit for it as GW toned them down, or didn't continue increasing their power (you choose) and they've been left behind a bit. None of that has anything to do with the treatment of another book. The point is codices should be evaluated after testing, and treated equally, and if you were to examine Tau vs Eldar, Tau vs SM, Tau vs Ravenwing, Tau vs Demons, or Tau vs 5th Ed GKs, that's not the case. The important part here is not to start a community trend of 'new book sounds crazy, we must stop it!". Because frankly, they all sound crazy at first.

My post just clarified, 1) Tau are still good, even with some power downs,

2) the reason Tau missed top 8 since I was one of the players who nearly made it actually did *not* have anything to do with the nerfs, my game was lost due to other reasons unrelated to any faqs/nerfs/changes/what have you

and 3) Some of the power downs should likely come up for a vote, which the ITC folks have already said they plan to do post LVO. They needed an answer in time for LVO, and there wasn't time to vote it all - that's fine, they'll just do it in the coming months.

Edit: And as a sidenote, the other tau player vying for top 8 was Tom, who I played at the end of day 1 to a draw in KPs. His army was basically completely unaffected by the ITC faq, as he ran stormsurges/riptide wing/etc. He didn't use piranhas, ghostkeels, or coordinated firepower. He took a tough loss to a good opponent in the final round as well (Alex Fennel) with his necrons.

I'm not sure how this kind of comment or sentiment is at all productive. Grey Knights spent years on top, and now they're suffering a bit for it as GW toned them down, or didn't continue increasing their power (you choose) and they've been left behind a bit. None of that has anything to do with the treatment of another book.

I'm mostly just lamenting how it's a little silly for an army that's very much a 'have' to complain. None of the faqs were unreasonable given their last minute and temporary nature. Consider it a friendly jab .

Either way, it's great that you make those three points. Since those rulings, a small group of Tau players have been, well, making the rest of the Tau players look bad. I was chatting with some of the frontline guys, they've actually recieved death threat emails, as absurd as that it. Not that they think any are genuine, but it's kinda sad to think about.

@CKO
You've got a thread to complain about the ITC votes on tau. This isn't it.

@Darklink
Some of us still feel the pain of 5e PsyFileMan Dreadnaughts. To ease your pain, reminisce about 2012 and a No Hull Points 5e world, okay?

Love u, Gordy

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
On Topic:


The Good:
The smart play of having food in the venue to avoid hunting about for casino food. That was good.
Tables and Terrain. Great.
Scoring system (ipad/tablets)
Pairing times in between games and it being on line. No need to announce.
Judging Staff


The Bad:
a. We needed a free water carafe/station. Dinky, wee little, pricey bottles at the bar was horse poo.
b. The number set up as well as the Hard-to-Read Markers. Cool lookin' Elvis in power armor, but they required a close up and squint and often the light glared out the number. And how'd the cardinal count get split in mid-room? Printed numbers on paper are they way to go, and cheaper.
c. absence of s.w.a.g.
d. Far more importantly, where was Mariana?

To Improve:
Seth hollering announcements has to go. Even at the BAO venue, where the size was small enough for him to be heard, it's ineffective. As a teacher I know about making announcements to big groups of people and he does not have the technique (wait until people are actually paying attention) to be effective. Having attended the other two LVOs and three BAOs, he may as well save his voice.

Maybe a Twitter account for the officials to release statements?

Common Reece, you once acknowledged me as the "Loud Guy" and I'm pretty sure most folks heard me bellow Julio's name Round 2. You wanna make an announcement? You come to me.

 Brothererekose wrote:
@CKO
You've got a thread to complain about the ITC votes on tau. This isn't it.

why would I complain about Tau when I don't own a single model! Dude, I am not complaining I am trying to help I just pointed out some flaws. I talked about Tau because people started asking if Tau top 8. My post before me commenting on someone else post was mainly about Eldar and Necrons, look dude I win regardless if they vote to keep it one way I will use another army its not that big of a deal but, it is a major issue for other players. I am complaining out of courtesy for people that went out and spent close to 100 dollars for ghostkeels only to have it made weaker. Its still good and you can win with it but if I spend 390 for 3 of them I want to use the special rule 3 times I think that's fair. I am not complaining I am sorry I come off that way but its not the case.

This is caused because we are making post instead of talking in person, you would be able to tell the difference between me complaining and me pointing out why something is flawed if this was a face to face conversation. I have friends that think its fair because people vote on it and I am like that's absolutely false!

Typical British list won - you see a lot of spider spam here

Although it was a bummer about the Eldar vs Eldar final, it was totally awesome seeing the 5 Talos in there even if it was for the formation special rules. Nice thinking outside the box by Sean Nayden again!

I do think, as Target says, some of the rulings made just for this event should (and will!) but put up for vote in the next round of ITC voting, so hopefully that will tweak things a bit

Overall the online / streaming coverage they had of this event was awesome - thanks to everyone who was involved in that!!

Yeah, was a fantastic weekend to watch. Really happy to see the (relative) balance among the new books that have been released, at least in ITC's format. Really cool to see some very unique lists as well like those integrating Living Tomb and Corpsethief Claw.

Top 16 we saw:
War Convocation
Space Marines
Dark Angels
Space Wolves
Tau
Eldar
Necrons
Daemons
... and Dark Eldar??? lolol

I'm not sure where any Ork players ended up, but without a doubt way ahead of where they were without the Big Mek Stompa. Did any KDK make it into Top 16?

The stream was absolutely fantastic other than a few hiccups, and moderating chat was actually really easy... very little trolling other than perhaps a bit too much hate being thrown toward Steve Sisk.

Edit: Full results @ http://bcp.modelingforadvantage.com/event/lvo2016.

 Drinkgasoline wrote:
Typical British list won - you see a lot of spider spam here

The last game was close basically a tie decided by points remaining. However still impressive considering warp spiders are rightfully nerfed in the ITC to one jump a turn.

I'm still surprised at how well necrons did.

It's too bad kill points are less meaningful in the game now. So many events run objective heavy games making these spam units popular. Make Kill points bear heavy on games again and I think you will see much more balance. That marine list has almost 30 kill points and a crap ton of OS. I like the idea of the Razorbacks with all the shooting too but a list like that will struggle when KP become a major objective.

Sean's has been running that corpsethief formation for a while now. I ran into a few guys at Nova last year that stated he was running it and kicking butt with it. It has soooo much shooting and is also harsh in CC. It was another good find by Sean heheh

Frankie was playing Corpsethief Claw before switching to WS Gladius and Tau. Solid formation, easily wins games by itself.

What was Aaron Aleong doing with Azrael? I see that as a non-meta choice in Wolfstar.

Also, which war host core is this? One of the FW ones? I feel the Craftworld book taxes in more Vypers?

Breazeal wrote:
Also, which war host core is this? One of the FW ones? I feel the Craftworld book taxes in more Vypers?

Yeah, that's one of the new FW ones. It's 1 Farseer, 3 Guardian Defender units, 0-1 Warlock councils, but then you choose a "discipline" that changes the Guardians to 0-3 and makes 3 Aspect Warriors mandatory. So he put in Warp Spiders, which makes sense.

I think they messed up in the article and those D-Cannon Batteries were in the CAD.

I got crushed by Alex Harrison's warp spider list. He is a solid player.

Azrael gives the wolfstar a 4++.

I was very impressed by the logistical aspects of the tournament. The signs were a tad tricky though.

The water situation was not good. I know they got billed a TON of money one of the years for running water in the venue so maybe that factored in.

I know the itc mission structure is popular, but going second is so unbelievably over powered especially with that volume of terrain. I hope FLG continues to make positive changes to the mission structure.

eltrain728 wrote:
I got crushed by Alex Harrison's warp spider list. He is a solid player.

Azrael gives the wolfstar a 4++.

I was very impressed by the logistical aspects of the tournament. The signs were a tad tricky though.

The water situation was not good. I know they got billed a TON of money one of the years for running water in the venue so maybe that factored in.

I know the itc mission structure is popular, but going second is so unbelievably over powered especially with that volume of terrain. I hope FLG continues to make positive changes to the mission structure.

I think going to the book version of Maelstrom for scoring at the end of the player Turn would be a good way forward. Then going second still gives you the advantage in scoring the primary mission, but everyone has an equal chance at the Maelstrom.

The Maelstrom missions could use a little re-working too in my opinion. The current iteration makes static armies useless. The modified Maelstrom where cards are used, but scoring is done on a turn by turn basis for turn wins is an excellent approach in my opinion. It allows armies to use their special Maelstrom cards to do some of the scoring as well.

Anyone know what was in the War Convocation list?

Surprised there weren't any Knight lists higher up. I know they have some hard counters, but I have found 3 Knight armies to be really hard for lots of opponents to deal with.

I love ya FLG. This was a great event and I have some good memories. I didnt want to complain, but there are some situations I found that made it less enjoyable
1: water. It is damn hot in there. And 5$ for water that is the size of a soda can? People where filling those things up in the bathroom. Thats just wrong. Outside water should be allowed.
2: food. Im sorry but 15 for soggy chicken and soft waffle fries is just sad. Get better food or make it significantly cheaper. I was told vegas is expensive, but combos are the food court where better priced and tasted good.

 Stormcrow wrote:
Anyone know what was in the War Convocation list?

The highest ranked one was incontrol, he's list is in one of those live blog posts on frontlinegaming.

I'm interested in Michael Snider's necron list, I don't think it's been published anywhere. He seems to have narrowly missed the top 8, or so I'd assume as he's tied with Aleong (who made it with one loss) in the final scores.

Anyone know the highest ranking tyranid and what list he/she was playing? Cant find any lists more then the top 8 on the flg-site.

http://www.bestcoastpairings.com/r/lvo2016

Looks like the top Nid player was 43rd, they don't have lists for anything past 8th though.

Thank you. Ill have to creep the net for list/pictures then i guess.

While the food/water situation wasn't great and was the only negative for me, it was easy to get to the food court right in the hotel which was solid. Contracts for these places can be crazy, and if expensive water is the tradeoff for being in Ballys which was a huge upgrade from the Flamingo, I'm all for it. It was seriously a great venue and event space/hotel. Definitely one of my favorite events I've been to in a couple years, and had a ton of stuff for the wife and I to do as well.

What other event could I game during the day, and still do a helicopter tour of the grand canyon, cirque du soleil show at night, and a couple great dinners at excellent restaurants with large groups, plus all the rest that Vegas offers.

Will the ITC post all the lists in the tournament? If they don't want to can they at least mail me the lists and I'll spend the time typing them all up and matching them with placements and the like.

Target wrote:
While the food/water situation wasn't great and was the only negative for me, it was easy to get to the food court right in the hotel which was solid. Contracts for these places can be crazy, and if expensive water is the tradeoff for being in Ballys which was a huge upgrade from the Flamingo, I'm all for it. It was seriously a great venue and event space/hotel. Definitely one of my favorite events I've been to in a couple years, and had a ton of stuff for the wife and I to do as well.

What other event could I game during the day, and still do a helicopter tour of the grand canyon, cirque du soleil show at night, and a couple great dinners at excellent restaurants with large groups, plus all the rest that Vegas offers.

It was also almost triple the price to stay at ballys vs the flamingo

SocksOfDeath wrote:

Target wrote:
While the food/water situation wasn't great and was the only negative for me, it was easy to get to the food court right in the hotel which was solid. Contracts for these places can be crazy, and if expensive water is the tradeoff for being in Ballys which was a huge upgrade from the Flamingo, I'm all for it. It was seriously a great venue and event space/hotel. Definitely one of my favorite events I've been to in a couple years, and had a ton of stuff for the wife and I to do as well.

What other event could I game during the day, and still do a helicopter tour of the grand canyon, cirque du soleil show at night, and a couple great dinners at excellent restaurants with large groups, plus all the rest that Vegas offers.

It was also almost triple the price to stay at ballys vs the flamingo

I believe Flamingo was 79 whereas Bally's was 99 (+ hotel resort fees), but part of the reason for the price inflation had something to do with the Super Bowl being on the same weekend.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Will the ITC post all the lists in the tournament? If they don't want to can they at least mail me the lists and I'll spend the time typing them all up and matching them with placements and the like.

No, ITC did not take lists from the competitors.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

T.nid wrote:
Anyone know the highest ranking tyranid and what list he/she was playing? Cant find any lists more then the top 8 on the flg-site.

I don't know what the best Tyranid players's list was, but I do know the 2nd best Tyranid players' list. He came in at 48th, just 2-pts behind the Best Nid player, and he ran 5 Flyrants, 2 lictors, malanthrope, 3 Mawlocs and mucolids.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MLKTH wrote:

 Stormcrow wrote:
Anyone know what was in the War Convocation list?

The highest ranked one was incontrol, he's list is in one of those live blog posts on frontlinegaming.

I'm interested in Michael Snider's necron list, I don't think it's been published anywhere. He seems to have narrowly missed the top 8, or so I'd assume as he's tied with Aleong (who made it with one loss) in the final scores.

Actually, the highest ranked War Convo list at the LVO was Ben Cromwell, who ran 2 Imperial Knights along with his standard War Convo list. INcontrol was the top Admech player for the season but not at the LVO.

Michael Snider ran something along the lines of: Decurion + 2 Canoptek Harvests.

There were 3 ties for 8th, Michael, Aaron and Tyler Devries. Aaron advance due to a tougher strength of schedule.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Requizen wrote:
Surprised there weren't any Knight lists higher up. I know they have some hard counters, but I have found 3 Knight armies to be really hard for lots of opponents to deal with.

I actually played against a 3-Knight list. They blew away my 1 knight on Turn 1! I was basically playing that game with a 1400 list against an 1850 list. Lol. Anyways the knight lists were usually either 5 knights or just 1 knight. 3 knight lists just wasn't as common for some strange reason.

 kloma wrote:
Someone English is winning it

Freaking called it!

What jy2 said - flamingo was 80 per night, this was high 90's. Thats hardly triple, in my book they were almost the same price while the quality was infinitely better

Last year i paid $290 for 4 nights at the flamingo. This year i paid $570 for 4 nights. Not quite double, but close.

Michael snider's list was:

Decurion
160 overlord with void reaper, res orb, phase shifter
85 5 imortals gauss
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
132 6 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
65 5 flayed ones

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
60 3 canoptek scarabs
249 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
30 3 canoptek scarabs
60 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

GreaterGouda wrote:
Last year i paid $290 for 4 nights at the flamingo. This year i paid $570 for 4 nights. Not quite double, but close.

Michael snider's list was:

Decurion
160 overlord with void reaper, res orb, phase shifter
85 5 imortals gauss
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
132 6 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
65 5 flayed ones

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
60 3 canoptek scarabs
249 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
30 3 canoptek scarabs
60 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

Did you play against him? Curious as to what his tactics were against certain armies. 2 units of Wraiths is pretty nice until you come up against Grav spam or GCs/SHVs, at which point they lose a lot of their scariness.

Also, 5 FOs feels a lot like "I had 65 points left over and no other models" haha.

What was the Daemon list? Summoning shenanigans? Flying Circus? Loads of Houds?

I played him in round 6. He deployed his army just out of my shooting range and behind los blocking terrain. Then moved all the wraiths up behind los block terrain turn 1. And then crashed my lines turn 2. His army was super resilient. I played the mission entirely wrong and decided to take first turn like a noob. He out flanked the flayed ones. He said they were his line breaker squad. He had a great army, was a great opponent, and i hope to meet him on the table next year.

 Lou_Cypher wrote:
What was the Daemon list? Summoning shenanigans? Flying Circus? Loads of Houds?

Alan brought Screamerstar, Be'lakor, Fateweaver, and the D-thirster. Premise is simple - Screamerstar runs around summoning things, everything buffs the D-thirster so it's Invisible, 3++, and whatever other powers/rewards it rolls.

Unfortunately, in the semi-finals game, he got -1 to invulns on Warp Storm and the Screamerstar died to mass Warp Spider on T2. He nearly brought it back by just flying around Psychic-ing out the MSU while the D-thirster was still Invisible and killing things, but that hit was pretty damaging.

 jy2 wrote:

 MLKTH wrote:


The highest ranked one was incontrol, he's list is in one of those live blog posts on frontlinegaming.

Actually, the highest ranked War Convo list at the LVO was Ben Cromwell, who ran 2 Imperial Knights along with his standard War Convo list. INcontrol was the top Admech player for the season but not at the LVO.

That's just down to strength of schedule or some other tie breaker, right? They're tied at 13th place with (50)48 points.

Also, thanks GreaterGouda!

 jy2 wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Will the ITC post all the lists in the tournament? If they don't want to can they at least mail me the lists and I'll spend the time typing them all up and matching them with placements and the like.

No, ITC did not take lists from the competitors.

Blaaaaaaarg. I really hate how hard it is to track down good data with 40k events, having both the best and worst lists is vital to doing analysis... At least the top 50 would be helpful, as the top 8 is a microscopic amount of data.

GIVE ME YOUR LIST! GIVE IT TO ME NOW! I NEEDS IT!

GreaterGouda wrote:
I played him in round 6. He deployed his army just out of my shooting range and behind los blocking terrain. Then moved all the wraiths up behind los block terrain turn 1. And then crashed my lines turn 2. His army was super resilient. I played the mission entirely wrong and decided to take first turn like a noob. He out flanked the flayed ones. He said they were his line breaker squad. He had a great army, was a great opponent, and i hope to meet him on the table next year.

What were you playing?

One thing I notice about the ITC tables is just the pure amount of LOC blocking terrain. Adepticon runs a lot of area terrain, but generally only 1 or 2 things that can actually block sight to models, and rarely big models at that. If Wraiths can block high amounts of fire with terrain, they're basically unstoppable.

And yeah, Flayed Ones are so good, but depends on the matchup.

I was playing tau. My list was :

Drone net
16 marker drones

Ghostkeel wing
3 ghostkeel with ion raker, tl fusion and ewo

Riptide wing
5 riptides 3 ion 2 burst all ewo all sms 3 with fnp and 5 missile drones to defend against grav.

I really miss played my game against mike. I will know what to do next time though.

 MLKTH wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 MLKTH wrote:


The highest ranked one was incontrol, he's list is in one of those live blog posts on frontlinegaming.

Actually, the highest ranked War Convo list at the LVO was Ben Cromwell, who ran 2 Imperial Knights along with his standard War Convo list. INcontrol was the top Admech player for the season but not at the LVO.

That's just down to strength of schedule or some other tie breaker, right? They're tied at 13th place with (50)48 points.

Also, thanks GreaterGouda!

Yes. Tiebreaker was strength of schedule. Geoff lost Round 1 and got paired down. Ben didn't lose until Round 4 so had to play tougher opponents.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Requizen wrote:

GreaterGouda wrote:
I played him in round 6. He deployed his army just out of my shooting range and behind los blocking terrain. Then moved all the wraiths up behind los block terrain turn 1. And then crashed my lines turn 2. His army was super resilient. I played the mission entirely wrong and decided to take first turn like a noob. He out flanked the flayed ones. He said they were his line breaker squad. He had a great army, was a great opponent, and i hope to meet him on the table next year.

What were you playing?

One thing I notice about the ITC tables is just the pure amount of LOC blocking terrain. Adepticon runs a lot of area terrain, but generally only 1 or 2 things that can actually block sight to models, and rarely big models at that. If Wraiths can block high amounts of fire with terrain, they're basically unstoppable.

And yeah, Flayed Ones are so good, but depends on the matchup.

The LVO generally has 2 main pieces of larger BLOS terrain per table. There could be smaller ones but those are a little more random and you really can't hide larger units behind them.

GreaterGouda wrote:
Last year i paid $290 for 4 nights at the flamingo. This year i paid $570 for 4 nights. Not quite double, but close.

Michael snider's list was:

Decurion
160 overlord with void reaper, res orb, phase shifter
85 5 imortals gauss
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
130 10 warriors
105 ghost ark
132 6 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
110 5 tomb blades neb scope, shieldvane
65 5 flayed ones

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
60 3 canoptek scarabs
249 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

Canoptek harvest
50 canoptek spyder
30 3 canoptek scarabs
60 6 canoptek wraiths 3 whip coils

The price increase is what kept me from being able to attend this year. However, that isn't FLGs fault, Vegas is notoriously hard to book and they don't control the Super Bowl weekend or the weekend(s) available to them within their price point. Hopefully next year it will go back to a non super bowl weekend, but it really is out of their hands in many ways.

I made it a mission to go to vegas this year. I hated missing the second. It SUCKED. my friend let me stay in his room free of charge.
Im convincing my family to all come next time, so we split a room. im sure we can cram 10 people in a room.

Hey guys, since the FLG folks didn't collect army lists, and I want to get as much data as possible, can you please PM me your list and final standing (name doesn't hurt too) for the LVO if you were there? Any little bit helps, hopefully together we can at least fill out the top 50(53) players which had the following break down:



I obviously have access to the top 8, and a few random people in the top 53 who had their lists posted during coverage, but as a whole there are a lot of gaps D:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Hey guys, since the FLG folks didn't collect army lists, and I want to get as much data as possible, can you please PM me your list and final standing (name doesn't hurt too) for the LVO if you were there? Any little bit helps, hopefully together we can at least fill out the top 50(53) players which had the following break down:

Spoiler:

Eldar (13): 26%
Tau (7): 11%
Space Marines (7): 11%
Necrons (5): 9.4%
Dark Angels (5 out of 11 players): 9.4%
Renegades (5 out of 7 players!): 9.4%
Cult Mech (3): 5.6%
Daemons (3): 5.6%
Tyranids (2): 3.7%
Grey Knights (1): 1.8%
CSM (1): 1.8%
Inquisition (1): 1.8%
SoBs (1): 1.8%
Dark Eldar (1): 1.8%

I obviously have access to the top 8, and a few random people in the top 53 who had their lists posted during coverage, but as a whole there are a lot of gaps D:

What's your obsession with knowing so many of the lists?

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

The price increase is what kept me from being able to attend this year. However, that isn't FLGs fault, Vegas is notoriously hard to book and they don't control the Super Bowl weekend or the weekend(s) available to them within their price point. Hopefully next year it will go back to a non super bowl weekend, but it really is out of their hands in many ways.

Yeah, this is why the food/water in the convention center was so expensive. The hotel basically told Frontline 1) absolutely no outside food or drink allowed in and that's completely non-negotiable, 2) if they wanted to hotel to provide water, it would be on the order of ~$20,000 for the weekend, 3) if they found too many people sneaking drinks or snacks in they would charge frontline for it, and 4) if the hotel caterers didn't sell X amount of food, they would charge frontline the difference. Since there weren't any other venues that were both available and large enough to accommodate the LVO, frontline didn't have much of a choice.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Hey guys, since the FLG folks didn't collect army lists, and I want to get as much data as possible, can you please PM me your list and final standing (name doesn't hurt too) for the LVO if you were there? Any little bit helps, hopefully together we can at least fill out the top 50(53) players which had the following break down:

Spoiler:

Eldar (13): 26%
Tau (7): 11%
Space Marines (7): 11%
Necrons (5): 9.4%
Dark Angels (5 out of 11 players): 9.4%
Renegades (5 out of 7 players!): 9.4%
Cult Mech (3): 5.6%
Daemons (3): 5.6%
Tyranids (2): 3.7%
Grey Knights (1): 1.8%
CSM (1): 1.8%
Inquisition (1): 1.8%
SoBs (1): 1.8%
Dark Eldar (1): 1.8%

I obviously have access to the top 8, and a few random people in the top 53 who had their lists posted during coverage, but as a whole there are a lot of gaps D:

What's your obsession with knowing so many of the lists?

Knowledge is power?

I'm a Magic player, specifically a Vintage player, the Vintage community is about as small as the 40k community, and frankly it publishes every list ever on their version of Frontline Gaming or Dakka Dakka (The Manadrain) when an event is reported. It's a huge help to understanding the format as a whole and a great place to start for new players or players returning after a break, more so it's good for old players as they can see what's happening in the game as a whole.

I wouldn't just keep this to myself obviously, I'd set up some way for others to view it, because sharing this kind of information is vital. Though really it's just that, it's about studying trends, looking at meta changes, and more. The more informed we are as players, the better we can make the ITC after all.

Edit: Heck, I didn't even know Renegades were a thing until this event, just imagine having five lists from them too look at, or more? Also, others on here have requested some of these lists for their own interests, so that would help them too.

 DarkLink wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

The price increase is what kept me from being able to attend this year. However, that isn't FLGs fault, Vegas is notoriously hard to book and they don't control the Super Bowl weekend or the weekend(s) available to them within their price point. Hopefully next year it will go back to a non super bowl weekend, but it really is out of their hands in many ways.

Yeah, this is why the food/water in the convention center was so expensive. The hotel basically told Frontline 1) absolutely no outside food or drink allowed in and that's completely non-negotiable, 2) if they wanted to hotel to provide water, it would be on the order of ~$20,000 for the weekend, 3) if they found too many people sneaking drinks or snacks in they would charge frontline for it, and 4) if the hotel caterers didn't sell X amount of food, they would charge frontline the difference. Since there weren't any other venues that were both available and large enough to accommodate the LVO, frontline didn't have much of a choice.

I know that, but the least they could have done was sell good food. what we got was overpriced and just stuff we threw away at the food places
My hotdog had a stale bun and was undercooked, I was 5 minutes away from a match so I couldnt have done that.
My chicken was well, stale and cold.
Waffle Fries where just disgusting, no flavor.
The beer was the most decently priced thing in the hall
And whenever I walked by, I could smell the stuff they where heating.
I had a great weekend gaming, wonderfully great that i wouldnt trade for the world. But the food situation being so lackluster is a bit bad, I was getting better deals downstairs.

 DarkLink wrote:
Yeah, this is why the food/water in the convention center was so expensive. The hotel basically told Frontline 1) absolutely no outside food or drink allowed in and that's completely non-negotiable,

2) if they wanted to hotel to provide water, it would be on the order of ~$20,000 for the weekend,

3) if they found too many people sneaking drinks or snacks in they would charge frontline for it, and 4) if the hotel caterers didn't sell X amount of food, they would charge frontline the difference. Since there weren't any other venues that were both available and large enough to accommodate the LVO, frontline didn't have much of a choice.

That has got to be wrong. An extra zero, surely.

As for the 1, 3 and 4, yeah, I can see a venue being nasty to that degree.

@hotsauceman
For mass produced food, in warmers, it was on par. Already on top of a few beers, the hot dogs were fine. Tasty, like at a ball game.

well I didnt drink during the weekend. I just felt that for what we where paying, we should have gotten better.

 Brothererekose wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Yeah, this is why the food/water in the convention center was so expensive. The hotel basically told Frontline 1) absolutely no outside food or drink allowed in and that's completely non-negotiable,

2) if they wanted to hotel to provide water, it would be on the order of ~$20,000 for the weekend,

3) if they found too many people sneaking drinks or snacks in they would charge frontline for it, and 4) if the hotel caterers didn't sell X amount of food, they would charge frontline the difference. Since there weren't any other venues that were both available and large enough to accommodate the LVO, frontline didn't have much of a choice.

That has got to be wrong. An extra zero, surely.

As for the 1, 3 and 4, yeah, I can see a venue being nasty to that degree.

@hotsauceman
For mass produced food, in warmers, it was on par. Already on top of a few beers, the hot dogs were fine. Tasty, like at a ball game.

No, that 20,000 quote was direct from Reece. I still have trouble believing it, but, it is Vegas...

If accurate, it's probably because Vegas is in the desert and is always short on water. The nova open Hyatt does water all over the halls for free ... and is next to DC/the Potomac river. Geography plays a role in everything, unfortunately. I'm sure Reece would have paid for the water if it was only a couple grand.

IDK, all I know is that people where filling bottles up in the bathroom so.....yeah

Does no one here possess army bags? Drop army off in hall, take bag out with you, keep layer of troops for top, add drinks to interior. Success, and bank account that still has cash in it.

GreyDragoon wrote:
Does no one here possess army bags? Drop army off in hall, take bag out with you, keep layer of troops for top, add drinks to interior. Success, and bank account that still has cash in it.

Oh good, we're back to this again. Good to see people are still scheming to beat the House after the event is over.

Who said after it was over. Told folks to do this well beforehand earlier in the thread Loch Just shocked people still end up with the same griefs after the fact even when they've been told what to do if they aren't going to buy there.

BTW I'd still always suggest every player that drinks there buy one or two in the hall just to support the folks manning the bar if nothing else.

This ain't my first rodeo and each day I took three large gatorade bottles in my backpack.

The hotel tries to make as much money as possible and they know that if they will make money by either having FLG pay for providing water, or by selling it.

As far as food goes, long ago I learned to eat a big breakfast and never worry about lunch. A lot of times there is not even time to eat with games going long, or when you have a late tournament start because of dealing with pairings, or registration, etc, and it will always be the lunch time that is the first thing to be cut to get the event back on time.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Hey guys, since the FLG folks didn't collect army lists, and I want to get as much data as possible, can you please PM me your list and final standing (name doesn't hurt too) for the LVO if you were there? Any little bit helps, hopefully together we can at least fill out the top 50(53) players which had the following break down:

Spoiler:

Eldar (13): 26%
Tau (7): 11%
Space Marines (7): 11%
Necrons (5): 9.4%
Dark Angels (5 out of 11 players): 9.4%
Renegades (5 out of 7 players!): 9.4%
Cult Mech (3): 5.6%
Daemons (3): 5.6%
Tyranids (2): 3.7%
Grey Knights (1): 1.8%
CSM (1): 1.8%
Inquisition (1): 1.8%
SoBs (1): 1.8%
Dark Eldar (1): 1.8%

I obviously have access to the top 8, and a few random people in the top 53 who had their lists posted during coverage, but as a whole there are a lot of gaps D:

Allan Hernandez 19th place Eldar,. I will send you my list when I get unlazy.

The food was expensive, like at an amusement park. Unsurprising to me. But thats why I went to the food court that was 2 minutes away. Johnny Rocjet Burger and Shake... holy gak... ambrosia. <$20.

What was surprising was how slick and fast the pairings were and the way we entered our scores. Super tight system. They weren't Apple Inc, but pretty friggin good.

Also to my surprise how many damn orks! Holy crap it was awesome to see them. Varied lists too. Most were variations of Buzzgob + X. Where X was dread mob, zhardsnarks bikers, bully boys (me), etc. However there was one gent from Sac who I got to play that took the tide and no Stompa. Crazh thing was it was my first game against another ork player.... Ever.

My first LVO in 2014 was pretty homogenous. 2015 was SUPER homo... every game.... EVERY game was vs Eldar or Imoerial Knights, or both.

2016 was awesome. Varied lists... super good games all very close:
1.) Raven Wing + TWC + Dark Angels
2.) Orks Green Tide
3.) Novel Eldar (no knight or bikes... Vibrocannons and swooping hawks)
4.) Gladius Ultra
5.) Quad Mortar Batteries on Skyshield + Conclave
6.) Dual Storm Surge + GhostKeel + Drone Formation

The hardest match up was game 1. I got BRUTALIZED. I felt like I needed counseling after. Ended 3 Wins 3 Losses. My 5th GT and best ratio...

Thanks Frontline. Epic fun. Thanks to my opponents. Gentlemen one and all.

I lost to Jonathan Camacho's Obelisk Necrons list Round 6. I needed a win to make top 8 with my Battle Company. Jon needed a 11pt win to make Top 8 since he had lost Round 2 to another Battle Company in the Relic Mission. He maxed out every other Round that he won.

We roll off to see who goes first and he wins the roll and makes me go first. Being all obsec to his list having 0 I really wanted second turn. Easier to contest maelstrom pts and last chance to decide which objectives need to be contested at last turn of game. One thing that was huge was that he null deployed and I did too. When my 4 Drop Pods came in, he used the Deathmarks to kill a unit for 1st Blood. I also was behind on Maelstrom because I rolled the Kill a unit Maelstrom and there wasn't anything to kill or it just wouldn't die. On his turn 2 his whole army came in but his Obelisk mishap'd and went back into Reserve. Thus denying me the ability to drop my Meltas after it comes and I also lose the chance of catching up on Maelstrom with the LoW pts. Him going 2nd I knew it was pretty much game over at the end of Turn 2. He had lead on Maelstrom, Last chance at objs at end of game and had 1st Blood. I tried to at least win Crusade by moving Khan transport into an obj but on his turn he surrounds it with Tomb Blades, Obelisk and Deathmarks and once the tank got wrecked I lost Khan and his unit. Giving him the 11/11Max pts. I could've been cagey and tied Primary and hiding Khan to deny him 5 Battle Points but Id lose anyway. It was an awesome event. I had a blast and xame so close to Top 8. 1 win away. I won my first 4 Rounds. Vs Space Wolves Thunderstar, Eldar, SM Gladius, Eldar/DE and Round 5 I drew against Top 8 Brad Chester's Eldar List with 30 Warp Spiders and FW Wraithknight. I ended in 36/295 with a 4-1-1 Record. Making Top 8 would've solidified Best Space Marines in the ITC but it wasn't meant to be. Til next season.

MVBrandt wrote:
If accurate, it's probably because Vegas is in the desert and is always short on water. The nova open Hyatt does water all over the halls for free ... and is next to DC/the Potomac river. Geography plays a role in everything, unfortunately. I'm sure Reece would have paid for the water if it was only a couple grand.

Short on water, and notorious for price gouging in every other aspect of its existence. I don't recall the number Reece quoted, but the water at previous LVOs cost Frontline a pretty penny as well. They were small enough events that the numbers worked out and frontline ciuld cover the cost. Not this year, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GreyDragoon wrote:
Who said after it was over. Told folks to do this well beforehand earlier in the thread Loch Just shocked people still end up with the same griefs after the fact even when they've been told what to do if they aren't going to buy there.

BTW I'd still always suggest every player that drinks there buy one or two in the hall just to support the folks manning the bar if nothing else.

It's also worth noting that Frontline was on the hook for the catering and drinks, so it's supporting frontline as well.

The way hotels work for the catering/drinks, is your attendees need to purchase a minimum. If they don't, you cover the difference. If they do, the hotel is happy and you don't pay extra for it as the organizers. Ironically/sadly, you don't get a cut.

So, FLG would have been on the hook for any amount below the (usually 4 hour block) minimums not hit by attendees patronizing the in-hall food options.

Very cool to do that, as well - it's high risk. NOVA got around it via our location and pulling a charitable ABC license w/ the charity lounge. Short of that, you either give your attendees nothing or you put yourself financially at risk to give them in-hall food/drink options. Definitely worth people being aware of and giving a little thanks to LVO for.

 Julnlecs wrote:
I lost to Jonathan Camacho's Obelisk Necrons list Round 6. I needed a win to make top 8 with my Battle Company. Jon needed a 11pt win to make Top 8 since he had lost Round 2 to another Battle Company in the Relic Mission. He maxed out every other Round that he won.

We roll off to see who goes first and he wins the roll and makes me go first. Being all obsec to his list having 0 I really wanted second turn. Easier to contest maelstrom pts and last chance to decide which objectives need to be contested at last turn of game. One thing that was huge was that he null deployed and I did too. When my 4 Drop Pods came in, he used the Deathmarks to kill a unit for 1st Blood. I also was behind on Maelstrom because I rolled the Kill a unit Maelstrom and there wasn't anything to kill or it just wouldn't die. On his turn 2 his whole army came in but his Obelisk mishap'd and went back into Reserve. Thus denying me the ability to drop my Meltas after it comes and I also lose the chance of catching up on Maelstrom with the LoW pts. Him going 2nd I knew it was pretty much game over at the end of Turn 2. He had lead on Maelstrom, Last chance at objs at end of game and had 1st Blood. I tried to at least win Crusade by moving Khan transport into an obj but on his turn he surrounds it with Tomb Blades, Obelisk and Deathmarks and once the tank got wrecked I lost Khan and his unit. Giving him the 11/11Max pts. I could've been cagey and tied Primary and hiding Khan to deny him 5 Battle Points but Id lose anyway. It was an awesome event. I had a blast and xame so close to Top 8. 1 win away. I won my first 4 Rounds. Vs Space Wolves Thunderstar, Eldar, SM Gladius, Eldar/DE and Round 5 I drew against Top 8 Brad Chester's Eldar List with 30 Warp Spiders and FW Wraithknight. I ended in 36/295 with a 4-1-1 Record. Making Top 8 would've solidified Best Space Marines in the ITC but it wasn't meant to be. Til next season.

Thanks for the rundown! Makes me smile to see off-meta lists work really well.

It sounds like null-deploy was the name of the game at LVO. I wonder if that's because of the missions for the event or those types of lists are just extremely strong atm.

I think it's a combination of how powerful alpha strike armies are, plus how playing to the mission means you want to go second. Null deployment lets you dodge some alpha strikes while still getting the second turn for the mission.

My list also null deploys like the Best of them. And its alpha strike can be lethal. I went first 2 times and second 4 times. 2 of my games ended on Turn 4. The others ended on Turn 5. So playing Battle Company can be played fast. Battle Company on Battle Company does take a long time to finish a game though.

Requizen wrote:
It sounds like null-deploy was the name of the game at LVO. I wonder if that's because of the missions for the event or those types of lists are just extremely strong atm.

Not necessarily. I deployed almost my entire army every round, leaving only 2 troops in Reserves mostly. I had to face 5 alpha-strike armies - Tau, Demi-company, White Scars Battle Company, Knights + Eldar, and War Convocation. And of those 5 alpha-strike armies, 4 of them went 1st.

Null deployment is definitely a great tool, but it really depends on the type of army you run. Some armies can do it very well (like drop pod armies). Other armies, not so much. But what null deployment really gives you is a lot of flexibility depending on the type of army you go up against....as long as you are going 2nd.

I had to face 5 alpha-strike armies

Then I am pleased to have been your only non alpha-strike opponent just to have been able to give you some variety

 The Everliving wrote:

I had to face 5 alpha-strike armies

Then I am pleased to have been your only non alpha-strike opponent just to have been able to give you some variety

Haha....very true indeed.

Did anyone get the name of the guy who won 3rd best painted, or have pictures of his army?

It was teddy barker. He had necrons with a pumpkin them. He hand sculpted pumpkin heads for his models and painted wood grain on the flat surfaces

 Bahkara wrote:
It was teddy barker. He had necrons with a pumpkin them. He hand sculpted pumpkin heads for his models and painted wood grain on the flat surfaces

It's an impressive army. He's pretty young too, big 40k painting future ahead of him

What were some of the other daemon lists like at LVO? I've seen Alan's but can't track down any others.

A friend ran his Orks there and told me it was a great tournament. It was the first one he had been to in years and he went went 4 and 2 running a lot of trukkaboyz in his list.
He thought about taking a Stompa, but decided instead to use the type of army he was most comfortable running.
In the end, he placed 54th and finished as the top Ork player, taking home a battle mat.
From what he tells me of the fun he had,I might have to try things out next year.

The big list project has started, you can find a drop box of lists I've compiled so far at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y28px3mgjeergdn/AADDpUf3n_u2QfkiYzDzHSh0a?dl=0

Please keep sending me lists, every little bit helps D:

There were some great painted armies there, really enjoyed the inspiration. I was gunning for one of the top spots this year, but guess I didn't make the cut. Here' some of the great stuff at the event:

Top 3 Best Appearance:

1: Obediah







2: Ben Vaughan





3: Teddy Barker



Other armies deserving mention

Israel Sanchez (2nd best overall)







And others I don't know the names of (sorry)

KAPcom wrote:
There were some great painted armies there, really enjoyed the inspiration. I was gunning for one of the top spots this year, but guess I didn't make the cut. Here' some of the great stuff at the event:

Martians are Tau?

What are the stay puff marshmallow men counts as?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

acing Player Score
1 Alex Harrison
Eldar - Beast Coast 8580
11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 8 / 5 / 6
2 Sean Nayden
Eldar - Death Spiral Down 7572
11 / 9 / 10 / 7 / 7 / 11 / 7 / 5 / 5
3 Steven Sisk
Space Marines - Mercy Killers 7069
10 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 8 / 7 / 10 / 2
4 Alan Bajramovic
Chaos Daemons - Chicago Kamikazies 6572
10 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 10 / 2
5 Alexander Fennell
Necrons - Death Spiral Down 5561
6 / 11 / 10 / 10 / 7 / 11 / 6
6 Brad Chester
Eldar - 5554
10 / 4 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 10 / 2n
7 Jonathan Camacho
Necrons - Sunrise 5062
11 / 4 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 3
8 Michael Snider
Necrons - Preferred Enemies 5054
11 / 11 / 10 / 2 / 9 / 11
8 Aaron Aleong
Dark Angels - Chicago Kamikazies 5054
4 / 11 / 11 / 7 / 11 / 10 / 0
8 Tyler Devries
Eldar - Chicago Kamikazies 5054
11 / 7 / 5 / 11 / 9 / 11
11 Aaron Wisch
Dark Angels - Defend Hawaii 5052
11 / 10 / 1 / 10 / 9 / 11
12 Trevor Van Cleave
Tau Empire - Mercy Killers 5050
5 / 11 / 7 / 10 / 6 / 11
13 Geoff Robinson
Cult Mechanicus - Team Zero Comp 5048
2 / 11 / 11 / 10 / 7 / 7
13 Ben Cromwell
Cult Mechanicus - Team Zero Comp 5048
11 / 11 / 9 / 0 / 6 / 11
13 Jim Yeh
Chaos Daemons - Team Zero Comp 5048
11 / 10 / 6 / 1 / 10 / 10
16 Kurt Clauss
Eldar - Death Spiral Down 5046
10 / 11 / 10 / 1 / 7 / 7
17 John-paul Mawet
Renegades - Mugu Legion 5045
10 / 8 / 7 / 0 / 10 / 10
18 Israel Sanchez
Tau Empire - Left Coast Corsairs 5044
6 / 9 / 6 / 9 / 5 / 9
19 Anthony D'Amore
Space Marines - Left Coast Corsairs 5043
4 / 6 / 11 / 10 / 7 / 5
19 Allan Hernandez
Eldar - REKT 5043
11 / 2 / 10 / 6 / 9 / 5
21 Thomas Reidy
Grey Knights - Death Spiral Down 5042
7 / 11 / 6 / 6 / 5 / 7
21 Vincent Arroyo
Chaos Space Marines - Sun City 5042
6 / 6 / 7 / 2 / 10 / 11
23 Shane Bankard
Inquisition - 5041
11 / 6 / 6 / 1 / 7 / 10
24 Jamie McLay
Space Marines - Loaded Dice 5039
1 / 10 / 10 / 1 / 11 / 6
25 Benjamin Vizcarra
Space Marines - Left Coast Corsairs 5036
10 / 6 / 6 / 6 / 6 / 2
26 Brandon Grant
Dark Angels - Preferred Enemies 4550
11 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 1 / 10
26 Andrew Gonyo
Tau Empire - Beast Coast 4550
11 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 11 / 1
28 Aaron Hayden
Renegades - Preferred Enemies 4549
7 / 6 / 5 / 10 / 11 / 10
28 Gareth Hunt
Renegades - Death Spiral Down 4549
11 / 11 / 5 / 10 / 10 / 2
30 Carlos Kaiser
Renegades - REKT 4548
11 / 1 / 5 / 9 / 11 / 11
31 Thomas Ogden
Tau Empire - 4547
11 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 7 / 2
32 Garye Lawrence
Adepta Sororitas - Mercy Killers 4545
5 / 10 / 5 / 10 / 5 / 10
33 William Abilez
Eldar - Sunrise 4544
5 / 10 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 1
34 Werner Born
Necrons - Beast Coast 4543
11 / 9 / 1 / 9 / 7 / 6
34 Jesus Mendizabal
Dark Eldar - Sun City 4543
11 / 7 / 6 / 2 / 11 / 6
36 Julio Rodriguez
Space Marines - nWo Blackshirts 4542
11 / 7 / 6 / 11 / 6 / 1
37 Brandon Sullivan
Chaos Daemons - Death Spiral Down 4541
0 / 9 / 5 / 10 / 6 / 11
38 Alex Gonzalez
Necrons - Left Coast Corsairs 4539
11 / 4 / 6 / 1 / 11 / 6
39 Christopher Arrington
Eldar - Clutch City 4538
1 / 5 / 10 / 5 / 7 / 10
40 Phil Harlos
Cult Mechanicus - GWNG 4052
2 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 11
41 Dan Platt
Dark Angels - Loaded Dice 4047
11 / 11 / 11 / 2 / 2 / 10
41 Andrew Ford
Eldar - 4047
9 / 10 / 10 / 1 / 11 / 6
43 Justin Gibbs
Tyranids - Defend Hawaii 4046
5 / 10 / 11 / 7 / 2 / 11
43 Matt Robertson
Eldar - Beast Coast 4046
11 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 2 / 1
43 Alan Dehesa
Renegades - Rage Quit Table Flip 4046
11 / 11 / 1 / 7 / 5 / 11
46 Matt Lewis
Dark Angels - Mugu Legion 4045
6 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 1 / 11
46 Richard Martin
Tau Empire - 4045
0 / 11 / 9 / 11 / 11 / 3
48 Trent Northington
Eldar - Warhogs 4044
2 / 11 / 7 / 11 / 2 / 11
48 Matt Barlow
Tyranids - Left Coast Corsairs 4044
1 / 11 / 1 / 10 / 11 / 10
50 Karl Payne
Space Marines - 4043
10 / 0 / 10 / 2 / 11 / 10
50 Brian Delgado
Eldar - G4C 4043
0 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 10 / 1
50 Paul McKelvey
Tau Empire - Left Coast Corsairs 4043
10 / 6 / 6 / 10 / 11 / 0
50 Marcus Martin
Eldar -

Anyone know why Nick Nanavati dropped out? I would have liked to have seen the double star on the top tables.

His first game he had 6 points and next game 0. Meaning he wasn't anywhere in the running for a top 8. Furthermore the second game likely left him a bit salty because he had little to no chance to win it after the pre game interviews took up a lot of time and left him with only 2 turns to play against a battle company. Time is already tight in these tournaments I don't think these pre game interviews should bite into play time.

His game two was against Isreal's Tau list, not Battle Company, but yea when in Vegas and things are going poorly dropping out is always an option. Not like he didn't have other mini war gaming options at the event itself.

Wonder if they had a side tournament for 40k after the end of round two, a type of event for those who just show up and don't play the main event or think it's best to drop and play a different event. Could just be a day two thing since after round three you know if you can make it or not for sure, and the choice becomes more open for more players.

Relapse wrote:
A friend ran his Orks there and told me it was a great tournament. It was the first one he had been to in years and he went went 4 and 2 running a lot of trukkaboyz in his list.
He thought about taking a Stompa, but decided instead to use the type of army he was most comfortable running.
In the end, he placed 54th and finished as the top Ork player, taking home a battle mat.
From what he tells me of the fun he had,I might have to try things out next year.

I'd love to see his list. 54th overall with Trukk boyz is a great finish.

 Julnlecs wrote:

Spoiler:

acing Player Score
1 Alex Harrison
Eldar - Beast Coast 8580
11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 8 / 5 / 6
2 Sean Nayden
Eldar - Death Spiral Down 7572
11 / 9 / 10 / 7 / 7 / 11 / 7 / 5 / 5
3 Steven Sisk
Space Marines - Mercy Killers 7069
10 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 8 / 7 / 10 / 2
4 Alan Bajramovic
Chaos Daemons - Chicago Kamikazies 6572
10 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 10 / 2
5 Alexander Fennell
Necrons - Death Spiral Down 5561
6 / 11 / 10 / 10 / 7 / 11 / 6
6 Brad Chester
Eldar - 5554
10 / 4 / 11 / 11 / 6 / 10 / 2n
7 Jonathan Camacho
Necrons - Sunrise 5062
11 / 4 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 3
8 Michael Snider
Necrons - Preferred Enemies 5054
11 / 11 / 10 / 2 / 9 / 11
8 Aaron Aleong
Dark Angels - Chicago Kamikazies 5054
4 / 11 / 11 / 7 / 11 / 10 / 0
8 Tyler Devries
Eldar - Chicago Kamikazies 5054
11 / 7 / 5 / 11 / 9 / 11
11 Aaron Wisch
Dark Angels - Defend Hawaii 5052
11 / 10 / 1 / 10 / 9 / 11
12 Trevor Van Cleave
Tau Empire - Mercy Killers 5050
5 / 11 / 7 / 10 / 6 / 11
13 Geoff Robinson
Cult Mechanicus - Team Zero Comp 5048
2 / 11 / 11 / 10 / 7 / 7
13 Ben Cromwell
Cult Mechanicus - Team Zero Comp 5048
11 / 11 / 9 / 0 / 6 / 11
13 Jim Yeh
Chaos Daemons - Team Zero Comp 5048
11 / 10 / 6 / 1 / 10 / 10
16 Kurt Clauss
Eldar - Death Spiral Down 5046
10 / 11 / 10 / 1 / 7 / 7
17 John-paul Mawet
Renegades - Mugu Legion 5045
10 / 8 / 7 / 0 / 10 / 10
18 Israel Sanchez
Tau Empire - Left Coast Corsairs 5044
6 / 9 / 6 / 9 / 5 / 9
19 Anthony D'Amore
Space Marines - Left Coast Corsairs 5043
4 / 6 / 11 / 10 / 7 / 5
19 Allan Hernandez
Eldar - REKT 5043
11 / 2 / 10 / 6 / 9 / 5
21 Thomas Reidy
Grey Knights - Death Spiral Down 5042
7 / 11 / 6 / 6 / 5 / 7
21 Vincent Arroyo
Chaos Space Marines - Sun City 5042
6 / 6 / 7 / 2 / 10 / 11
23 Shane Bankard
Inquisition - 5041
11 / 6 / 6 / 1 / 7 / 10
24 Jamie McLay
Space Marines - Loaded Dice 5039
1 / 10 / 10 / 1 / 11 / 6
25 Benjamin Vizcarra
Space Marines - Left Coast Corsairs 5036
10 / 6 / 6 / 6 / 6 / 2
26 Brandon Grant
Dark Angels - Preferred Enemies 4550
11 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 1 / 10
26 Andrew Gonyo
Tau Empire - Beast Coast 4550
11 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 11 / 1
28 Aaron Hayden
Renegades - Preferred Enemies 4549
7 / 6 / 5 / 10 / 11 / 10
28 Gareth Hunt
Renegades - Death Spiral Down 4549
11 / 11 / 5 / 10 / 10 / 2
30 Carlos Kaiser
Renegades - REKT 4548
11 / 1 / 5 / 9 / 11 / 11
31 Thomas Ogden
Tau Empire - 4547
11 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 7 / 2
32 Garye Lawrence
Adepta Sororitas - Mercy Killers 4545
5 / 10 / 5 / 10 / 5 / 10
33 William Abilez
Eldar - Sunrise 4544
5 / 10 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 1
34 Werner Born
Necrons - Beast Coast 4543
11 / 9 / 1 / 9 / 7 / 6
34 Jesus Mendizabal
Dark Eldar - Sun City 4543
11 / 7 / 6 / 2 / 11 / 6
36 Julio Rodriguez
Space Marines - nWo Blackshirts 4542
11 / 7 / 6 / 11 / 6 / 1
37 Brandon Sullivan
Chaos Daemons - Death Spiral Down 4541
0 / 9 / 5 / 10 / 6 / 11
38 Alex Gonzalez
Necrons - Left Coast Corsairs 4539
11 / 4 / 6 / 1 / 11 / 6
39 Christopher Arrington
Eldar - Clutch City 4538
1 / 5 / 10 / 5 / 7 / 10
40 Phil Harlos
Cult Mechanicus - GWNG 4052
2 / 11 / 6 / 11 / 11 / 11
41 Dan Platt
Dark Angels - Loaded Dice 4047
11 / 11 / 11 / 2 / 2 / 10
41 Andrew Ford
Eldar - 4047
9 / 10 / 10 / 1 / 11 / 6
43 Justin Gibbs
Tyranids - Defend Hawaii 4046
5 / 10 / 11 / 7 / 2 / 11
43 Matt Robertson
Eldar - Beast Coast 4046
11 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 2 / 1
43 Alan Dehesa
Renegades - Rage Quit Table Flip 4046
11 / 11 / 1 / 7 / 5 / 11
46 Matt Lewis
Dark Angels - Mugu Legion 4045
6 / 11 / 5 / 11 / 1 / 11
46 Richard Martin
Tau Empire - 4045
0 / 11 / 9 / 11 / 11 / 3
48 Trent Northington
Eldar - Warhogs 4044
2 / 11 / 7 / 11 / 2 / 11
48 Matt Barlow
Tyranids - Left Coast Corsairs 4044
1 / 11 / 1 / 10 / 11 / 10
50 Karl Payne
Space Marines - 4043
10 / 0 / 10 / 2 / 11 / 10
50 Brian Delgado
Eldar - G4C 4043
0 / 11 / 10 / 11 / 10 / 1
50 Paul McKelvey
Tau Empire - Left Coast Corsairs 4043
10 / 6 / 6 / 10 / 11 / 0
50 Marcus Martin
Eldar -

An Analysis of the top 50 (actually 52 because of ties)
Eldar - 13
Space Marines - 6
Tau - 6
Dark Angels - 5
Necrons - 5
Renegades - 5
Daemons - 3
Cult Mechanicus - 3
Tyranids - 2
Sisters - 1
CSM - 1
Dark Eldar - 1
Grey Knights - 1
Inquisition - 1 <- What do you bet this was either Tau or Eldar?

A Few Observations
1) Eldar outnumber all other factions by more than 2-1.
2) A good Showing for Tau. They tied for 2nd with Space Marines, but because Space Marines outnumbered them hugely at the event, the Average Tau player significantly out performed the average Space Marine.
3) Renegades did very well. I wonder how many were in the field?
4) The following codexes were completely unrepresented in the top 50: IG (Astra Militarum). Blood Angels, KDK, Orks (Even with 400 point Stompa), Space Wolves, As well as these that are primarily supplements: Harlequins, Imperial Knights, Legion of the Damned, Militarum Tempestus, Assasins, Skitarii
5) I'm thinking Eldar were far more successful this year than last year, despite last LVO coming at the time that Serpent Spam was dominating the Meta.
6) This is exactly how I would rate the top power of the Codexes. Eldar above everything. Space Marines, Tau, Dark Angles, Necrons, and (apparently) Renegades grouped closely behind them. Then you've got the Ad Mech / Demon tier. Then Tyranids, then everybody else.

Requizen wrote:
Anyone know why Nick Nanavati dropped out? I would have liked to have seen the double star on the top tables.

His round 2 was on the Twitch live stream.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Anyone know why Nick Nanavati dropped out? I would have liked to have seen the double star on the top tables.

His round 2 was on the Twitch live stream.

And was also discussed extensively a few pages ago in this very thread.

Yeah, I saw that he conceded the game because of reasons, but I didn't know that it was bad enough for him to drop out of the Championships altogether. I guess he just didn't want to continue playing because he had no shot at Top 8?

Requizen wrote:
Yeah, I saw that he conceded the game because of reasons, but I didn't know that it was bad enough for him to drop out of the Championships altogether. I guess he just didn't want to continue playing because he had no shot at Top 8?

Mostly that, partly because of how upset he was over the situation I think. Probably the smart thing to do when you're upset/on tilt and not likely to put your best foot forward in your next game. Mind you, a single 5-1 did make top 8.

Yeah, there were an unusual number of 5-1 and 5-0-1s. Only Steve Sisk went into the top 8 undefeated, and only barely lost on killpoints in the second to final round.

Hey everyone, what a great time at the LVO! Finally back home, absolutely exhausted.

Lots to discuss, I will respond as soon as I can to some of the great feedback.

Thanks so much to everyone that came and made the event so much fun.

Aaron's army has SW which is an integral part of his deathstar - to say SW weren't represented in the top 50 is very misleading.

Anyone watch Fennel Play?

What did his star consist of? Was he just running all the ICs together? OR were the Wraiths running around with them as well?

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Aaron's army has SW which is an integral part of his deathstar - to say SW weren't represented in the top 50 is very misleading.

Yep - I believe FLG only tracked primary army when we checked in, so that could be whatever the player selected (likely what their warlord was from). That's the problem with trying to boil codex performance down to event results of what people played - most had multiple codices. For instance, most Tau, including myself, were using some Eldar.

Breazeal wrote:
Anyone watch Fennel Play?

What did his star consist of? Was he just running all the ICs together? OR were the Wraiths running around with them as well?

Yes all his IC's were with the unit of wraiths.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Aaron's army has SW which is an integral part of his deathstar - to say SW weren't represented in the top 50 is very misleading.

Definitely. Shaun had Dark Eldar with his Eldar, and I'm sure there are many other examples of this. If I had a list of all detachments, I would run those numbers, but the only data I have is for primary Detachment.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Aaron's army has SW which is an integral part of his deathstar - to say SW weren't represented in the top 50 is very misleading.

One thing I'm trying to do when I label lists in my little data base is provide as much detail as possible. Aaron's list for example is Raven Wing - Space Wolves, since it's pretty even, while the second place list is Eldar - Corpse Thief Claw.

I remember the same thing happened in the Nova Open, the second place list was something like 60%+ Tau but it was under the Eldar umbrella, so it made Tau representation seem much worse. I think when Blood of Kittens did their stats on Tau its win percent was worse than CSM because of one player going 0-7 or something like that, but if you counted that list it was well over 50% win rate. More so if you just looked at Tau as a whole, their individual win rate was 50% or above for each player, except that one.

It's really hard labeling lists in 40k :/.

Yeah labels can be very misleading.

I really thought Tau would do a lot better with possibly two armies in the top eight. I think they are just that good tbh.

I mean it almost happened, there were two players who could have easily made it in, since they were in the top 8 going into the last around.

Another player (Isreal Sanchez) was undefeated by the end of the day but was 4-0-2, and that one extra draw kept him out of top 8. He was also running a Piranha Firewing which was pretty cool, along with an allied CAD. Though I do think he was excessive on the Marker Sources... Oh, and he's one of the best painted armies on the previous page.

Standing and stats aside, I have to say as someone who wasn't able to make it out this year that the coverage was really terrific. Having the opportunity to watch the twitch stream and keep up with how everyone was doing and being able to see a game every round with the players mic'ed up was more than I could ask for. The commentator (Dave) was awesome, the live blog updates were great, and just wanted to say that I really appreciated the effort frontline gaming crew put out into broadcasting their event, despite having to actually run the event themselves.

So yeah, awesome job

tag8833 wrote:

Relapse wrote:
A friend ran his Orks there and told me it was a great tournament. It was the first one he had been to in years and he went went 4 and 2 running a lot of trukkaboyz in his list.
He thought about taking a Stompa, but decided instead to use the type of army he was most comfortable running.
In the end, he placed 54th and finished as the top Ork player, taking home a battle mat.
From what he tells me of the fun he had,I might have to try things out next year.

I'd love to see his list. 54th overall with Trukk boyz is a great finish.

He would have placed even higher, but he and his opponent made a mistake in their scoring that barely cost him his first game. He found out later he had actually scored more points than the guy he played against and would have been 5 and 1. He was laughing about it when he told me It taught him to check his tournament packet more closely.
He lost his other game against a Space Wolves/Dark Angels army by one point.
One of the games he won was against a Tau player running three Riptides and three Ghost Keels.

Someone who had been watching him told him he was an excellent player and asked why he didn't play a good army. He laughed and answered that Orks were a good army.

WitnessMe4Khorne wrote:
Standing and stats aside, I have to say as someone who wasn't able to make it out this year that the coverage was really terrific. Having the opportunity to watch the twitch stream and keep up with how everyone was doing and being able to see a game every round with the players mic'ed up was more than I could ask for. The commentator (Dave) was awesome, the live blog updates were great, and just wanted to say that I really appreciated the effort frontline gaming crew put out into broadcasting their event, despite having to actually run the event themselves.

So yeah, awesome job

I agree with this, they did a really awesome job and I thought the actual coverage of the games when they were taking place was amazing as I could generally follow everything that was happening, which is pretty difficult with 40k's scale. If Dave was the guy with the flamboyant blazers, then I agree, he's a hero in my eyes and I think that should be standard attire for ITC commentators.

That being said I'd say there's a ton to improve on, a lot of which is pretty minor but enhances the viewer experience. Not broadcasting a round of 40k to broadcast other games was a real bummer, the event is primarily about 40k and it's a shame to miss a round. The Privateer Press guys had amazing energy, but I would have preferred it as a secondary channel or something for their stuff, or at least their being a secondary channel for the 40k event when their stuff was broadcast on the primary, as I understand they made the trip out there and deserve respect. The other thing is that there was a lot of silence, I don't mean from just the mic's going out, as that's obviously not in their control, but every break was just blaaaagh. They really needed to set up some pre-recorded content for that time frame, or at least have commentators talking to people during that down time, the easiest option obviously being to play the pre-LVO interviews they had at the end of their Signals shows as it helps viewers relate to the players and it's already formatted content that they can just play as audio since that's very simple to do and has almost no points of failure. If they really wanted to go all out, they'd have pre-recorded "List Tech" segments where a top tier players talks about their list on camera, as it gives an insight into tactics, while also showing off their awesome paint job, they could even do it in one take and again it's not something that has a lot of points of failure and can be shown multiple times during the event to fill up dead air.

So what was the ruling for targeting with Tesla Spheres?

40k Champs Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ETH4LZ17noFBWCh32AmSgH5kASnQhNZQrBXduWn30aU/edit?usp=sharing

A buddy and I traveled from Scotland to the LVO, and we had an absolute blast. Fantastic event, well run, and with a great rules pack. Vegas is a seriously weird place - can't make up my mind whether I hated it or loved it! But I certainly loved the event.

My only gripe was the situation with water and food in the event hall. Both the food and drink were outrageously expensive (even for Vegas), and the food was horrible. $5 for a tiny bottle of water - seriously - 2 mouthfulls. But the thing that really irritated me was that you were forbidden from bringing your own food or water. A guy at the door actually stopped you! WTF!

Could Reece explain the "deal" - why was this necessary?. It was blatant price gouging, and left a really sour taste, meaning I felt "exploited" all weekend. How much more would it cost to allow external food and water, or food and water at a reasonable price?

So, I know why I had a poor showing. Karma. my list was over by 30 or more points because for some reason, I thought melta guns where only 5pts. So the reason my dice where so cold, its because it was karma. I mean why else could I fell a ld10 roll with reroll. Stupid me

Last time the water was in coolers for free so I'm not sure how this fell through the cracks as that would be a very big part of which venue is chosen especially since the last year there was water on site. If ballys really stated it was 20k for water another venue should have been chosen as it is expected that water will be freely available at conventions and there is not shortage of locations in vegas that would love the business (my wife walked into other cons at ballys and got water/entry for free and wasnt stopped from brining outside bevies in so im not sure why it was different only for us and only this year)
Even with my wife going to get food/drinks for us there was rarely enough time to consume them and get packed for the next game.

Other then the food/drink situation being a complete rip off I had a great time, drew 6 players who were a lot more fun orientated then last year, even if 3/6 were hard counters to my list! Much better then having 3/6 people break my models too!

 easysauce wrote:
Last time the water was in coolers for free so I'm not sure how this fell through the cracks as that would be a very big part of which venue is chosen especially since the last year there was water on site. If ballys really stated it was 20k for water another venue should have been chosen as it is expected that water will be freely available at conventions and there is not shortage of locations in vegas that would love the business (my wife walked into other cons at ballys and got water/entry for free and wasnt stopped from brining outside bevies in so im not sure why it was different only for us and only this year)
Even with my wife going to get food/drinks for us there was rarely enough time to consume them and get packed for the next game.

Other then the food/drink situation being a complete rip off I had a great time, drew 6 players who were a lot more fun orientated then last year, even if 3/6 were hard counters to my list! Much better then having 3/6 people break my models too!

They mentioned on a cast that they got blindsided with 30000 water bill last year. that might be why.
The problem is that if they switched hosts, they would be back to square one effectively, since they have a relationship with ceasor they can demand and negotiate more. but if they went to MGM, even with the successful LVO, they would liekly be at a disadvantage.

 Reecius wrote:
Hey everyone, what a great time at the LVO! Finally back home, absolutely exhausted.

Lots to discuss, I will respond as soon as I can to some of the great feedback.

Thanks so much to everyone that came and made the event so much fun.

A few points of interest have really been thrown in the light that might merit some consideration. Chief among them I believe is:

-Games aren't ending naturally. By many accounts, (from both LVO and other recent events,) a large portion are hitting the time wall hard.
Easy speculation, this is probably because 1850 points stretches a lot farther than it used to. Beyond that, there are plenty of formations and powers adding points past that limit, and also adding extra special rules that increase game time. The psychic phase, run moves, and assault moves are also guilty of adding to the issue.
As time for rounds has been stretched about as far as any TO cares to pull it, I believe lowering the standard event points value by a conservative amount may be the best solution. (Say...1700.) I feel as time passes and more GW rules are released, this option is going to become more and more obviously needed. (And I don't particularly like it, because I love large games.)


Also just a friendly reminder, if you guys ever decide to really get your hands dirty errata-ing point costs and fixing game mechanics, I'd play ITC-hammer over GW hammer any day.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
Hey everyone, what a great time at the LVO! Finally back home, absolutely exhausted.

Lots to discuss, I will respond as soon as I can to some of the great feedback.

Thanks so much to everyone that came and made the event so much fun.

A few points of interest have really been thrown in the light that might merit some consideration. Chief among them I believe is:

-Games aren't ending naturally. By many accounts, (from both LVO and other recent events,) a large portion are hitting the time wall hard.
Easy speculation, this is probably because 1850 points stretches a lot farther than it used to. Beyond that, there are plenty of formations and powers adding points past that limit, and also adding extra special rules that increase game time. The psychic phase, run moves, and assault moves are also guilty of adding to the issue.
As time for rounds has been stretched about as far as any TO cares to pull it, I believe lowering the standard event points value by a conservative amount may be the best solution. (Say...1700.) I feel as time passes and more GW rules are released, this option is going to become more and more obviously needed. (And I don't particularly like it, because I love large games.)


Also just a friendly reminder, if you guys ever decide to really get your hands dirty errata-ing point costs and fixing game mechanics, I'd play ITC-hammer over GW hammer any day.

I believe part of that is also because the normal time limit was originally done when 1500 was the general army level. When people started moving to 1850, the time didn't change. Add that on top of all the free points and complexity, and games really should be 3h or so.

Not to say you can't play a game in that timeframe. If people play fast and don't have 500 free points of stuff, then it's no big deal. But yeah, at a tournament, I can't remember the last time even my fully "finished" games weren't butting up to the time limit.

You should just take into account sometimes you will only get 5 turns in max .

 Dozer Blades wrote:
You should just take into account sometimes you will only get 5 turns in max .

Sometimes you only get 3 turns max. Watching a number of the streamed games will show that. It's really hard to plan for the late game when the game ends halfway through your plan.

Not saying every game happens like that, but it seems to be enough that maybe there should be some sort of change in the setup.

Embrace your inner geek wrote:
A buddy and I traveled from Scotland to the LVO, and we had an absolute blast. Fantastic event, well run, and with a great rules pack. Vegas is a seriously weird place - can't make up my mind whether I hated it or loved it! But I certainly loved the event.

That's a really long travel D:

How did you guys do in the event? May I please have your lists and placement in the event D: ?

While in general I had a good time I too was taken aback by the price of food/water, I heard many different versions of why it was so expensive and it generally was told to me that FLG had been charged 10k, 20k, 30k (the # kept changing) in surprise fees the last couple of years.

I called ballys to confirm this and they told me that they would never ever have a surprise fee, that such an act would ruin their reputation, ,and that all costs were up front/ signed off on before booking. Only room damages and things of that nature could come up after the fact.

They refered me to this price list which has the rate @ $125 per 5 gallon water cooler + 50$ per refill.

http://www.vnea.com/Data/Sites/12/ballys/Conference%20Services%20Guidelines%202011.pdf

@Embrace

Stoked you made it out! Glad you had fun, it was a pleasure meeting you.

@Thread

Concessions

I'll try on touch on this quick as I know a lot of people are curious about it.

We've run cons/tournament all over the place from the hyper expensive Bay Area of California to the Los Angeles Convention Center to fair grounds, to game stores, etc. Doing business in Vegas is different both form a contractual point of view and from a philosophical point of view than any place we've ever worked. They essentially play by different rules.

So, last year when I ran the numbers on the LVO 2015, we were operating in the black (with narrow margins) but acceptable. At the end of the event we got a bill for over $10,000 for "free" water in the hall for attendees. While they have a line item for setting up the water and the refill expenses, you'd be astounded at how fast you go through the jugs. Plus, they change them out when it is convenient, not necessarily when they're empty, which was a big point of contention for us for last year. Now obviously, the water isn't worth that much but the venue builds part of their cost into things like this to pad the bill but make it look cheap(er) when you initially negotiate the contract. For example, they tell you the hall only costs X to rent but they add crazy cost into the other little aspects of the event that you may not catch at first glance in order to turn a profit on their end but look cheaper than their competitors to get your business initially.

Unlike many places which may only have one or a few venues in a city able to hold a convention this size, Vegas has dozens within a few blocks of one another and they compete fiercely for that business. That's why there's so many weird nuances to it that you don't see at other venues who are more upfront with costs as they don't have to compete so hard to bring in business with the competing Casino--literally--next door. The other consideration is that while there seems to be lots of individual Casinos, they are actually owned in groups but larger corporations and all operate under the same guidelines. So, you actually have a lot less options than it would appear from the outside.

So, after sorting out the crazy water bill last year, we went in prepared and made sure to ask for an up-front estimate this year, which going off of our projected attendance figures was quoted at between $15,000 to $20,000. For example, a video game conference held this year in the same hall the LVO was held in had a final bill of $22k for their "free" water for attendees. In my experience in talking to a great many of the Casinos' sales staff over the past 4 years, this is a common practice they all implement as otherwise, they'd seem very expensive upfront than their competitors who spread the total cost of business over so many different variables.

Again, this is obviously insane pricing for water but it's not actually for the water, it's to go the bottom line of the venue. It's just how they structure their pricing to lure in business.

This year, with our projected financials, we couldn't swing a bill like that so I negotiated with them to get water in the halls for attendees as--obviously--that is a necessity. I got them down from the $8 they wanted to $5, but due to a simple lack of experience, didn't ask them how big the water bottles were as I simply didn't think to. I was working on the assumption that they would be "normal" water bottles which was a mistake. They were 10oz, which is a bit smaller than a soda.

On site upon seeing the water bottles, I tried to negotiate a larger water bottle. And while they sympathized, due to the union contracts in place, they couldn't serve any name brand water bottles in the convention space. You run into a LOT of that kind of wonky stuff in Vegas. Another example: to plug something into the wall costs $75 because a union member has to walk in and do it. No joke. $75 to plug a computer into the wall. That's just the tip of the iceberg of the pricing craziness in that city.

And as to the pricing, just so everyone is clear, FLG makes zero dollars on the food and beverage. I got them down as far as I could on cost (initially the meals were priced at $20 per) but after a month of haggling I got them down to $15 which still feels crazy of course, but, when you consider that 26% of that is the mandatory gratuity for the server per the union contract (who didn't actually serve it, lol), and the roughly 10% tax to the state, the food is actually a reasonable price for the setting (would have been about $9-$10, which is fitting for a convention).

All of the Casinos have a no outside food or beverage policy in their convention spaces but in the past it hasn't been so strictly enforced. The obvious reason for no outside food and beverage is that they want you to buy it from them on site.

Finally, to put this in context, they are used to working with large corporations and trade associations with deep pockets, not a smaller business like Frontline Gaming who can't drop several hundred grand on the event in up front costs. Pepsi doesn't care if they pay $20k for water as for them, it's a cost of doing business they can easily absorb. We operate on a smaller scale and so have to work it out.

So, I hope that helps to explain what was going on. We're already working on solutions for next year as beyond that, it was a super fun convention and everyone had a blast. It was great to see so many smiling faces! Really, the only point of contention was the above, and it is our first priority for resolution for next year and it will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, I guarantee it. Every year we level up in Vegas business practices and I am already working with Casino staff on creative solutions to these issues. At the end of the day, they want our business and want us to be happy being there, so they are hearing me out on some ways to make it all come together satisfactorily.

I will say though, that after all of this I see why no previous gaming conventions last in Vegas, it's like playing hop scotch in a mine field.

Game Length

We have seen some games not completing which in tournament play is actually fairly common. However, with it on the stream I think we had some interesting third party perspective on it. I have been a proponent of playing tournament games at 1500pts since 5th ed, but players don't like writing lists at 1500pts. However, they also don't like their games not finishing which always makes me laugh as they are directly proportional to one another. Bigger games means longer games. You don't get one without the other.

Allowing for longer rounds makes an already long day even longer. As part of the fun of Vegas is Vegas, we don't want to cut into that if we can avoid it. Plus, if we get the hobby to the point where 40k is fun to watch and draws in large viewership (which is our ultimate goal with this aspect of the business), shorter games are FAAAAAAR more conducive to this. I believe a potential "pro" league for 40k will have to be played at lower points values both for expediency and enjoyment of watching. We'll see how the community reacts to it though, and how it evolves as we go.

Chess clocks though, would also be very helpful but buying enough for 300+ gamers is a daunting investment up front, even at wholesale pricing. In our games though, they help a ton to see who is actually eating up the clock.

Live Streaming

As for Israel and Nick's game on stream, that was an unfortunate mix-up, the responsibility for which lays on everyone involved's shoulders. Between the stream staff going for a fun show to watch, the players taking multiple beer brakes and some bathroom breaks, generally playing a bit slower than needed, and a delay in getting started due to not being able to find Nick (who was looking for Israel, who was looking for a lost model, etc.) we were left with an unfortunate situation where one player felt that they didn't get a fair shake which sucks. We want everyone to have a fun, fair game.

However, live-streaming 40k in the way we are doing it is a new thing and the crew, as much as we prepared them and practiced, had to learn as they went. That means, inevitably, there is room for mistakes to occur and one did. However, there was no ill intent at play and after speaking to both Israel, Nick and the staff at length after the event, everyone understood that they all contributed to the situation and saw how to avoid it going forward. In order to build what we're trying to build, we can't be afraid to take some risks and we can't punish the people volunteering their time to try and get it off the ground. Sincere apologies to those adversely affected by it but the situation won't come up again which is the important part and by day three, the casting crew was really kicking ass! It was exciting to see the evolution and progress they made in making the event fun to watch.

It will be awesome to see where it goes in the next few years!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Mr. Horus

Yup, that is about right on the prices. If you do the math on it, with 1,000 attendees in the hall at any given time (which is pretty close to accurate, I don't think we had more than that at a time in the hall apart from peak time on Saturday) and collectively, each person drinks roughly 2 liters over the course of a 12 hour day of gaming (you're supposed to drink 3 liters in a day, 1 liter being the minimum) at roughly $3 per liter, 19 liters per cooler fill up, you run $6,000 per day in water at their rates. So, if anything, the $15,000 to $20,000 quote they gave us was conservative.

However, that's assuming perfect efficiency on water bottles only being changed out when they are empty, which doesn't always occur. When the guy comes around with the cart to swap out the water bottles, he may change them even if they still have some water in them, which obviously cuts into the cost but saves labor.

So, at any rate, that's funny that you actually called the hotel, haha, but as you can see, we're not making this stuff up. It is that expensive to do business in Vegas. And as stated, it will be resolved next year.

Oh god, yeah, vegas is like a giant money sucking mosquito on steroids.

I got charged 20$ US for a coffee... not surprised if a hall full of sweaty gamers can drink 10G's worth of water!

Big thanks again to Reece and crew, I know its a lot of work and sympathize with all your expenses completely as I just paid off my card upon my return as well!

(20$ USD coffe was 30$ canadian!!!!!!)

@Easysauce

Yeah, it is pretty wonky, haha. Vegas is pricey but it is also an adult Disneyland! Super fun place but can sting the wallet a bit.

However, as stated, we already have a plan in place to get those concession prices down to a more reasonable point and I will get water in the hall for everyone. We'll likely have to increase risk in other areas, but that's OK. As we've grown our negotiating clout has increased.

Glad you had fun! That's the important part.

wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.
As to the game length, there are things you can do do shorten game length.
Example, Dice Trays with a set number of dice

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

Oh yeah, the tip jar is for "extra" gratuity, lol!

What makes you think a set number of dice will speed the game up? That one is lost on me a bit.

 Reecius wrote:
Oh yeah, the tip jar is for "extra" gratuity, lol!

What makes you think a set number of dice will speed the game up? That one is lost on me a bit.

I think we just need people to practice more speed 40k, yea it will result in more mistakes, but it will improve play long term. Watching some of the players hustle in some of the rounds was pretty impressive and they got to turn five despite playing Battle Company sized lists on both sides.

Also, you should totally get Team Zero Comp to send me all their lists and placings from the LVO for my totally awesome ITC list-event data base project that's a huge pain D:

i had two opponents who said me looking for dice slowed the same down. so now I have a dice tray with a set number of 20 dice, im not gonna need more than that really. makes counting easier and faster and so forth. its in a row so it makes it easier to count. and a less cluttered table.
less reaching into the dice bag and so forth


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

1/4/1

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
i had two opponents who said me looking for dice slowed the same down. so now I have a dice tray with a set number of 20 dice, im not gonna need more than that really. makes counting easier and faster and so forth. its in a row so it makes it easier to count. and a less cluttered table.
less reaching into the dice bag and so forth


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

1/4/1

That's unfortunate, what did you play? Were there any interesting lessons you took away from the event when building or playing an army?

White Scars Battle Company
1: Objective Placement is key for the army,
2: I need Dozer blades
3: Eff knights
4: Both Devastators need to be in rhinos scout up to the appropriate position and stay there.
5: It needs some sort of barrage, but im not sure.

Dice stuff can save you a bunch of time. I keep 30 dice on the board exactly. And count it semi religiously during my opponents turn. They can count it any time they want but when I got to shoot I know there are 30 dice so I just pick up and roll for the Talos. Drop x number for a max unit of Hawks etc.

It actually bothered me that Reece gave us casino dice for the final. Not that I disapprove of required dice but that there weren't 30 and they were far too big for me to put thirty in my hands. With twin linked shots Talos shooting becomes tedious when you can only roll 10 at a time. So much so that against Alex fennel and Steve I just decided not to shoot several times to save effort. Against Alex because the likelihood of shooting through his 2+ saves guy would just take too long and against Steve since I was already winning on kp it just wasn't worth the effort.

But yeah having pre counted dice can speed up lots of stuff in your own turns.

The casino dice made me question why TBH, do they not trust you are something?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
White Scars Battle Company
1: Objective Placement is key for the army,
2: I need Dozer blades
3: Eff knights
4: Both Devastators need to be in rhinos scout up to the appropriate position and stay there.
5: It needs some sort of barrage, but im not sure.

Hm, interesting. I would have thought BC wouldn't have too much issue with Knights thanks to the amount of Las and Melta they can bring between their Razorbacks and troops. Though I guess Steve Sisk was right when he just said to avoid them and do all the other stuff instead, while letting Knights rampage as they want.

What was your list like?

I have no razorbacks really.

Pre-counted dice does help a ton to save time, I agree. I have a list with 3 Vultures in it and I have 20 big and 3 little dice out as I never need more than that and that allows me to, at a glance, grab all the dice I need for the Vulture and know which are twin-linked, which are not. That totally does save dice.

@OrdoSean

Yeah, from your perspective I can see that. However, the reason we did use real, tumbled Casino dice is because I have been at tournaments where a player (in one case, the winner of the event) had dice that were loaded. The blow back from that was incredibly bad. One respected TO quit because he didn't want to deal with the nastiness, and there were actually a few attendees threatening to sue the event if they weren't given their money for the ticket, hotel and flight back as they felt they didn't get what they paid for.

Now, that is an extreme example (and no lawsuits were filed to my knowledge), but despite the responsibility for fair play resting on the attendees' shoulders, as we were live streaming the games we were unwilling to risk a similar occurrence at the LVO as it would undermine the integrity of not only the player but us and the game as a whole. We determined it was better for everyone to simply take responsibility for ensuring that the dice were all legit. The fact that they were bigger than you are used to is because in order for them to roll as close to a true statistical average as possible, they need to be that size.

Plus, this means the dice are legitimately rolling as close to a true average as you can get, which theoretically emphasizes player skill over luck. it is also a cool keepsake as you got real casino dice, in Vegas, in an engraved case to show you made the finals!

So, you're welcome, Sean, haha

I got some dice from this little game from hobbytown. I was told to get rid of them and only use chessex large dice. they said they would be better. im using small dice for wound counters now

I don't think it's a trust thing. Though it removes that thought from people's mind. Like I said making me play with dice isn't a big deal. I've played in events that require you to use community dice one pool they provide to each table. I've played in events where they hand you a cube to start the weekend and ask you to use it.

I also get the casino dice. They were cute were in Vegas it's a nice prize to hand to the top 8. I get it. They're just huge and while I get they just huge and technically not great for a dice game because in theory you can manipulate them due to their size and perfection. That's why I'm Vegas games like craps you have to hit the wall so the dice bounce. So I told my opponents to shake them really well and why I shook my hands real well on that big charge roll in the championships. Even though I don't know how to even begin rolling dice like that. But do some YouTube searching and you can see guys rolling 12 every time etc.

But yeah there are tons of little things every player can do to play faster. but a lot of it comes to just practice and relaxation. Because when you tense up you start thinking and not playing.

and, they replace the dice every hour because they chip. TBH the best thing would be free FLG dice, or do what Xwing does, special dice for the event only. like ones where the six is either LVO or the symbol of the event. just an idea. I once had an opponent who used casino dice and he just dropped them on the floor, and they didnt roll much.

 Reecius wrote:

Game Length

We have seen some games not completing which in tournament play is actually fairly common. However, with it on the stream I think we had some interesting third party perspective on it. I have been a proponent of playing tournament games at 1500pts since 5th ed, but players don't like writing lists at 1500pts. However, they also don't like their games not finishing which always makes me laugh as they are directly proportional to one another. Bigger games means longer games. You don't get one without the other.

Allowing for longer rounds makes an already long day even longer. As part of the fun of Vegas is Vegas, we don't want to cut into that if we can avoid it. Plus, if we get the hobby to the point where 40k is fun to watch and draws in large viewership (which is our ultimate goal with this aspect of the business), shorter games are FAAAAAAR more conducive to this. I believe a potential "pro" league for 40k will have to be played at lower points values both for expediency and enjoyment of watching. We'll see how the community reacts to it though, and how it evolves as we go.

Chess clocks though, would also be very helpful but buying enough for 300+ gamers is a daunting investment up front, even at wholesale pricing. In our games though, they help a ton to see who is actually eating up the clock.

Seems like you've talked yourself out of doing anything to remedy the situation. It's a long game at 1,850, and honestly under 3 hours doesn't seem like enough for most armies and players. I get that it'd be better to have shorter games for streaming, but if that's going to be for a "pro" league, that shouldn't prevent you from making changes for the general tournament public; honestly that seems like pointing to a larger series of changes that would need to take place to divide events into "pro" and general public. This also seems like where chess clocks would be divided; think that would take away from the "fun" event aspect.

Not saying there aren't good arguments for not lengthening the day or for lowering the point values, but it really doesn't feel like it's as much value with compressed games. If I'm travelling across the country to play 40k, I'd personally like to play complete games. And "play faster" isn't a legitimate suggestion with armies getting larger and more complex.

but, the event already went from 10 to 7:15 with a lunch break. this is vegas, 7 is where people want to start going out, and lengthening,it out wil make them tired. Im already questioning going to vegas because out of my 3 nights there, I went out once only, dinner and a movie, and while fun, it is also a bummer with so much to do in vegas, if you make people MORE tired, thats gonna be worse.

1750 probably won't make a huge difference in game length however it also isn't far from 1850 either and is also a standard tournament point total.

I don't think people would mind 1750 so much and between 2 armies each having 100 less points you might be able to shave 15min off each game and have more games closer to a 5 round finish at least.

I'd vote for 1750 if it was a vote.

I think 1500 is good TBH and balances things out a bit.

We haven't talked ourselves out of anything, Evan, we honestly haven't even had time to really think it through to a point of conclusion. I'm just spit-balling ideas, here. We need to see what people want to do. As you noted, people need to feel like they're getting value for their dollar but that point varies from person to person.

I don't like writing lists at 1500pts, either, honestly, I like bigger games. But, I accept that with the time it takes to get your pairing (even when we do take the app to the point where it pops up on your phone as we plan on doing), to collecting your stuff, going to the table, unloading your models, playing the game, submitting your scores, and repeating the process, it is quite challenging to get a full length 1850pt game in.

If we played 3hour15min games, we'd have to start round 1 at 8:30am (registration would half to open up at 6:30am day 1, yikes) and end round 3 at around 8pm. That means getting up really early (particularly for Vegas) and ending pretty late for things like dinner with friends, etc.

That's not necessarily the kiss of death but it does detract from the overall experience for many attendees who aren't as focused on the competitive side of the game as a player like yourself may be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Gungo

We used to play at 1750 and it was quicker. However, the community wanted to go up to 1850pts. The trend is always towards bigger armies we've seen. My guess for that is that players feel like they have more tools or a more complete list at their disposal. But it is always ironic when players then get upset that a game didn't finish to a natural conclusion.

I again say, having over 300+ free points in a game does slow it down IMO

I'd rather see less points than more time. Socializing after the festivities is a large part of the con experience for most people, and even for local RTTs, shorter time is easier to navigate with personal responsibilities.

1500-1650 might be a better point value for 7th edition, especially now that free points are a thing. An 1850 battle company is actually closer to a 2250 army and is expected to play in 3 hours. Even for a fast player, that can become difficult.

Reece - definitely is a difficult balancing act; Could make for a 3 day event... or something. I definitely feel the pain. And while the competitive side of me would want to play a game to completion, so would the casual side. That's me; if I travel for a weekend of 40k, I want to play 40k; but that's me.

Yeah, we've even toyed with the idea of 1650pts in the past as a middle ground. Might be worth exploring.

@Hot Sauce

Oh, and one other point on the dice I forgot to metion: The bigger dice are MUCH easier to read on the stream than smaller dice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Evan

Totally fair point and I actually agree with your philosophy as a player. I'd rather have play 2 games a day with 4 hour rounds at 2k, personally. But, that doesn't work logistically with the number of rounds we need, etc. As you noted, it is a balancing act.

Oh I know. I just looked and found the casino dice thing was funny, especially with the amount of shots they put out.
To the length thing. a 3 day event is a bad idea IMO, 40k attendence dropped dramatically on sunday. Again cause people want to do vegas. the only reason I didnt go out all sunday was my friends where working the event, but I had fun shooting the gak with him at the front. and they have less room for it.
Also, reece, is it true that your working on a way for it to text the player their next matchup? that sounds so cool.

It's been so long since I played a game under 1,850, particularly with a competitive list building approach. I would be curious how that would shift list building and armies in general. It's definitely an interesting thought. Could also potentially do a 3 day event with one day being 3 rounds, 2 rounds the next, with top 16 playing a third.

Also curious what y'all will do with the Team tournament; personally that might be a bigger draw as well over the singles championship.

Thinking about taking two days to play five rounds of a single game per round is just weird. This game really needs a way to speed up things, as it's just a huge turn off for a lot of people to take that long to accomplish so very little.

 Tinkrr wrote:
Thinking about taking two days to play five rounds of a single game per round is just weird. This game really needs a way to speed up things, as it's just a huge turn off for a lot of people to take that long to accomplish so very little.

IMO this is one of the biggest obstacles to making 40k a "pro circuit" type game and following the ESports model. As Reece mentioned, shorter games are better for viewing, but he also mentioned that players generally prefer the larger lists, that I think require 3+ hour games most of the time. It's hard to do play-by-play commentary and keep the action exciting for an audience without 1.) interfering with the game, and 2.) following multiple games, honestly, as action and big moves are often slow to develop.

 Reecius wrote:
Game Length
We have seen some games not completing which in tournament play is actually fairly common. However, with it on the stream I think we had some interesting third party perspective on it. I have been a proponent of playing tournament games at 1500pts since 5th ed, but players don't like writing lists at 1500pts.

I prefer writing 1500 pt lists, and I think that is the way to go. If you don't go that way, you might be able to get games done if it weren't for 2 main things
1) Gladius. It takes a long time to play and does better if the game ends early, so there isn't an incentive to try to play quickly.
2) Daemon Summoning. It takes a long time, and the warp phase is so complicated that the Daemon opponent can slow them down rather than it being entirely their fault.
Past that most things get chalked up to rules debates, and the rapid release schedule resulting in people learning rules at tournaments. Like War Convocation can fail to finish games, but that is due to it taking hours to read their lists and understand it.

I would much rather that ITC play at 1500, or failing that address the 2 main causes of failure to complete games. I'd rather not expand the rounds, but that is better than not finishing I guess. There is a crowd that likes to play big games. Many of them like to play BIG games, so an separate event playing at 2,500 or 3,000 might alleviate some of the pushback. You could also allow in the Tau'nar, and other models that people get bent out of shape for not being allowed to bring to the championship event.

 Reecius wrote:
The reason we did use real, tumbled Casino dice is because I have been at tournaments where a player (in one case, the winner of the event) had dice that were loaded.....

I support 100% supplying players with dice for the finals. But, I also feel for Sean, as I tend to throw a ton of dice myself (Orks). I know that they are not quite as perfect, but using a simple unopened box of small chessex dice instead of official casino dice would I think address your concerns while still preserving an ease of play.

 FTGTEvan wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Thinking about taking two days to play five rounds of a single game per round is just weird. This game really needs a way to speed up things, as it's just a huge turn off for a lot of people to take that long to accomplish so very little.

IMO this is one of the biggest obstacles to making 40k a "pro circuit" type game and following the ESports model. As Reece mentioned, shorter games are better for viewing, but he also mentioned that players generally prefer the larger lists, that I think require 3+ hour games most of the time. It's hard to do play-by-play commentary and keep the action exciting for an audience without 1.) interfering with the game, and 2.) following multiple games, honestly, as action and big moves are often slow to develop.

Well the other problem that isn't discussed, is that when the game grows as a sport, you need to introduce more rounds, and with the current set up you can maybe get one or two extra rounds in, but it's not very optimal otherwise.

I mean I'm no stranger to multi-day events, I've gone to two day Magic events, but the difference is that day one was 10 rounds (which they then capped to 9 rounds per day because that was exhausting) with only like the top 200 out of thousands qualifying for day two and day two I played only 6 rounds as I didn't make top 8. What happens with the ITC when it starts having to consider things like that, as it obviously doesn't require thousands of players to require more than say 7 rounds to have any reasonable results, already the five round structure is showing limitations as we saw quite a lot of players have Top 8 records but narrowly lose on breakers.Not to mention you're only playing one game a round, so there's even more variance there.

I think the first step is really trying to push faster play, as in you have to make the majority of your actions in a turn off of what you figured out either during your opponent's turn or off the top of your head. That would actually push it as more of a spectator sport because all of a sudden errors in play are more common which makes for more colourful commentary. You can even have a structure where turns get shorter over time, that way you accommodate larger armies, like Battle Company, since as more models are killed, their turn gets shorter. Think of it this way, turn one is 15 minutes per player, turn two is the same, then turn three and after is 10 minutes only, that's a crunch.

I mean one major skill of games like Hearthstone and Magic is the fast pace required, a lot of times if you're playing online you'll run into the clock and have to just make a decision, and sometimes that decision is wrong and you notice it after, but that's really a test of skill, as it requires you to always be on top of things or you'll simply lose out on too many things. I think 40k could really benefit from something like that, since it would elevate those who can make snap decisions more consistently than others.

There's a fair while till they need to run another round.
9 Rounds gave them 512 players, via swiss pairing. That's a fair amount of growth left.

@HotSauce

Attendance was down Sunday because the 40k champs was over for 97% of the players and the Super Bowl.

@Evan

Yeah, 40k is honestly boring to watch, we've been trying to find a workaround for that all year with Twitch. What we've found is that you need good commentators but not to override the game itself. Plus, faster games are more enjoyable to watch.

We'll figure it out, I'm sure. Just takes time and practice.

@tag

Yeah, supplying dice eliminates any doubt of funky dice.

@Thread

We will expand the Team Tournament, yes. Plenty of room to improve that event! It was good fun.

@Tinkrr : nice in theory but the interactive nature of the game makes it really hard to implement time limits on player turns when I'm dependent on my opponent being fast rolling saves.

Few thoughts:

1. aside from the water thing the venue/hotel was great. It was amazing being so close to the convention area from the hotel rooms. Flamingo was a suprirsingly long trip to get from one end to the other.

2. the water thing was bad but the money costs make sense so blah vegas. Blah. Not sure how to resolve that.

3. Perhaps instead of a physical clock you guys make/use a chess clock app? everyone has a phone after all... Also given that such a competative addition could be a big barrier for new/more casual players it could be somethingt hat stats on game 2. So game 1 is as normal and game 2 on involves the clock. Etc.

4. Any way to see paint scores? I forgot to ask the paint judges afterwords but it would be nice to see any sort of critiques.

5. I vote yes to a somewhat reduced point value, but unfortunately any such reductions do favor summoning/BCs/"cheap" stompas/etc. Still i think it would help and a 1500 BC at least aint really gonna have much in the way of special weapons.

TinBane wrote:
There's a fair while till they need to run another round.
9 Rounds gave them 512 players, via swiss pairing. That's a fair amount of growth left.

You do understand that they're already well above the limit and next year if growth keeps up they'll be at the peek possible performance as the game stands now.

Let's look at Magic's standards for Swiss:

CHART FOR APPROPRIATE NUMBER OF ROUNDS OF SWISS TO SELECT THE
TOP 8 PLAYERS FOR SINGLE ELIMINATION:
Number of Players Number of Rounds
17–32 players 5 rounds of Swiss
33–64 6 rounds of Swiss
65–128 7 rounds of Swiss
129–226 8 rounds of Swiss
227–409 9 rounds of Swiss
410+ 10 rounds of Swiss

Now, I know Magic is pretty generous with their rounds, so here's a general explanation of Accelerated Swiss which is used for large events:

Accelerated Pairings
If there are more players in a section than the number of rounds can handle (to determine a clear winner), then "accelerated" pairings are an option for the director.
Players are seeded as above, but in the first round, the players from the top 1/4 of the wallchart play the players in the 2nd 1/4 of the wallchart. The 3rd 1/4 plays the bottom 1/4. Then in the second round, the winners in the top 1/2 of the wallchart play each other, the losers in the top 1/2 play the the winners from the bottom half of the wallchart, and the losers from the bottom 1/2 of the wallchart play each other. (The reasoning is, the higher rated losers from the top half should beat the lower rated winners from the bottom half, which would cut down the number of perfect scores faster). After the 2nd round, all the players are lumped together within their score packs, as in the traditional Swiss method, and the tournament continues as a regular Swiss. The only difference is, there should be 1/2 as many players with 2-0 than there would have been with a straight Swiss System tournament. So up to 64 players could be handled in a 5 round tournament.

I'm just saying, mathematically the LVO can't keep up with how Swiss works as a format already, and if it keeps growing it can strain itself for maybe one more event before it collapses on itself. This is a very important aspect to consider.

 FTGTEvan wrote:
@Tinkrr : nice in theory but the interactive nature of the game makes it really hard to implement time limits on player turns when I'm dependent on my opponent being fast rolling saves.

Saves should be rolled pretty much instantly. "Here's what I rolled, here's the dice that wounded, I'm handing them to you, please roll them now in this tray." Harsh, but it has to happen.

Edit: Also less likely to have funky dice as it's hard to make good rolling dice also roll poorly D:

 Reecius wrote:
40k Champs Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ETH4LZ17noFBWCh32AmSgH5kASnQhNZQrBXduWn30aU/edit?usp=sharing

Some analysis of these results based on Primary Faction.

Facinatingly Renegades lead the pack. Eldar are super strong, and the Weakest army based on Primary Faction? Grey Knights! Who would have predicted that? Dark Eldar regularly regarded as one of the weakest Codexes is actually above average.

Maybe for Next ITC season we could track faction based on which faction is the largest in the army rather than where the warlord is.

Thanks for the break down tag!

tag8833 wrote:

Facinatingly Renegades lead the pack. Eldar are super strong, and the Weakest army based on Primary Faction?

Renegades placed 5 out of 7 players in the top 50, that's the highest placing army with the lowest number of players, the second closest was Dark Angels, though most of those were hybrid Space Wolves lists as I've seen in my great list project so far.

Eldar are the best faction with a large player base, with a much greater representation in the top 50 than any other army. Tau and Space Marines (not counting Dark Angels) being the runners up at a tie for number of players in the top 50.

I really want these Renegade lists, they're my white whale because they're not an army anyone considers for the most part, but they did exceptionally well.


Edit: What's more interesting is going to the top 20 from the top 50, Marines and Tau don't change at all in terms of percent representation, Necrons go up a bit, and so do Eldar. Edlar go from 26% to 30% from what I remember.

Edit 2: Eldar and Space Marines had similar number of players, almost twice as many as Tau.

First remember lvo is the largest 40k event so it doesn't need major changes. It's good alraady. I'd say put 1650 1750 1850 up for vote and let actual attendees vote. I'd prefer 1750 simply because I like to keep the game as large and manageable as possible. And playing 1750 at my flgs doesn't feel much different then 1850 to me. Also I like the parity with other tournament standards.

And then try to think other ways to speed up the tournament. For instance let's take the idea that was alraady used this lvo and expand it. You alraady had pairings online for the tournament. What if someone made an app for an ITC events that not only displayed pairings but also gave you your table number and allowed you to roll for who goes first or who deploys first. Id you can somehow squeeze in warlord traits, psychic powers before the game. Then most of the oregano setup is skipped. The person who needs to deploy first can quickly get to the table and begin setting up, when they are done the other player sets up, each player does thier scout moves. Place objectives, Roll a d6 to seize and begin the game. Saving a good 10-15 a round.

The problem with the above is someone needs to create the app. This is something I've wanted for a long time a decent 40k game app. I know it's not likely but it would speed up tournaments.

LVO was excellently run. The team tournament was great and the FLG staff was flexible on the comp rules to make sure everyone could play. My team didn't have its sixth player until 8:30 that morning so they allowed us to duplicate a faction within the team.

The two things I'd like to be looked at for improvement are:
(1) either a smaller points value or a scaled penalty for not reaching 5 full game turns

(2) a composition change for the rules that disallows CADs for any factions that have faction specific detachments. With all the new releases, virtually everyone has either a unique force org (i.e. Leviathan detachment), a Decurion style detachment and a host of smaller formations. I suspect that would make the game more fun overall as it eliminates easy unit spamming and makes it much harder to stack multiple effects to create death stars. It would also lead to a lot of variety in units being fielded. Gladius would still have its relative free points advantage but that can't be changed without an overall points reduction that prevents you from fielding a Battle Company + Aux choice.

Yeah to jump on everything. LVO was fantastic. I thought it was the best last year and it was even better.

As much as the food was pricey I dont think it was any more pricey than running downstairs last year at the flamingo to the food court.... except it was in the hall so we didnt have to run anywhere.

The thing about Reece and those frontline boys is they push to make it bigger and better, and more fun and more prizes for everyone. I need to pay attention this year and go to more Itc events than lvo so I can earn one of those sweet glass trophies for best army. The attention to making it better and the willingness to talk and take feedback is why I tell everyone I can that if they can go to one 40k event a year it should be LVO and if they have to pick another it should probably be something else Reece runs. Frankly I wish I lived on the west coast so it was easier to go to their events.

Now it does help that they keep letting me play on the championship table....

I, too, strongly support smaller point games for all the reasons above and more. competitive 40k already has a hard time attracting new talent; more models are a bigger hurdle.

That said, 1850 is institutionalized with huge inertia. Changing the scene or even just the ITC overnight isn't possible. But maybe give ITC Tournament Organizers the option to host events with smaller points. Let local groups experiment for a year then check back in 2017.

axisofentropy wrote:
That said, 1850 is institutionalized with huge inertia. Changing the scene or even just the ITC overnight isn't possible. But maybe give ITC Tournament Organizers the option to host events with smaller points. Let local groups experiment for a year then check back in 2017.

If they change LVO, other events will follow suite.
ITC is a pretty permissive League. I could run an ITC event at 250 points or I could run an event at 3,500 points, and they'd welcome it. I've played in 1500 point ITC events.

Most TO's are like me, and just ape the format of the big events. So as long as LVO is 1850, we are inclined to run 1850. If LVO switched to 1500, we would probably switch. Even if Wargamescon, and BAO stayed at 1850.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
So what was the ruling for targeting with Tesla Spheres?

Seriously, I'd appreciate this answer.

@Reece - thanks for the detailed answer on the water/food front. As I suspected, I didn't fully understand the situation. Sounds like a nightmare.

To me it begs the question - how important is it that the event is in Vegas? If you could reduce the price of the weekend by a few hundred dollars per player, would that not be attractive?

Probably just me, but I didn't find the attractions of Vegas particularly attractive!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ thread - regarding game timing. I struggled to finish games on time. Out of 9 games played, I think I finished 2 on a dice roll. Why? Well, I don't think Im a particularly slow player. I know my rules and my army (in 9 games I never had to refer to the BRB, or my Codex once). And, to be fair, none of my opponents were playing particularly slowly either. But, games take longer than they used to. psychic powers, summoning, overwatch, flicker jumps, MSU armies with free stuff, etc, etc just takes longer.

What's the answer? I wouldn't like to go to 1,500pts. i've always found that pretty restricitve. 1,850pts is the 'standard" in most tournaments in the UK, driven by the ETC. However, we usually play 3hr rounds. That little bit of extra time, really makes a difference towards the end of a game. My preference would be to start earlier (I was so jet lagged I was up at 4am most mornings anyway!!) and finish later. Sure it means a 9am start and an 8pm finish, but so what? It's a gaming weekend.

1850 is fine but yeah there are a LOT of lists / players who struggle to finish within the time of 2:45 (which SHOULD be enough time).

Clocks are too expensive and people prefer 1850.. I vote steps are taken to making games that don't finish at a natural conclusion being more costly. Something like a yes/no option during the scoring process and too many "no" answers results in another penalty.

What if they are slow? What if they have a large army? Well, I would say to both of those IF they are slow they need to speed up in a tourney and if they have a large army play faster.. time IS a part of the game and taking it for yourself is selfish and bad for the game. Giving incentive to finishing games on time/faster is better for everyone.

As someone who watched 5 of the games on the Twitch stream I must say Casino dice should be required, you could actually see what was happening! Good call on that for the top 8 by the way Reece, cool little prize.

Also, watching the Twitch streams made me become a believer that in these big events there needs to be either a drop in points to 1500 or an increase in time for the rounds. I would vote for a drop in points personally.

Local events where 90% of the players know each other anyway can easily stick to 1850 but these big GTs where people don't all know each other well and haven't played 30+ games with each other get bogged down fast.

iNcontroL wrote:
1850 is fine but yeah there are a LOT of lists / players who struggle to finish within the time of 2:45 (which SHOULD be enough time).

Clocks are too expensive and people prefer 1850.. I vote steps are taken to making games that don't finish at a natural conclusion being more costly. Something like a yes/no option during the scoring process and too many "no" answers results in another penalty.

What if they are slow? What if they have a large army? Well, I would say to both of those IF they are slow they need to speed up in a tourney and if they have a large army play faster.. time IS a part of the game and taking it for yourself is selfish and bad for the game. Giving incentive to finishing games on time/faster is better for everyone.

I disagree. Forcing people to play faster is only part of the answer. What can result is a rushed "sloppy" game, which is deeply unsatisfying. Additionally, it leaves no time to get to know your opponent and have a bit of banter over the table. One of my games finished at the end of turn 4, but we agreed that if we had played faster we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun.

We switched to smaller games (1,500-1,650) about a year ago, and it's been great.

In addition to tournament games reaching a natural conclusion, they're also a lot more pleasant as you have more time to socialize with your opponent and you don't feel so rushed during your own turns (and bored during your opponent's turns).

As for the enjoyment of making lists at a smaller points level, I actually really like it. It's a lot more challenging, and it makes the standard power combos less of an auto-take since you don't have the room to properly back them up.

I don't think lesser points will change anything for bigger tournaments, unless it's a drastic points cut. People will still find ways to stall.

Clocks on the other hand, that should be the focus. Something like a penalty if you stall more than the agreed time per turn or so.

Everyone around here plays 1500/1650 for tournaments and apart from some Daemon players we nearly always get to turn 5 or later.

My feedback re: game time would be that yes, some people are just slow. But lowering point values can *only* serve to help, and it shouldn't matter to players competitively (or otherwise) if points are lowered - everyone is now using lower points, so we're all being treated equally. The fact of the matter is, there are many reasons games don't finish:

1) The players are new and not familiar with their army. This can be because they're legitimately new, or because they army-hop too extensively and never get into a rhythm.

2) The players think too much (similar to #1). This is the most frequent cause of slow games I've seen. It's not generally how many models a person has, it's how many decisions they have to make and agonize over. The players that go fast are the ones you watch just take their turn seemingly almost without pause. Adding in 30 seconds here and there to make multiple decisions in a turn just bloats your time.

3) Points are too high - AKA, we all have too much stuff. The current 1850 armies would put to shame most 2500 point ard boyz lists from 3 years ago. There's a real resistance in the tournament community to lower it because "but I need answers to every situation!" "you can't build a balanced list at (insert lower points value)". The fact of the matter is in our current environment, you can't build a list that handles everything at *any* points value, you have to accept there are some matches that are worse than others and learn to play them.

4) Active slow play - a player just doesn't want the game to come to a natural conclusion. While I've seen it happen, this is truly rare. Most slow play is not malicious.

I'm an experienced player and have played Tau for years, all of my games got to 5 (though two had to be agreed to be finished on 5 due to time being arguably a bit short for 5), and one on 6. 3 of those were natural conclusions (game over/concession/etc.) on 5. Two should have been rolled for RGL and weren't.

If it were me, the things I would look at correcting/changing are:

1) Lower point values to 1500. There will be resistance at first, but I remember a time when we only played 1750, and 2000 points came along and was derided as "ugh you just want to play with your ard boyz army!". And then 2000 was adopted and eventually 1850 came in and everyone cried the sky was falling and they couldn't possibly build a balanced list at 1850. Same story - people will adapt. We come to events for the people, not for a specific point value.

2) Penalties - while I don't like these, because generally slow play is not malicious, having a policy in place that makes sense isn't a bad idea. I'd say something like:
-If the game ends on Turn 3 or less, both players are awarded a loss.
-If the game ends on Turn 4, both players are issued a warning (make a note next to their name in the scoring/etc).
-If at the end of the day a player has 2 or more warnings (since we play 3 in one day and policing in between rounds isn't feasible), they are docked (insert point value).

The obvious problem with penalties is, you can end up penalizing someone who isn't at fault (the other guy in the game). What if you have the bad luck of running into a couple slow opponents, and are unable to get them to speed up? Should you now be penalized? Penalties in reality almost prevent a player from making the top bracket cut, so they shouldn't be taken lightly.

3) Chess Clocks! I would love these, but I'm unsure how realistic they are logistically. Unless we can find a cheap alternative, it's going to be hard.

4) Dice. I used to hate event provided dice, but I've become a believer. I also don't think Casino Dice are needed at- all. As an army that typically rolls a lot, casino dice would/do slow me down considerably. Remember, the goal isn't to make sure dice roll 100% accurate/fair (and Casino Dice don't unless thrown a certain way, and due to their large size are the easiest to manipulate with rolling tricks. If someone is motivated enough to bring loaded dice, they're likely motivated enough to watch some youtube videos on how to roll to get desired results). Your goal is to make sure all players are on an even playing field as far as dice go, and that no one has rigged dice (or the semblance of them). Buy in bulk, chessex or other easy to read dice (white on black, blakc on white, etc), and leave a pile on every table (include the nominal amount in the tournament fee, we're talking a couple dollars). Those dice never leave the table, they're there when you show up, they're at your next table when you arrive. Now there isn't any argument about someone using loaded dice, you're both using the same event provided ones each game.

I had a great time, third time at LVO and it's one of the events I enjoy the most every year. The only drawback for me was that I got to pay Sean twice on seemingly the only table with no cover, ha ha. Stupid warp hunters...

I'll chime in as well about the point level and agree with what's been said so far, a lower point game will lead to more games finishing on time. I play very quickly but rolling 2+ saves with re-rolls backed up by reanimation protocols takes up time and I only got beyond 5 turns in one game out of seven. I think we'll look at lower point events at our local store to see what difference it makes to everyone's enjoyment level.

I would genuinely be intrigued by 1500 point tournaments, in part for faster speed, but it also changes the math around a little. Gladius and War convocation (back of napkin guessing here) will have much less to work with. Combi-detachments in general become tougher to field. Lords of War and other high cost single models become much more of a liability in a list, even a Wraithknight. It isn't a magic button to make everything sunshine and roses, but it presents some different challenges, and opens up the board a bit, making deployment and early maneuvers more important.

I'm personally not a fan of penalties because it takes two. That said, if you do, I would also want a recommended time frame for the game, so even a less experienced player can look at the time and realize they're behind. I would also want a policy of mid game reporting; offer some suggestion like if your game isn't to turn 3 by X time, get a judge. As above, slow play can come from a variety of factors, but if it's one sided, the faster player needs a way to get help.

Chess clocks I'm really not a fan of. The accountability would be nice, but players that are slow because they're thinking through turns often forget things, and the clock will definitely be one of them. It seems more suited to top table games, but top tables generally have less issues with time as both players are usually experienced enough to play quickly.

I'm also not a big fan of event dice just because I'm superstitious and like my dice. I also like being able to stack my dice in convenient quantities for rolling, which depending on the number of dice per table, could be impossible while passing dice back and forth. That said, a designated, lipped dice spot at the side of the table for both players could be really convenient.

Almost every FLGS tournament is 1500pt, because most people DONT want to spend an entire day playing a 3 round tourny. Im definitely in the field of people who dont feel like playing the 3rd/4th game of the day when it finally rolls around.

I think 1500 would alleviate that. The issue is people dont get to bring ALL of their toys that they want (myself included). But it definitely raises the stakes.

I don't have any plans for an LVO trip, but I'll echo that I would prefer 1500 to 1850 any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Reece, Frankie, and all other staff.
Thank you. The tournament was so fun. You did a great job. I was very pleased. The water cost was annoying, especially as warm as they kept it. That was them, not you. So much fun, beautiful armies, great people, keep it up front line. Well done by the 40k community as well.
More time per round, or lower points would be good for me, but I am not a tournament regular, and play Orks, double whammy. But I got to turn five or higher in all but 1 game (stinking fish ead Tau). Thanks again.

I think the answer to finishing more games on time or at least playing through the 5th turn is a complicated answer, but I think that incentivizing or disincentivizing/penalizing is going to be 1 of the biggest factors.


Yes rushing a player will cause for more sloppiness or less of an enjoyable time. But it's a fine line. Some people are there to compete, others are there for a good time.

If my games continually failed to make it to turn 5 I would be highly annoyed, or if I didn't make top 8 because a game didn't finish I'd be upset. I am all for fun times but I still want to do the best I can.

I think if you impliment an Xpt value penalty to your overall score for each game failing to make it to turn 5 will keep people from slow playing and help people be more mindful of time.


I love 1850 games, it allows for the fun toys but also makes for hard decisions on what you bring.

I would be all for 1500 again. It's still enough points to get the things you want, but it limits some of the shenanigans and makes the games faster and tighter.

Most non-championship games are not actually 1850. The Adepticon Friendly, for example, is 1500 and very, very well liked (well, for other reasons as well, but that's part of it).

Another vote for 1500, or 1650... I don't really see the point of 1750 because it's not that different from 1850 (just one less MSU drop for most armies).

Another idea, people are not constantly checking their phones for times. What if you had a giant effing timer projected on the wall showing tim?

Reece, just supporting our discussion on Sunday morning. As much as I love to play with my toys, I think a move to 1500 points would be good for the community. Steve is running the next Contest of Champions in March at 1500 points. We'd be happy to share lists and general feelings from participants. It also allows us to run a 4 round event in 1 day which I'd love to see be the new standard for RTTs.

Well steve is running an escalation tournament, so I dont think thats fair.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Well steve is running an escalation tournament, so I dont think thats fair.

It's actually an escalation series of 6 tournaments, each one however stands on its own. I don't see how that has anything to do with fair... If anything the participants will have the ability to compare and contrast points values from 1250 to 2500 over the course of each year. This is the 15th year that the event series has been run, but the first year it is running every event as an ITC event.

1,500 could be a really good change. Not only would it be faster, and potentially allow the LVO to get in an extra round, but it's also a lot better for newer players, which this game needs desperately.

As someone who is in the process of painting and building an army, it's fun to make the 1850 lists and cram a ton in them but it's horrifically daunting to actually complete it.

1500 points would be rad and definitely a step in the right direction for both finishing games on time AND growing the game through twitch casting.

I *LOVE* all the work that went into the stream this year with casting and camera angles and keeping it trucking through all the various issues that popped up (mostly audio problems from what little I watched). Kudos to the twitch crew for all that! Casino dice look lovely from the twitch stream, but unfortunately I think they're a bit too cumbersome to roll in the quantities that you need for 40k. Given that the optimal way to roll casino dice is two at a time, that'll make the shooting phases drag on a bit. Who knows, maybe it sorts itself out with the drop in points?

Of course, this is ITC, so we all know it'll be up to a poll anyway

I too think 1500 is the way to go and I believe many people also think that way.

Penalizing people who dont finish is a silly thing to even consider and out right hostile towards high model count armies.

1850 is completely arbitrary, there is no need for that level of points, especially given the amount of free points now and the "apocolypse-ization" of 40k.

I had an awesome time at the LVO. So I don't think I experienced the con itself as much as I would have liked due to being first timer in Vegas AND it being Super Bowl weekend. Still so much fun to be had.

I'd echo a lot of the statements both positive and negative as far as the event, but add overall it was amazingly smooth for such a large tournament. Kudos to FLG and the TFG podcast and friends who were the TOs.

My concerns with the running of things, such as they are, do tend to tie into the current time discussion.

First, the rounds weren't really 2:45. In fact for most of us they weren't even getting 2:30. It was difficult as hell to find tables due to the layout and tiny print and hard to read table number signs. I had trouble and yet still waited another 10+ minutes for my opponents to also arrive. Also turn wrap up/ time split was called to end games at 2:30 by my estimation. However it appeared you could play 2:45 under certain situations (the stream I assume). No issue with this to be honest, just think its disingenuous to say the round time was 2:45.

To improve in this area? Have larger signs at each row so you can quickly figure out where to go yet still keep the cool but hard to read table number signs. Also take advantage of that kick ass software and let people play more of the available time.

Second, I love the software that was used as a player and from the sounds of it things worked well for the TOs also. However it felt like it was relied upon to much for announcing round start and that pairings were up. Rounds and pairings just sort of happened. Announcements were yelled out but rarely heard. Its more of a polish thing then a major area but I think this also affected the actual time people got to play.

To improve in this area?More info available, announcments via text, email or the website, a projector with time, and such.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with time but more the direction that 40k has been going. It was interesting Sunday when I was trying to find out who won what that no one bothered to post who won ren man, or best in faction or best appearance. Also to even score appearance you had to be in the hall Friday morning from 8-930 or so (although this is not quite true, you could get it judged later but this wasn't announced). I think this is indicative of an overall issue with 40k events now a days. The appearance side of things feels tacked on, even if it was awarded generously. No idea how it is scored in between 3 colors or master class, what if any does display or conversions factor. Its not transparent at all. Also heard a rumor that if you brought the same sort of army to the event as previous you couldn't win an award for it. Whether true or not the lack of transparency makes it hard to know. Also lack of transparency makes it hard to improve ones score. I just wish there was more of a focus on what is more important to me and many other 40k players -- being a whole hobbyist.

To improve in this area?
1. More transparency on paint judging, expectations and such. Are conversions a thing that matter to the score? Display? If you are leveraging one judge and no rubric then maybe have him post on FLG his criteria and examples of the numbers.
2. Spread the paint judging around some. Have several time slots available and have people sign up. There's the entire day Sunday that many attendees aren't involved in anything particular.
3. Have the bloggers and twitch feed folks take some time to showcase the well painted armies, interview the artist and what not. In general make appearance a bigger deal and I think it will help solidify the event as the best 40k singles in the world.

Thanks for reading and hopefully these are read as constructive critique they are intended.

I didn't attend the LVO, but I'm a big fan of the ITC circuit and how's been able to bring the community together.

I would also join the movement for 1500 point games. I haven't changed my play style, but I've been finding games harder and harder to finish. I think this stems not only from the increase in free points, but how detachments interact. Most detachments have some sort of command benefit so we have a lot more interactions of rules. By dropping the points, not only do we deal with less units, but a lot less rule interactions from multiple detachments.

Also, with more and more units being able to assault turn one or after entering from reserves games are starting to utilize all the phases at an earlier portion than before.

I think shorter games would also increase participation. It's a lot easier to sell to significant others that you might be gone half or 3/4th of the day than being gone the entire day. If you need less points to field an army, the barrier to participating in a tournament is lowered. Plus, with less points being needed to field a new army, people might want to try more armies and this could drive sales for host game stores.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with time but more the direction that 40k has been going. It was interesting Sunday when I was trying to find out who won what that no one bothered to post who won ren man, or best in faction or best appearance. Also to even score appearance you had to be in the hall Friday morning from 8-930 or so (although this is not quite true, you could get it judged later but this wasn't announced). I think this is indicative of an overall issue with 40k events now a days. The appearance side of things feels tacked on, even if it was awarded generously. No idea how it is scored in between 3 colors or master class, what if any does display or conversions factor. Its not transparent at all. Also heard a rumor that if you brought the same sort of army to the event as previous you couldn't win an award for it. Whether true or not the lack of transparency makes it hard to know. Also lack of transparency makes it hard to improve ones score. I just wish there was more of a focus on what is more important to me and many other 40k players -- being a whole hobbyist.

To improve in this area?
1. More transparency on paint judging, expectations and such. Are conversions a thing that matter to the score? Display? If you are leveraging one judge and no rubric then maybe have him post on FLG his criteria and examples of the numbers.
2. Spread the paint judging around some. Have several time slots available and have people sign up. There's the entire day Sunday that many attendees aren't involved in anything particular.
3. Have the bloggers and twitch feed folks take some time to showcase the well painted armies, interview the artist and what not. In general make appearance a bigger deal and I think it will help solidify the event as the best 40k singles in the world.

Paint judging is a very involved process, and frankly the paint judges are all extremely good painters who can glance at most armies and say "that's definitely not winning" and move on. They narrow it down to a relatively small number of the best armies, then judge those in detail. They do have a rubric. The way paint judging is handled is dictated by the logistical difficulties involved with an event this size.

The paint judges are also cool guys who are more than willing to chat about how to improve your painting and such, too.

Embrace your inner geek wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
1850 is fine but yeah there are a LOT of lists / players who struggle to finish within the time of 2:45 (which SHOULD be enough time).

Clocks are too expensive and people prefer 1850.. I vote steps are taken to making games that don't finish at a natural conclusion being more costly. Something like a yes/no option during the scoring process and too many "no" answers results in another penalty.

What if they are slow? What if they have a large army? Well, I would say to both of those IF they are slow they need to speed up in a tourney and if they have a large army play faster.. time IS a part of the game and taking it for yourself is selfish and bad for the game. Giving incentive to finishing games on time/faster is better for everyone.

I disagree. Forcing people to play faster is only part of the answer. What can result is a rushed "sloppy" game, which is deeply unsatisfying. Additionally, it leaves no time to get to know your opponent and have a bit of banter over the table. One of my games finished at the end of turn 4, but we agreed that if we had played faster we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun.

I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

 DarkLink wrote:

Paint judging is a very involved process, and frankly the paint judges are all extremely good painters who can glance at most armies and say "that's definitely not winning" and move on. They narrow it down to a relatively small number of the best armies, then judge those in detail. They do have a rubric. The way paint judging is handled is dictated by the logistical difficulties involved with an event this size.

The paint judges are also cool guys who are more than willing to chat about how to improve your painting and such, too.

I TO two 50 man events so I am fully aware paint judging is an involved process. Thankless no less (so thank you for paint judging whoever you are, since I failed to do so earlier).

Totally understand the logistic issues -- however these can be managed a bit better. Adepticon does it by having tons of judges (that has its own issues no doubt). There's the entirety of Sunday available for the most part, Thursday night. Lunches, evening. Have people sign up for a particular time to get paint judging for those that care.

If there's a rubric then it should be posted or discussed on the FLG blog. Local ITC events near me (like TSHFT) ask us for our rubric or they use player votes to determine scores (which can be vary problematic) because the ITC format doesn't post their rubric. So just post it, it would help I think in a lot of ways.

Also I am sure they are cool guys and I am sure they are more than capable judges/painters/insturctors and given a different event myself and others may have taken the time to talk to them. But it is a bit easier, especially if logistics is an issue, to have a much info as possible posted up front than expect people to chase them down.

Finally I am gonna requote this for emphasis:

and frankly the paint judges are all extremely good painters who can glance at most armies and say "that's definitely not winning" and move on. They narrow it down to a relatively small number of the best armies, then judge those in detail.

This is a bit scary for a couple of reasons. One, since best in faction is 50% painting, I sure hope they don't blow off armies that might have won despite being non-masterclass. Doubt that happened (Frankie specifically said they would track people down if they were in the running), but again without transparency I have no idea. Second you know what might take some time to evaluate outside of first glances? Conversions. A good conversion won't get noticed because it is so good it looks like a legit model. I have been to events with 'pro-painter' judges who completely miss conversions, its one reason why a good appearance rubric lets you point out what your conversions are. But perhaps they don't even care about conversions? No idea, something that having the rubric available would make super clear.

Agreed that playing within the time limit is an important part of the game. There are some armies (gladius or jetbikes to name a couple) that extremely benefit from a game ending prematurely in most formats. A lot of GT's do already have something on the score sheet asking if the game ended on time or not, hard to say whether it really helps.

One of adepticon's missions in their packet this year mentions objectives being worth a multiple of what game turn the game ends on, which is an interesting way to do it.

I wouldn't mind seeing a GT play at 1500, just to see how it goes. It would only work though if the community got behind it. I do find 1850 fun, but a lot of armies (again gladius, or daemon summoning) are now playing with more points on top of that so in a lot of games you're actually playing something closer to a 2000 point list. Ignoring that aspect of it, the 1850 kind of got established as the itsofacto points around the end of 5th Ed iirc. Maybe we've just reached a point where it's time to trim the fat. Just thinking about points deflation an average marine has gone down several points since then so not even considering free upgrades almost every army has vastly gone up in model count in the last few years.

Again though, it's only worth pursuing if people will get behind it. I'm not sure myself, but I wouldn't mind giving it a go.

I'm going to hop onto the 1,500 train with most of the other folks.

1,500 is enough for gladius/warconvo/decurions/etc to still be used which is perfect as players will still be able to fit in a lot of toys. 350 pt drop is enough to definitely speed the game up by at least 15-30 minutes (and since turns 6-7 are fairly quick) that might make all the difference in the world. Very much worth testing out.

iNcontroL wrote:

I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If the ITC did want to move in the direction of tracking time for each player, almost everyone has a smart phone that includes some sort of timer app. Would be pretty easy to keep phones out on the table and just hit the "start/stop" buttons as appropriate.

However, I don't think that most players would be interested in upping the stress level of the games.

I know that top players look at the tournaments as competitions first, second, third and then maybe social events. This drives the desire for more rounds to get a true winner, clocked games to prevent losing out on valuable points and intense competition that tests their skill. However, most participants are not looking for that level of intensity. Sure, they play to win, but mostly it's just to get away from the wife and kids and pretend to be a super human general for a day or two. For TOs to focus on the 10-20% of players contending for top stops and to ignore the rest makes no sense. It turns off most of the "customers" and that in turn undercuts the size of the event, its prestige and prize support.

Last weekend I played in an RTT where 2 of 3 games I had to be explain to opponents how the general rules work and how their units function. One of those games didn't get past turn 3. It was a pretty frustrating experience, but I would rather those guys come out and participate in the community. Next time they'll be better prepared...and if they're not, we still need them for the event to happen.

[typo fix]

 winterman wrote:

This is a bit scary for a couple of reasons. One, since best in faction is 50% painting, I sure hope they don't blow off armies that might have won despite being non-masterclass. Doubt that happened (Frankie specifically said they would track people down if they were in the running), but again without transparency I have no idea. Second you know what might take some time to evaluate outside of first glances? Conversions. A good conversion won't get noticed because it is so good it looks like a legit model. I have been to events with 'pro-painter' judges who completely miss conversions, its one reason why a good appearance rubric lets you point out what your conversions are. But perhaps they don't even care about conversions? No idea, something that having the rubric available would make super clear.

I don't believe Best in Faction includes paint- the only awards involving painting are the Best Painted and Renaissance Man awards.

iNcontroL wrote:


I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If it was truly about competition, you should be open to allowing horde army types into the meta to perform as they should, as it is, they simply dont have enough time to perform on the level they should. Time clocks make sense in chess where two players have the same army, they make no sense and are unfair in 40k they are extremely prejudiced against high model count armies. Penalizing people is not only silly, its prejudiced against certain armies, and beneficial to others.

If you are going to tell high model count players to just choose a different army, then that goes two ways as its easier to scale down the armies a bit then it is to expect people to choose completely different armies to suit time constraints.

Even with both players only having 100 models on the table between the two of them (which is a very low model count) at 2.5 hours, with zero set up or banter time, that is 15 seconds per turn per model to move, shoot, charge, resolve assaults, psychic and so on to get to turn 6.

That works out to less then four seconds to roll dice, measure, and move per phase per model, and yet you want to penalize scores because of people taking even this small amount of time to play the game?

All these people speaking out do not have to be uber competitive to have their say either, we dont just value the opinions of top 8 players now do we?

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

 FTGTEvan wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

I've played iNcontrol several times, and I think you're getting the wrong impression- he's not implying that you shouldn't interact with your opponents, only that you shouldn't do it to the point where you cause time issues. Large armies running out of time has been an issue with 40k tournaments for as long as I can remember (since at least 3rd edition), this isn't something new.

 FTGTEvan wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

Hmmm... I don't think that is a fair response. Out of 300 competitors maybe 50 had a chance at making top 8. So entering into the event you have a potentially polarized field. To suggest that someone who is playing in the largest competitive event in the world and attempting to win the event shouldn't expect a certain level of efficiency from their opponent is unreasonable. Also, it isn't people who are serious and cordial to their opponents that give tournament players a bad name, it is the disconnect between local meta expectations and tournament meta and the rules meta. It's also rude people, and casual gamers are every bit as rude as competitive players. However, things that are acceptable to one group are not acceptable by the other. Thus we have an expectations disconnect.

A competitive player will find excessive banter that slows the game to 3-4 turns to be rude and inconsiderate. A friendly gamer might find being called for minimally excessive movement or shoddy measurement rude... Just saying...

 FTGTEvan wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

Incontrol is an awesome guy and a great sport, so I wouldn't be too concerned. The thing is, this is an event where you try to cram a bunch of games into a limited period of time, and there are in fact people trying to compete for the win. If neither you nor your opponent care, then feel free to take all the time you want, but it's poor sportsmanship to screw your opponents over by slow playing.

I think that you can be both efficient in play and socialize as well, granted there's probably a correlation between how much socialization you do based on how likely you are to make it into the top, not only because you want to play efficiently but I can't imagine that there isn't an element of nerves involved where you're thinking about so many things you don't socialize as much as a result either.

Also, a small update on my list project but I got the top placing Ork list up, which is really awesome. Please keep sending in your lists guys, I don't care if you placed well or not, any list is valuable for record keeping.

 Tinkrr wrote:
I think that you can be both efficient in play and socialize as well, granted there's probably a correlation between how much socialization you do based on how likely you are to make it into the top, not only because you want to play efficiently but I can't imagine that there isn't an element of nerves involved where you're thinking about so many things you don't socialize as much as a result either.

Also, a small update on my list project but I got the top placing Ork list up, which is really awesome. Please keep sending in your lists guys, I don't care if you placed well or not, any list is valuable for record keeping.

Could you post the link to the lists again? I'm not sure which page of the thread it was put on. This is an awsome service you're doing by the way. Many thanks.

Relapse wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
I think that you can be both efficient in play and socialize as well, granted there's probably a correlation between how much socialization you do based on how likely you are to make it into the top, not only because you want to play efficiently but I can't imagine that there isn't an element of nerves involved where you're thinking about so many things you don't socialize as much as a result either.

Also, a small update on my list project but I got the top placing Ork list up, which is really awesome. Please keep sending in your lists guys, I don't care if you placed well or not, any list is valuable for record keeping.

Could you post the link to the lists again? I'm not sure which page of the thread it was put on. This is an awsome service you're doing by the way. Many thanks.

No problem, and thanks for the kind words. I'm super happy with how much support I've gotten so far for this project by people submitting lists via PMs.

The link is in my signature if ever needed, but in case you're on a phone and can't see links here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y28px3mgjeergdn/AADDpUf3n_u2QfkiYzDzHSh0a?dl=0

It's a drop box account with a bunch of word pad files that state placing, army(ies), and player name. I'm hoping to do this for all ITC events eventually, but it's really hard to get in contact with anyone in regards to this matter. So I guess I'll just do my best and continue to pester people.

Edit: If this does go well and grows, I can try to even include links to games featured on streams, any comments the list player had, and even links to battle reports in the same file as a list. The more information, the better in my opinion.

I prefer 1850 and think it's well proven not something arbitrarily chosen. It's much more on scale to 7th edition. 1500 seems like a throw back to 'classic' 40k.

The community did specifically vote to make it 1850. It was a while back, and it might come up for revote at some point, but it's not an arbitrary number.

Actually, kind of an interesting question, but how often does the ITC revote on stuff? From the sounds of it there isn't really any revisiting of past issues currently, which could be beneficial on a number of topics after enough time has passed.

 somerandomidiot wrote:

 FTGTEvan wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

I've played iNcontrol several times, and I think you're getting the wrong impression- he's not implying that you shouldn't interact with your opponents, only that you shouldn't do it to the point where you cause time issues. Large armies running out of time has been an issue with 40k tournaments for as long as I can remember (since at least 3rd edition), this isn't something new.

LOL evan.. no idea how you got my post so wrong. It's frustrating having to reexplain stupid things to people because they read something and take an extreme conclusion. I wasn't saying you can't have fun, talk or banter.. I was saying if you are there solely to do any one of those things you probably don't care as much about games ending on time as the people who DO and they typically are the more competitive bunch. Please, please for the love of god don't read posts and go "WELL he said something kinda close to what I will pin on him as a rule now!" it's super annoying and makes posting on forums a hindrance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FTGTEvan wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
I'm guessing you guys weren't fighting for top 8? Best of? That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter. Additionally, what you say isn't mutually exclusive.. play a smaller army/faster and you CAN banter and finish a game. It isn't like everyone who finished their games never made eye contact and spoke only of the game... not sure how you get there.

Playing on time is part of the game.. it literally is turn based. If someone is stopping that from happening rules encouraging them to be in line isn't crazy.

If that's the way you approach events, that's unfortunate. I was competing for top ranks at NOVA and still was able to enjoy games and interact with my opponents, including your friend Frankie. The idea that you have to be focused only on "results" is, to me, sad, and part of what contributes to the negative perception of tournament gamers.

What I am saying is if you play those horde armies or larger armies the expectation is that you wil need to compensate and play faster. I really don't think this is a wacky or crazy idea.. the idea that you can take any army you want and take as long as you want is ignorant to the general etiquette of the game. Slow playing IS a thing both intentional and unintentional. At 1850 you can take a horde army that COULD take very long to play but to do so under the guise of "don't tell me what army I can and cannot take!" is selfish and bad. This game has a lot of blurry lines and you are currently NOT timed so a "best effort" type of mentality is expected.. that is what I am saying. If rules dictate that you are penalized for not finishing games than look at yourself and realize you are not playing within the rules of the game. In a garage you can play 5 hour games.. at a competitive tourney where your opponent might have traveled there (same as you) and would hate to lose because you strangled the time from them to push your models around is not in the spirit of the game.. so a system that gives incentives for finishing games is GOOD in my humble opinion.

iNcontroL wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:
That is fine if you want to have fun at the table and banter... I would tell you that MOST people who are contending for a top finish and really care about results aren't there to banter.

LOL evan.. no idea how you got my post so wrong. It's frustrating having to reexplain stupid things to people because they read something and take an extreme conclusion. I wasn't saying you can't have fun, talk or banter.. I was saying if you are there solely to do any one of those things you probably don't care as much about games ending on time as the people who DO and they typically are the more competitive bunch. Please, please for the love of god don't read posts and go "WELL he said something kinda close to what I will pin on him as a rule now!" it's super annoying and makes posting on forums a hindrance.

You don't have to reexplain anything, but more or less, that's what you said. Yes, it was a generalization, but that's how it comes across, particularly when it's followed up with something that comes across as "if you don't finish you're bad or playing the wrong thing."

Again, that is putting words in your mouth, and it's hyperbolic. Granted and noted. As was my response, but what I'm lamenting is perpetuation of these stereotypes and boxes we stick ourselves and our fellow gamers in, dividing our community and coming across as hostile to each other. Not to mention the idea that top tables are more serious is an expectation that, in my experience, is largely untrue. My more relaxed events are when I'm at the top tables; it's the mid-table local heroes where I have unenjoyable interactions with opponents. Again, you didn't say top tables are unenjoyable and not about fun, but that's kind of how it sounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

iNcontroL wrote:
What I am saying is if you play those horde armies or larger armies the expectation is that you wil need to compensate and play faster. I really don't think this is a wacky or crazy idea.. the idea that you can take any army you want and take as long as you want is ignorant to the general etiquette of the game. Slow playing IS a thing both intentional and unintentional. At 1850 you can take a horde army that COULD take very long to play but to do so under the guise of "don't tell me what army I can and cannot take!" is selfish and bad. This game has a lot of blurry lines and you are currently NOT timed so a "best effort" type of mentality is expected.. that is what I am saying. If rules dictate that you are penalized for not finishing games than look at yourself and realize you are not playing within the rules of the game. In a garage you can play 5 hour games.. at a competitive tourney where your opponent might have traveled there (same as you) and would hate to lose because you strangled the time from them to push your models around is not in the spirit of the game.. so a system that gives incentives for finishing games is GOOD in my humble opinion.

Fair enough. and largely agreed. And as long a penalty is communicated before hand, I'm fine with it though it's not something I like. It's another aspect of going to an event that you should be playing within the requirements/expectations of the event. I think we're in agreement generally in that respect.

 Tinkrr wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
I think that you can be both efficient in play and socialize as well, granted there's probably a correlation between how much socialization you do based on how likely you are to make it into the top, not only because you want to play efficiently but I can't imagine that there isn't an element of nerves involved where you're thinking about so many things you don't socialize as much as a result either.

Also, a small update on my list project but I got the top placing Ork list up, which is really awesome. Please keep sending in your lists guys, I don't care if you placed well or not, any list is valuable for record keeping.

Could you post the link to the lists again? I'm not sure which page of the thread it was put on. This is an awsome service you're doing by the way. Many thanks.

No problem, and thanks for the kind words. I'm super happy with how much support I've gotten so far for this project by people submitting lists via PMs.

The link is in my signature if ever needed, but in case you're on a phone and can't see links here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y28px3mgjeergdn/AADDpUf3n_u2QfkiYzDzHSh0a?dl=0

It's a drop box account with a bunch of word pad files that state placing, army(ies), and player name. I'm hoping to do this for all ITC events eventually, but it's really hard to get in contact with anyone in regards to this matter. So I guess I'll just do my best and continue to pester people.

Edit: If this does go well and grows, I can try to even include links to games featured on streams, any comments the list player had, and even links to battle reports in the same file as a list. The more information, the better in my opinion.

What you're doing is helping us up our own game by putting all of these lists into the mix. Churoc(the Ork player) is someone I've had as an opponent since the old Rogue Trader days and has pretty much exclusively run Orksfrom that ancient time forward. He's not one to blow his own horn and is quite humble about how well he runs them, since he plays for the fun of the game, win or lose. He placed 6th nationally in the first 'Ard Boyz tournament and possibly would have taken first if he had won his last game, since he was in first place going into it.

Relapse wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
I think that you can be both efficient in play and socialize as well, granted there's probably a correlation between how much socialization you do based on how likely you are to make it into the top, not only because you want to play efficiently but I can't imagine that there isn't an element of nerves involved where you're thinking about so many things you don't socialize as much as a result either.

Also, a small update on my list project but I got the top placing Ork list up, which is really awesome. Please keep sending in your lists guys, I don't care if you placed well or not, any list is valuable for record keeping.

Could you post the link to the lists again? I'm not sure which page of the thread it was put on. This is an awsome service you're doing by the way. Many thanks.

No problem, and thanks for the kind words. I'm super happy with how much support I've gotten so far for this project by people submitting lists via PMs.

The link is in my signature if ever needed, but in case you're on a phone and can't see links here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y28px3mgjeergdn/AADDpUf3n_u2QfkiYzDzHSh0a?dl=0

It's a drop box account with a bunch of word pad files that state placing, army(ies), and player name. I'm hoping to do this for all ITC events eventually, but it's really hard to get in contact with anyone in regards to this matter. So I guess I'll just do my best and continue to pester people.

Edit: If this does go well and grows, I can try to even include links to games featured on streams, any comments the list player had, and even links to battle reports in the same file as a list. The more information, the better in my opinion.

What you're doing is helping us up our own game by putting all of these lists into the mix. Churoc(the Ork player) is someone I've had as an opponent since the old Rogue Trader days and has pretty much exclusively run Orksfrom that ancient time forward. He's not one to blow his own horn and is quite humble about how well he runs them, since he plays for the fun of the game, win or lose. He placed 6th nationally in the first 'Ard Boyz tournament and possibly would have taken first if he had won his last game, since he was in first place going into it.

Thanks. I just hope more and more people send me their lists, that's all I really want out of this. Maybe I'll just be lucky enough to get a TO to actually collect lists for once.... Crazy, I know.

His list is really awesome, I like that while it has a very traditional spin, it has a decent amount of stuff that isn't very common from the looks of it. I wonder what other Ork players were running in comparison to his list. I'm guessing most had a Stompa, but you never know. I mean that's really what motivated this project, there were people who wanted to see the lists, I wanted to see the lists, and there were discussion that went "Well obviously they ran this or that" but we had no clue without seeing things. I mean for all the griping about Piranha Wing being unplayable I think Isreal was the top Tau player and he ran the formation with seven Piranhas, which we'd never know if it hadn't been featured in a round.

Edit: Sorry, Trevor was the first best Tau finish, Israel was second. We have no idea what Trevor had. Wish we did.

The funny thing about time it's like trash it expands to fill all the space. You should see some of the etc games that only get to 3-5 turns in 4 hour rounds. It's crazy how slow people can get when they have the time. But in that system you are encouraged to clock your turns and fill out turn times on your score sheet. And if you are slow played and can prove that your opponent has take three of the four hours or some other crazy disparity the judges do step in and change scores after rounds.

Now that's at the extreme end. But yeah if you kept records of turn times you could see where you need to improve. Whether in your own speed or your ability to speed up your opponents. I track mine sometimes if playing people with large armies or notoriously slow. Just for myself to recognize how a game is shifting. Never had to use the information with a judge or anything but it's nice to track sometimes.

Slow play is real, intentional or not, and I saw far too many games not come to a natural conclusion due to time. I hate when this happens because it is not necessarily reflective of how either players actually played the game. Sometimes, it seemed like the player was intentionally doing it, but I had no real way to tell that other than repeated complaints (so the first few players are out of luck). Most of the time, it was players having complicated lists with a lack of fluency in the list.

More time would help solve this, but then it makes organizing the events harder, especially for smaller events that depend on a local crowd. Larger GTs can handle this better as people travel to play, but still, having played warmachine competitively, 12-15 hour days suck.

Less points helps cut down on the model count/rules interactions/200+ shot shooting phases/30+ dice psychic phases, and this will definitely speed up the game. It has the possible bonus (or problem) of shifting the meta as some lists cannot really function as intended at less than 1850.

Chess Clocks/Apps/Deathclocks encourage faster play, and for me, rather than having a flat "you each get 90 minutes", a simple clock that counts up might be better suited to the wide variety of lists out there. Gladius is going to take more time than a Baronial Court, but if judges have a clear time stamp of how much a player took in an individual game, it makes it easier to determine slow-play. At my local store, we have used a house rule of "less than 4 turned played is double loss". but this may not work in a larger GT format as chipmunking is also real. The ETC rule of 5-played or draw is also workable, but again, at a large GT, my fear is that unscrupulous individuals would identify that they were starting to lose and purposely delay to draw their opponent.

I'd vote less points as this is the solution with the least problematic implementation (from my view at least), and the for the most part, I think a good 70-80% of attendees would be fine with it, but I definitely understand the more competitive players taking issue with it as it definitely forces a reset on the meta and list-building, and for those that want to play and prepare for ETC or any other format that doesn't match the same points, it forces a split system that can make transferring between the two difficult.

TL;DR
A vote of several options would be wise, but more thorough discussion should probably occur before such.

As a fairly casual tourney player, unfortunately I've often had the experience of not finishing games in tournaments time limits, particularly if I'm friends with the opposition and we're not just rolling through the game! I think it would make a GT much more accessible to more players if the point level were reduced slightly, while keeping the same round time limits.

The 1850 vote was some time ago, and I'd love to see a reduced point limit question on the next ballot . It might also just be something to try phasing in - although it's really nice to have a standard to build to.

Warmachine (which I play more frequently than 40K now) has a similar issue where 50 points is where players feel they need to play to "have answers to most list questions", but 35 just makes the games so much faster. Honestly, I've by far had the best time playing 35 point games, but can't convince most folks to do so anymore since 50 has become so entrenched.

But I think 40K is in a period where enough changes have happened (particularly the "free points" in formations!) that considering a lower point level might be able to gain enough traction in the community to be viable. I'd love to try, at least!

The only formations I'm aware of that generate free points are Gladius Strike Force, Admech War Convocation and the new Tau formation. 1500 points could just exacerbate this effect making those formations even more powerful.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The only formations I'm aware of that generate free points are Gladius Strike Force, Admech War Convocation and the new Tau formation. 1500 points could just exacerbate this effect making those formations even more powerful.

And of course anything that summons demons....!

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The only formations I'm aware of that generate free points are Gladius Strike Force, Admech War Convocation and the new Tau formation. 1500 points could just exacerbate this effect making those formations even more powerful.

Space wolves have a free pod formation, as well as some free upgrades from another.
Necrons get free move thru cover, free relentless, and free invisible Rez orbs in effect. (Models not dying really lengthens the game!!!)
KDK get free blood tithe, which can help get free units, as well as secondary blood tithe purchases.
Blood Angels have free power weapons and combi weapons from a formation.
Daemon summoning is also a thing for anyone with psychic dice not in grey armor.
Plus the ones you mentioned, as well as lion's blade.
Junk just downright also costs less than it used to.

Free is all over the place now. And there's just going to be more to come. It's time to accept that 1850 has become too apocalyptic for timely 2:45 event rounds. I would love to play giant 2500+ point games to win, because I feel like the game actually gets better balanced and gets less dice screwy as you go up in points, but it's just downright not feasible with 40k's ruleset that clumsily stumbles through the game. Things like models moving in 3 different phases, and complicated close combats eat up time like crazy.

Maybe when the game switches editions and gets some streamlining done we could try going back up, but as it is now, a point drop is hilariously overdue.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The only formations I'm aware of that generate free points are Gladius Strike Force, Admech War Convocation and the new Tau formation. 1500 points could just exacerbate this effect making those formations even more powerful.

Of course, 1,500 is pretty limiting on War Convocation - it's minimum 1,340 and that's taking Breachers and a Knight Gallant. Destroyers and a Crusader make it 1,470. While they still get the free wargear, it's pretty tough to fit in some of the complimenting formations and just numbers with that small a limit.

Gladius comes in around 1k minimum, so there's more room, but that's with none of the tools. Yes, the % of the total army in free points goes up at 1,500, but the taxes in the combi-detachments and some formations becomes a higher percentage too.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The only formations I'm aware of that generate free points are Gladius Strike Force, Admech War Convocation and the new Tau formation. 1500 points could just exacerbate this effect making those formations even more powerful.

To be fair, in some of those cases the free points scale with the size, so it's not an issue exactly. In other cases the free points are more possible as a result of the size because Israel's Pirahna formation was 392 points itself, that's pretty much the difference between 1500 and 1850, and while it's good it's a lot harder to squeeze in at 1500 than it is at 1850, not to say it wouldn't get played, just that those free points would cost a lot more dedication.

Side note: the gladius I've run this last season has 36 units.
By the time we get matchups, get our stuff to the table, shake hands, say hi, define terrain, choose table sides, go over each other's list, do warlord traits and psychic powers, place objectives, roll night-fighting, roll for turns and DEPLOY (a huge one!) infiltrate, scout move, and seize the initiative, we're already down to 2:20 left if we moved reasonably quick. (And I usually low- or null-deploy. We'd have even less time if I went full on blitzkrieg.) Finally we need to roll and track maelstrom objectives.

Now that we're actually in turn 1: Assuming I want to make it to end of 5 and actually have a chance at turn 6 (and have some time left for it,) while also using up no more than half the time in my end, I have 19 seconds TOTAL for each unit each turn to move, shoot/run/flat out, assault, and perform close combat, AS WELL AS let the opponent take saves and other reactions during those things, such as flickerjumps, interceptor, and morale tests. Not to mention that I may be hit and running on their turn.

19 seconds per unit!!! For their entire turn!!! Dice rolls and everything!!! And some of my guys deep strike. When is the last time you saw someone perform a deep strike WITH scatter that took less than 20 seconds just to place?

Now I have gotten pretty fast at gladius, but that's breakneck speed. If there is ANY hindrance whatsoever (for example I had to stop and show a necron player in an event in his book that he doesn't get to reanimate from remove from game effects like sweeping advance,) then I literally cannot finish the game on time. And let's face it, this is 40k. It's a huge complicated mess and even people at top 8 of LVO have rules questions that eat up time.

This aside was just to show how absurd it is when someone ignorant says "just play faster lawlz."

So yeah, points drop please. It is well beyond time.

Then maybe you should consider running an army that doesn't force you to slowplay your opponent.

 DarkLink wrote:
Then maybe you should consider running an army that doesn't force you to slowplay your opponent.

I never said I slow play. I move uncomfortably fast just because I don't want to be accused of such, and make plenty of errors due to it. The only games I haven't made it to turn 5 on involved newer players at the events in question and rules issues such as the example where the necron player didn't believe me that his swept unit of crons died without reanimate chances.

I played gladius because it's a competitive choice that I have the models for. If I was "lucky" and had one of the other top-tier lists available to me, I'd play one of them. Your post is extremely condescending and rude to me sir.
If people don't want it to be a legal choice, they need to make that clear. If it is a legal choice, it needs to be playable in the format, and that includes the game time.

I had a friend who used to play horde orks and another horde guard. they had their whole armies magnetized to movement trays.... so deployment and turns one and two took no time for them since they just moved these trays forward. After that models had died and they would move off the trays into the nitty gritty of the game but the time saved in deployment and turns one and two allowed them to play horde armies competitively.

Theres no problem with playing those armies or any army, as long as you come up with creative ways to play faster. Steve sisk and his battle company were great example. He had the whole thing spread out on the side with troops lined up in front of his transports. All numbered to match the guys... was very cool loooking visually and also helped him quickly roll through reserves and enter the table with no confusion.

I did the same from the very first game with the gladius onward. Just to shave seconds whenever possible like a competitive driver, every little thing was in its place in the army tray pre-game ready to go. It helps, but the time wall is still all too real.

And it's not just gladius. Necrons don't lose models, so their turns never get shorter. You need an hour class to figure out what all each of the alphas in a war convo get straight in your head, dozens of free drones take time to move run and thrust move...

I'm not sure where people are seeing these mythical 1850 games that are finishing comfortably within the time limit, because all I'm seeing is people left and right, even with "normal" armies, not finishing games naturally. (Assuming they both lived through the game. One side being tabled is an obvious exception.)
Even the FLG Tuesday night fights that I've watched tend to run way over what a tourney time limit would be.

Games should not be hitting the time wall constantly. Most of them should be finishing naturally with random game length. If they aren't, which in my events they haven't been, the time wall needs to be checked. And if more time can't be made available, (which it really can't,) then the game size needs to drop so that the game is easier to fit.