Eldar/20/1
Blood Angels/6/2
Space Wolves/2/8
Adepta Sororitas/3/11
Adeptus Astartes/7/12
Astra Militarum/10/13
Chaos/24/6
Tau/4/18
Genestealer Cult/3/33
Grey Knights/4/38
Dark Angels/2/45
Cult Mechanicus/2/53
Tyranids/4/54
Orks/5/55
Imperium/2/78
Necrons/1/81
Deathwatch/1/89
It's pretty clear that Eldar are redefining the meta.
Couple notes:
1. I combined all Eldar flavors into Eldar (Ulthwe, Alaitoc, Asurayani, Ynaari)
2. I combined all "Chaos" flavors into Chaos (Death Guard, Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, Alpha Legion, et al)
3. I combined all flavors of codex astartes into "Adeptus Astartes" (Salamanders, Ultramarines, et al)
All lists available in BCP.
The top 5 were undefeated, they were:
1. Eldar
2. Blood Angels
3. Eldar
4. Blood Angels
5. Death Guard
Update: in the final 8, the final table was Eldar vs Eldar. Spoiler: Eldar won!
Apparently there was a big controversy in the semis but i am not sure yet what it was.
Update 2/1: Full list and order here, post final table.
My Blood Angels tearing up the masses. People were starting to say they sucked due to all the battle reps of them constantly losing but I kept saying they were losing due to people playing them incorrectly and focusing solely on CC. I'm curious what lists they were running.
Hoodwink wrote: My Blood Angels tearing up the masses. People were starting to say they sucked due to all the battle reps of them constantly losing but I kept saying they were losing due to people playing them incorrectly and focusing solely on CC. I'm curious what lists they were running.
They pair excellently with guard. They, unlike the rest of SM, actually add something - the 3d6 deep strike charge.
pismakron wrote: Why is it clear that Eldar is redefining the meta? Because there were 20 Eldar players, or because an Eldar player finished on top?
I think it's partially due to looking at the undefeated lists and Eldar show up first and third while armies that were considered the best (cough, Guard) aren't even showing up at all. Also, I'm kinda surprised Nids aren't up there.
pismakron wrote: Why is it clear that Eldar is redefining the meta? Because there were 20 Eldar players, or because an Eldar player finished on top?
I think it's partially due to looking at the undefeated lists and Eldar show up first and third while armies that were considered the best (cough, Guard) aren't even showing up at all. Also, I'm kinda surprised Nids aren't up there.
Okay, I just didn't get the ranking. Number of players with a faction does not in itself say a lot about that factions relative strength, and top finisher could be an outlier. But I get your point.
Wow so the list that has ended second in LOV was 100% BA, it has not Imperial Guard in it. I'm sure many people would have called that list weak in this forum list-section :
Mark Wright's 2k 10 CP mono-BA
2x Batallion + Vanguard
1st Bat
Captain + jump pack + storm shield + thunder hammer + Angel's wings + Artisan of War (Warlord)
Librarian + jump pack + storm bolter + force staff
3x 5man Intercessor, bolt rifles, grenade launcher, chainsword on Sgt
Yes, capt smashyface is really good vs one large model. Mr. Chaos needed some cultists in front. Don't leave him without screens. That's how you beat BA. Screens.
It's worth noting that even thought there were Blood Angels and even a Space Wolf guy in the top 8, if you look at the lists it's all
"Space Wolf HQs and 10 units of Infantry Squads". I think the top BA guy brought 6 infantry squads?
Before the Guard players come in to declare there's nothing wrong with their codex, I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Are you seriously saying that someone can place in the top competitors in LVO with a weak list due to "favorable matchups"? When you get to this point in competitiveness where people are pretty equal in skill, your list makes or breaks your ability to win games. Having a weak list that just happens to have a bunch of favorable matchups really doesn't qualify it as a weak list. The Chaos player had a list with several pyskers, a bunch of chaff including cultists and horrors, several Berserkers in Rhinos, and fire support in the back lines. I don't really see how that's a favorable matchup to Blood Angels. The guy had screens. He had 60 models of screen units.
Of course is a possibility that, that list isn't the most powerfull thing out there. Is very possible that it can't win agaisn't other top10 list like Dark Reaper spam. That doesn't mean is a weak list, or isn't a competitive one.
I'm interested, how was the Death Guard list that placed 5th?
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Are you seriously saying that someone can place in the top competitors in LVO with a weak list due to "favorable matchups"? When you get to this point in competitiveness where people are pretty equal in skill, your list makes or breaks your ability to win games. Having a weak list that just happens to have a bunch of favorable matchups really doesn't qualify it as a weak list. The Chaos player had a list with several pyskers, a bunch of chaff including cultists and horrors, several Berserkers in Rhinos, and fire support in the back lines. I don't really see how that's a favorable matchup to Blood Angels. The guy had screens. He had 60 models of screen units.
It's infinitely better for them than 150 guardsmen. I've broken through 60 models before with BA, and it was even against CSM. In the end equation, CSM are still paying more on average than IG, so at some point, the BA are actually taking real points off the table, which never happens vs IG. I suspect that I have seriously underestimated the effect of Altioc on scaring off IG players.
It's curious that "Eldar are tearing up the meta" when 2 of their 20 players were in the top 5, but there's much less criticism/doomsaying about Blood Angels achieving the same result, but with only 6 players.
I think what we're really learning is that it's a meta that's still being defined. Reapers were thought to be strong, sure, but there's a lot less reaper spam than people are implying. What it seems to me as the crux of powerful in this edition is the ability to use (read: abuse) force multipliers.
Viewing that Blood Angel list, it looks very weak. Which is strange considering how it positioned, but it seems to have a small amount of multi-damage weapons. My guess, is that this list was made in anticipation of more horde/infantry heavy lists showing up (Such as many guard lists, or Eldar Dark Reaper spam being engaged by deep-strikers). It's a show of how to tailor a list to what you can expect, but can have some pretty poor matchups aswell.
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Are you seriously saying that someone can place in the top competitors in LVO with a weak list due to "favorable matchups"? When you get to this point in competitiveness where people are pretty equal in skill, your list makes or breaks your ability to win games. Having a weak list that just happens to have a bunch of favorable matchups really doesn't qualify it as a weak list. The Chaos player had a list with several pyskers, a bunch of chaff including cultists and horrors, several Berserkers in Rhinos, and fire support in the back lines. I don't really see how that's a favorable matchup to Blood Angels. The guy had screens. He had 60 models of screen units.
It's infinitely better for them than 150 guardsmen. I've broken through 60 models before with BA, and it was even against CSM. In the end equation, CSM are still paying more on average than IG, so at some point, the BA are actually taking real points off the table, which never happens vs IG. I suspect that I have seriously underestimated the effect of Altioc on scaring off IG players.
But the 150 Guardsman list isn't even the top competitive list. Just because you CAN create a list that is difficult for the BA list doesn't mean the BA list isn't competitive. The huge Guardsman list isn't even showing in the top lists. Once IG lost the Commissar buff, then that was the end of huge blobs autowinning since you can merely kill about half and the other half run. The BA list is also incredibly mobile with jump packs that can go over units once you make a hole. Mobility is seriously underestimated by people when you are playing a game with a finite, set number of rounds
Martel732 wrote: I don't understand how Tyranids didn't do much better.
After 7th edition, with only 4 players, I believe they will take a time to start creeping into high places. They have a very good codex. It lacks the ultra OP units like Dark Reapers (Thats a good thing) but it can be make very strong lists.
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Are you seriously saying that someone can place in the top competitors in LVO with a weak list due to "favorable matchups"? When you get to this point in competitiveness where people are pretty equal in skill, your list makes or breaks your ability to win games. Having a weak list that just happens to have a bunch of favorable matchups really doesn't qualify it as a weak list. The Chaos player had a list with several pyskers, a bunch of chaff including cultists and horrors, several Berserkers in Rhinos, and fire support in the back lines. I don't really see how that's a favorable matchup to Blood Angels. The guy had screens. He had 60 models of screen units.
It's infinitely better for them than 150 guardsmen. I've broken through 60 models before with BA, and it was even against CSM. In the end equation, CSM are still paying more on average than IG, so at some point, the BA are actually taking real points off the table, which never happens vs IG. I suspect that I have seriously underestimated the effect of Altioc on scaring off IG players.
But the 150 Guardsman list isn't even the top competitive list. Just because you CAN create a list that is difficult for the BA list doesn't mean the BA list isn't competitive. The huge Guardsman list isn't even showing in the top lists. Once IG lost the Commissar buff, then that was the end of huge blobs autowinning since you can merely kill about half and the other half run. The BA list is also incredibly mobile with jump packs that can go over units once you make a hole. Mobility is seriously underestimated by people when you are playing a game with a finite, set number of rounds
I can't agree with this hard enough. I have tried playing Dark Angels with Greenwing and Deathwing, and most of the games I find myself with a serious lack of movility to take objetives or to be where I want, and I end with 50% of my army doing nothing most of the game. Thats why the strongest DA list are mostly Ravenwing with Greenwing. (And because Ravenwing has the best units, to be honest, but that don't change the point that movility is king in this game)
After 7th edition, with only 4 players, I believe they will take a time to start creeping into high places. They have a very good codex. It lacks the ultra OP units like Dark Reapers (Thats a good thing) but it can be make very strong lists.
I think that's just 4 tyranid players in the top 100.
I'm curious to know how many players took them overall, but annoyingly it seems the overall results page is no longer showing players factions. I don't have the patience to click through 450 links to tally them up.
You are totally right, I forgot this was just the TOP100. Someone has the numbers for total of players for factions? Is not the same for 30 orks to play and only 5 to enter the top 100 than for 6 ork players to play and 5 enter the top 100.
You can watch one of the BA player's battles on Warhammer TV. He was facing a Genestealer Cult/AM/Tyranid force with 5 flyrants. Tons of CC the first turn, and the game saw maybe 3 turns when time ran out. If both players had been faster, the BA player would have been wiped by turn 5, probably with 4 flyrants remaining.
The necron player was also on WHTV - clobbered a boyz heavy ork force with wraiths, immortals and a pylon!
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Are you seriously saying that someone can place in the top competitors in LVO with a weak list due to "favorable matchups"? When you get to this point in competitiveness where people are pretty equal in skill, your list makes or breaks your ability to win games. Having a weak list that just happens to have a bunch of favorable matchups really doesn't qualify it as a weak list. The Chaos player had a list with several pyskers, a bunch of chaff including cultists and horrors, several Berserkers in Rhinos, and fire support in the back lines. I don't really see how that's a favorable matchup to Blood Angels. The guy had screens. He had 60 models of screen units.
Well seeing as someone here before said the Vanilla codex was fine and maybe it just always had bad matchups for the tournament players, why can't the opposite be said?
Galas wrote: There were 10 Imperial Guard players, that wasn't a small number. Plus all the imperial forces with Imperial Guard detachments.
EDIT: Lol, the death guard list is disgusting in all kind of ways But ey, it was at least an innovation!
Spoiler:
If you have been following tides of destruction battle reports on the BR section you have seen such a list there before. Surprised it's not more popular. Maybe buying all those crawlers is chore and risky bet for future if they get nerfed.
So apart from noting which units are seemingly over/under powered from the performances at LVO is anyone else kinda over the fethin moon about these results?
Am I the only person who's excited to see that the meta is evolving and changing? That we're seeing lists other than IG, Girlyman and Chaos soupity soup do well?
Given the variation in the top 8 lists and those we have seen do well at other tournaments this news fills me with a lot of hope that GW is absolutely on the right track with this edition.
Conscript spam a problem? GW sorts it.
Brimstone spam a problem? GW sorts it.
I wonder what will happen to Reapers....
The days of stale, unending exploit metas may actually be over! We might actually have here a game that is flexible and regularly evolving. I for one am ecstatic at the results, though a little disappointed that Nids were nowhere to be seen.
An Actual Englishman wrote: So apart from noting which units are seemingly over/under powered from the performances at LVO is anyone else kinda over the fethin moon about these results?
Am I the only person who's excited to see that the meta is evolving and changing? That we're seeing lists other than IG, Girlyman and Chaos soupity soup do well?
Given the variation in the top 8 lists and those we have seen do well at other tournaments this news fills me with a lot of hope that GW is absolutely on the right track with this edition.
Conscript spam a problem? GW sorts it.
Brimstone spam a problem? GW sorts it.
I wonder what will happen to Reapers....
The days of stale, unending exploit metas may actually be over! We might actually have here a game that is flexible and regularly evolving. I for one am ecstatic at the results, though a little disappointed that Nids were nowhere to be seen.
I agree. While Reapers, Guard Infantry squads, and the Death Company Captain (I was expecting the fire raptor too but it didn't do nearly as well as I expected) stand out as units that are probably overperforming the days of "Stormravens. The problem is Stormravens" are long gone and the meta looks completely different from what it did even a month or two ago. We can fully expect the things that are a problem at this LVO to be sorted in March, as GW has been sorting every balance problem 8th has had.
Both the pure BA army and the Creepy Crawler army are in my meta. I'm very surprised to see the pure BA do well, he does not do well in our RTTs and other events, not bad but pretty much middle of the pack. However even at a big event like LVO most people are not going to win, I had lots of local players just take their usual lists and go 3-3, 4-2, etc. You absolutely can get to Top 8 with the right matchups and a semi-optimized army, that's how it works for all mini games. There's also been a lot of reports of slow play from many sources, people either don't have enough reps or are doing that intentionally, probably a mix. People also bring armies with loads of models where the game legitimately ends on Turn 3 due to time, you can get a Win for that but a low Score which makes your path weird.
Personally I'm disregarding the Top 8 armies except Eldar, they are pushing the meta right now. Other armies are very strong of course and I like the other Top 8 lists except the pure BA just fine but they aren't going to be meta defining, they're just solid. LVO will only put more people on Eldar net lists until March when there might be some changes, I'll be designing my armies with Eldar in mind above all other factions for the time being.
An Actual Englishman wrote: So apart from noting which units are seemingly over/under powered from the performances at LVO is anyone else kinda over the fethin moon about these results?
Am I the only person who's excited to see that the meta is evolving and changing? That we're seeing lists other than IG, Girlyman and Chaos soupity soup do well?
Given the variation in the top 8 lists and those we have seen do well at other tournaments this news fills me with a lot of hope that GW is absolutely on the right track with this edition.
Conscript spam a problem? GW sorts it.
Brimstone spam a problem? GW sorts it.
I wonder what will happen to Reapers....
The days of stale, unending exploit metas may actually be over! We might actually have here a game that is flexible and regularly evolving. I for one am ecstatic at the results, though a little disappointed that Nids were nowhere to be seen.
I agree. While Reapers, Guard Infantry squads, and the Death Company Captain (I was expecting the fire raptor too but it didn't do nearly as well as I expected) stand out as units that are probably overperforming the days of "Stormravens. The problem is Stormravens" are long gone and the meta looks completely different from what it did even a month or two ago. We can fully expect the things that are a problem at this LVO to be sorted in March, as GW has been sorting every balance problem 8th has had.
I agree with you both. The variety in lists in the top 100 , even top 50 was refreshing. Even in the top 10 you find variety. And the good part is that the meta will not be the same for 1-2 years, leaning to people in the last half of the cicle to have all the same lists.
Of course some people will live in the delusion that GW does this in purpose to make people buy X unit and then nerf it two months after to push another model, and even having proof that they did this in the past with some specific units like WraithKnights, if this style of balancing remain, people will stop buying the most OP unit en masse, because it isn't gonna be worth it.
Remember when people said Orkz had one of the best if not the best Index army in the game?
Well, I think they did and this LVO doesn't dispute that. The Orks are now fighting a lot of Codex armies.
And well, gee, would you look at that? Most of the Top 100 is Codex armies.
So Space Wolves, Sisters of Battle, Tau and GSC don't count because...?
The only army that is still on Index that did worse was Necrons.
I didn't say Orkz were the ONLY one, I just said their low placement is expected. Codex armies are a lot more powerful than Index armies so they should take most the spots, which they did. If you want to say Orkz are weak, you need to compare them only to other Index armies. The Ork lists were much more likely to face Codex opponents than Index opponents, thus driving down their score.
I didn't say Orkz were the ONLY one, I just said their low placement is expected. Codex armies are a lot more powerful than Index armies so they should take most the spots, which they did. If you want to say Orkz are weak, you need to compare them only to other Index armies. The Ork lists were much more likely to face Codex opponents than Index opponents, thus driving down their score.
Yes but the same is true of other index armies that managed to do well, they too would be facing codex lists but they managed to do better.
I believe that the Ork index was perceived as strong in a very simplistic way. Boyz are good. Da jump is good. Now that other armies have shenanigans such as -1 to hit and a lot of other tools to counter the Orks' relatively simple tactic of "get into combat ASAP" I think our weaknesses will be revealed more and more. Of course the meta has also likely learnt how to deal with Orks as well, we know many lists bring tools to deal with massed bodies and that is our most viable list.
Still at least the disparity between index and codex armies isn't as vast as it has been in the past.
I didn't say Orkz were the ONLY one, I just said their low placement is expected. Codex armies are a lot more powerful than Index armies so they should take most the spots, which they did. If you want to say Orkz are weak, you need to compare them only to other Index armies. The Ork lists were much more likely to face Codex opponents than Index opponents, thus driving down their score.
Yes but the same is true of other index armies that managed to do well, they too would be facing codex lists but they managed to do better.
I believe that the Ork index was perceived as strong in a very simplistic way. Boyz are good. Da jump is good. Now that other armies have shenanigans such as -1 to hit and a lot of other tools to counter the Orks' relatively simple tactic of "get into combat ASAP" I think our weaknesses will be revealed more and more. Of course the meta has also likely learnt how to deal with Orks as well, we know many lists bring tools to deal with massed bodies and that is our most viable list.
Still at least the disparity between index and codex armies isn't as vast as it has been in the past.
They have but just because they did a bit better than Orkz doesn't say a whole lot. Space Puppies and Tau were high so maybe there's something there but 55 Vs. 81 / 89 (Necrons and Deathwatch)? Small changes can make those kind of big shifts in rankings. Same with comparing them to Genestealers (33).
1) The Death Guard player is running like 10 plagueburst crawlers though to "prove" to GW it's OP and needs a nerf.
2) The Eldar guy in #1 is using the dubious interpretation of a rule as written to get the craftworld bonus PLUS Ynnari to abuse it. He's literally playing to the rules, not playing the game.
Is this really the kind of bullgak we want to see? Tournament or not. Min/maxing lists are one thing. But exploiting obvious loopholes just because you can? Is that what we have really degenerated into? At that point why not trot out that bullgak about how by the letter of the rules you can't advance and fire assault weapons due to the wording? Where do you draw the line at "This clearly isn't intended but I can get away with it by claiming RAW"?
Lanlaorn wrote: I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Funny you mention that. Numbers? You realize dark reapers cost virtually same as infantry squads? Let the incompetence of Phil Kelly sink in - a model with 3+ save and unmodifiable 3+ to hit that works even on things like Culexus cost same as model with 5+ save and 4+ to hit. Yup, you read that right, 5 points, for stats (these that matter that is) better than 15 pts space marine. And on top of that colossal mountain of cheese, their missile launchers are better and cheaper than SM or IG ones.
If numbers say anything, it's how colossal hyperbole and blinkers on IG are around these parts
May Gork and Mork reward those brave Ork player souls who dared to defy the masses!
honestly, Orks were only seen as "good" because competitive players who havnt had to deal with orks for the last few years got their ass handed too them because they hadn't figured out hoe tomplay 8th ed yet. They freaked out and moaned which makes me scared for our codex.
Lanlaorn wrote: I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Funny you mention that. Numbers? You realize dark reapers cost virtually same as infantry squads? Let the incompetence of Phil Kelly sink in - a model with 3+ save and unmodifiable 3+ to hit that works even on things like Culexus cost same as model with 5+ save and 4+ to hit. Yup, you read that right, 5 points, for stats (these that matter that is) better than 15 pts space marine. And on top of that colossal mountain of cheese, their missile launchers are better and cheaper than SM or IG ones.
If numbers say anything, it's how colossal hyperbole and blinkers on IG are around these parts
This is a pretty hollow argument honestly. I'm not going to sit here and say Reapers are fine, but to reference their base cost without weapons as an argument is just downright bad comparisons. That's like saying Servitors are the most overpowered chaff unit in the game because they only cost 2 points a model. I can put 50 wounds of chaff in front of my SM as a screen for 100 points. I know it's an extreme example and I'm not talking about force org legality of it, but it shows that the comparison has to take into account the final model price.
And from what I knew - Eldar was like, mostly Dark Reaper spam. Can you spot the next incoming nerf? I can
Is soup and mixing and matching various things really "Chaos" though? In the sense that most people talk about when they talk about a faction being strong? I wouldn't think so. The majority of people when they talk about X faction being strong, they really mean that faction without taking various bits and pieces, they usually mean Chaos as in "I want a pure iron warriors list" or "I want a pure noise marine army" not "I'm going to take slaanesh obliterators and brimstone horrors and magnus and blah blah blah" together into some frankenstein army.
Man that DG list is sickening. I just played against DG the other day, he had 4 crawlers and that was hard to deal with. I couldn't imagine dealing with 10!
Remember when people said Orkz had one of the best if not the best Index army in the game?
Well, I think they did and this LVO doesn't dispute that. The Orks are now fighting a lot of Codex armies.
And well, gee, would you look at that? Most of the Top 100 is Codex armies.
So Space Wolves, Sisters of Battle, Tau and GSC don't count because...?
The only army that is still on Index that did worse was Necrons.
I didn't say Orkz were the ONLY one, I just said their low placement is expected. Codex armies are a lot more powerful than Index armies so they should take most the spots, which they did. If you want to say Orkz are weak, you need to compare them only to other Index armies. The Ork lists were much more likely to face Codex opponents than Index opponents, thus driving down their score.
My original comment was pointing out the reaction at the start of 8th by people saying Orkz were Finally in a good place and competitive. I said that they wouldn't last because people would eventually figure out how to beat the 1 build we have. The point I was attempting to make though is that now that is true and the supposedly "good" ork index got beaten by almost every other index army, and honestly, deathwatch doesn't count. They are an addition force not an independent army, same with inquisition and a handful of others.
Wayniac wrote: Some notes though:
1) The Death Guard player is running like 10 plagueburst crawlers though to "prove" to GW it's OP and needs a nerf.
The CD faq for keywords doesn't fix this? The goal seems to be T9 crawlers, right?
2) The Eldar guy in #1 is using the dubious interpretation of a rule as written to get the craftworld bonus PLUS Ynnari to abuse it. He's literally playing to the rules, not playing the game.
Did the TOs ever weigh in? It seems odd that they wouldn't make that call.
Is this really the kind of bullgak we want to see? Tournament or not. Min/maxing lists are one thing. But exploiting obvious loopholes just because you can? Is that what we have really degenerated into? At that point why not trot out that bullgak about how by the letter of the rules you can't advance and fire assault weapons due to the wording? Where do you draw the line at "This clearly isn't intended but I can get away with it by claiming RAW"?
This is precisely why it is GOOD to see, because we can highlight it and hand it over to GW to fix and we can KNOW that we'll get a response.
Lanlaorn wrote: I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Funny you mention that. Numbers? You realize dark reapers cost virtually same as infantry squads? Let the incompetence of Phil Kelly sink in - a model with 3+ save and unmodifiable 3+ to hit that works even on things like Culexus cost same as model with 5+ save and 4+ to hit. Yup, you read that right, 5 points, for stats (these that matter that is) better than 15 pts space marine. And on top of that colossal mountain of cheese, their missile launchers are better and cheaper than SM or IG ones.
If numbers say anything, it's how colossal hyperbole and blinkers on IG are around these parts
Lanlaorn wrote: It's worth noting that even thought there were Blood Angels and even a Space Wolf guy in the top 8, if you look at the lists it's all
"Space Wolf HQs and 10 units of Infantry Squads". I think the top BA guy brought 6 infantry squads?
Before the Guard players come in to declare there's nothing wrong with their codex, I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Oh please.
First it was Conscripts and Commissars, now you're whining about Infantry Squads?
TwitchyReaper wrote: The Death Guard list that made the top 8 was not the 10 Crawler list by the way. Just an FYI
Yeah, that confused me too, the Death Guard list was 30 Pink Horrors, some Pox Walkers in the Aquila Fortress, and some HQ and cultists/brimstones. He saved 553 points for reinforcements and basically made the Pink Horror squad unkillable and set them in front of the fortress, with the Pox Walkers manning the fortress guns.
He’d pop The Dead Walk Again, people would shoot up his Pink Horrors, and he’d replace them with 2 Blues and a Pox Walker in the fortress, it was honestly kind of brilliant. I thought it was a really good use of reinforcements and a very original list.
Remember when people said Orkz had one of the best if not the best Index army in the game?
Well, I think they did and this LVO doesn't dispute that. The Orks are now fighting a lot of Codex armies.
And well, gee, would you look at that? Most of the Top 100 is Codex armies.
So Space Wolves, Sisters of Battle, Tau and GSC don't count because...?
The only army that is still on Index that did worse was Necrons.
I didn't say Orkz were the ONLY one, I just said their low placement is expected. Codex armies are a lot more powerful than Index armies so they should take most the spots, which they did. If you want to say Orkz are weak, you need to compare them only to other Index armies. The Ork lists were much more likely to face Codex opponents than Index opponents, thus driving down their score.
My original comment was pointing out the reaction at the start of 8th by people saying Orkz were Finally in a good place and competitive. I said that they wouldn't last because people would eventually figure out how to beat the 1 build we have. The point I was attempting to make though is that now that is true and the supposedly "good" ork index got beaten by almost every other index army, and honestly, deathwatch doesn't count. They are an addition force not an independent army, same with inquisition and a handful of others.
I'm sure the Deathwatch players love you, much like the Grey Knight players love Reecius.
Anyway, I think you're indulging in a bit of hyperbole with "almost every other Index army" (see my previous post). That said, even if we accept that Orks are doing worse than "almost every other" Index, that still doesn't prove your point. Just because the Orks do worse than other Index armies against Codex armies doesn't mean they did worse than other Index armies against Index armies.
Lanlaorn wrote: It's worth noting that even thought there were Blood Angels and even a Space Wolf guy in the top 8, if you look at the lists it's all
"Space Wolf HQs and 10 units of Infantry Squads". I think the top BA guy brought 6 infantry squads?
Before the Guard players come in to declare there's nothing wrong with their codex, I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Oh please.
First it was Conscripts and Commissars, now you're whining about Infantry Squads?
Yes? If a unit is too good, it should be nerfed. Judging by LVO placements, the following units should be considered for a nerf: dark reapers, infantry squads, and the Death Company Captain. I'm not sure how to nerf the Captain since what he does doesn't cost any points, though.
TwitchyReaper wrote: The Death Guard list that made the top 8 was not the 10 Crawler list by the way. Just an FYI
Yeah, that confused me too, the Death Guard list was 30 Pink Horrors, some Pox Walkers in the Aquila Fortress, and some HQ and cultists/brimstones. He saved 553 points for reinforcements and basically made the Pink Horror squad unkillable and set them in front of the fortress, with the Pox Walkers manning the fortress guns.
He’d pop The Dead Walk Again, people would shoot up his Pink Horrors, and he’d replace them with 2 Blues and a Pox Walker in the fortress, it was honestly kind of brilliant. I thought it was a really good use of reinforcements and a very original list.
Yeah. I didn’t spawn the Poxwalkers from inside the fortress though. I would jump out and pop the Cloud of Flies strat and force my opponent to be able to target either the Horrors or the building. It worked out pretty well for me. Barely missed a shot at the title.
Martel732 wrote: It's a very weak list. But he drew very favorable matchups. It happens. I'll change my position if it can unseat another top 8 list.
Lol, classic martel. 'I know it was strong enough to podium in the biggest tournament in the world but I refuse to acknowledge space marines are good because I can't win with them and it can't possibly be ME'.
If it were, I wouldn't be able to beat other marines fairly handily. Even Bobby g lists. Of course, there are starcraft players who are best at crushing mirror matches....
TwitchyReaper wrote: The Death Guard list that made the top 8 was not the 10 Crawler list by the way. Just an FYI
Yeah, that confused me too, the Death Guard list was 30 Pink Horrors, some Pox Walkers in the Aquila Fortress, and some HQ and cultists/brimstones. He saved 553 points for reinforcements and basically made the Pink Horror squad unkillable and set them in front of the fortress, with the Pox Walkers manning the fortress guns.
He’d pop The Dead Walk Again, people would shoot up his Pink Horrors, and he’d replace them with 2 Blues and a Pox Walker in the fortress, it was honestly kind of brilliant. I thought it was a really good use of reinforcements and a very original list.
Yeah. I didn’t spawn the Poxwalkers from inside the fortress though. I would jump out and pop the Cloud of Flies strat and force my opponent to be able to target either the Horrors or the building. It worked out pretty well for me. Barely missed a shot at the title.
So quirky and original. What were your opponents reactions to your list and how you played it? I'd probably have laughed in frustration and awe of your creativity.
I just find martel funny, because the necron players on this board were stoked to see someone with necrons finish in the top 100. We were literally like "man I'd love to hear her thoughts on her opponent's and why she brought the list she did", and here is Martel looking at a second place finish after editions of being awful saying it was a lucky lineup and he could take that list.
You guys also have to remember, that it is still just *one* event. It's difficult to draw conclusions based on one tournament, but a few things that we already knew are reflected here, excluding a couple outlying data points:
1. The path to victory for Imperium requires Astra Militarum 2. Dark Reapers are massively overperforming
In response to #2, you see lists that only function at the "high meta," where the odds of facing Reaper spam are off the chain. This tournament really shows that. Tau finished very well, but that's because Commander Spam is well suited to fight Reaper-spam. Same with BA + Guard. Tyranids got roflstomped, showing basically the same as Orks. Does this mean Tyranids are bad? No, they just don't hold up well to Guard and Reaper Spam. Which is about half of the lists in one way or another.
Quickjager wrote: Marma, got the GK list? I want to see how much of it was GK.
Heavy Mortar Team Heavy Mortar Team Heavy Mortar Team
I just hope this might make martel not turn every thread into how bad SM/BA. I don’t have much hope though considering how someone aparently made it to the LVO championships with “such a terrible army” out of matchup luck according to Martel in this thread already
Grimgold wrote: I just find martel funny, because the necron players on this board were stoked to see someone with necrons finish in the top 100. We were literally like "man I'd love to hear her thoughts on her opponent's and why she brought the list she did", and here is Martel looking at a second place finish after editions of being awful saying it was a lucky lineup and he could take that list.
I mean he's not entirely wrong, that list functions solely because reapers are flat out dominating the meta and it has a solid counter built into it. It counters reapers. That's that. In a true "meta" environment, that's what you need to deal with. Because it's the strongest army bar none. You end up with lists that wouldn't function in a general sense. I believe he'd crush that list. Because it's designed specifically to address one list that is uber common at top tier events. A good player with a high rating can pretty much depend on facing reaper spam from game 1 on.
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Martel732 wrote: I don't understand how Tyranids didn't do much better.
Tyranids lose to reaper spam. That's that.
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John Prins wrote: If both players had been faster, the BA player would have been wiped by turn 5, probably with 4 flyrants remaining.
This is truth. Tyranids will struggle because we just don't score high enough because of how long it takes to play our army. I win my ITC games scoring like 14-18 points only, because i get 2 turns, maybe 3.
The problem with Dark Reapers isn't points cost. It's the completely warping effect of being able to ignore all hit penalties.
something notable is that every single army in those top lists either deals with hit penalties by raw fire volume, Close combat, or ignoring the penalty, and every faction that I can find in those lists that has the option to them is invariably taking whatever trait gives them -1 to hit outside 12"
to me, that screams that armywide -1 hit mods were a mistake, and as much as dark reapers are slightly undercost, that slightly out of balance performance is greatly magnified by the prevalence of hit malus in tournament play.
Grimgold wrote: I just find martel funny, because the necron players on this board were stoked to see someone with necrons finish in the top 100. We were literally like "man I'd love to hear her thoughts on her opponent's and why she brought the list she did", and here is Martel looking at a second place finish after editions of being awful saying it was a lucky lineup and he could take that list.
I mean he's not entirely wrong, that list functions solely because reapers are flat out dominating the meta and it has a solid counter built into it. It counters reapers. That's that. In a true "meta" environment, that's what you need to deal with. Because it's the strongest army bar none. You end up with lists that wouldn't function in a general sense. I believe he'd crush that list. Because it's designed specifically to address one list that is uber common at top tier events. A good player with a high rating can pretty much depend on facing reaper spam from game 1 on.
But he... didn't beat reaper spam? His first Eldar opponent was in the top 8, and he lost that battle. I don't remember what his earlier fights were, but his last one before the top 8 was against a Chaos Soup list toting a fire raptor.
WindstormSCR wrote: The problem with Dark Reapers isn't points cost. It's the completely warping effect of being able to ignore all hit penalties.
something notable is that every single army in those top lists either deals with hit penalties by raw fire volume, Close combat, or ignoring the penalty, and every faction that I can find in those lists that has the option to them is invariably taking whatever trait gives them -1 to hit outside 12"
to me, that screams that armywide -1 hit mods were a mistake, and as much as dark reapers are slightly undercost, that slightly out of balance performance is greatly magnified by the prevalence of hit malus in tournament play.
True, but it's also that reapers have multiple modes of fire AND the tempest launcher doesn't require line of sight. Ignoring -1 is strong, but also is being able to spit out the appropriate dice for the scenario and not needing los.
Apparently there was a big controversy in the semis but i am not sure yet what it was.
I was watching this game on Twitch. The controversy was between Alex Fennel and Tony Grippando in the Semis.
Alex was playing a mix of BASW and assasins while Tony was playing Eldar/Ynarri Alaitoc+Reaper spam
At the beginning of the game both players agreed to play intent over discrepancies.
Alex took first turn completed in 15 minutes
Tony spent a LONG time on his first turn I don't know exactly how long but it was over 40 minutes. It appeared to be slow playing but Tony may just be a slow player. Alex in top of Turn 2 appeared to be going as fast as possible to make up time and placed his assassins down quickly then went to move his other models in the movement phase. As soon as he started moving the models Tony said no! Deepstrikers come in at the end of your movement phase so your movement phase is over sorry. So Alex lost an entire movement phase losing him the game. To Alex's credit he didn't argue just cracked on with the game and actually still managed to get work done but not enough. The 'CONTROVERSY' is that both players had agreed to play intent and it was clearly Alex's intent to make up for all the lost time from apparent slow playing and should have been allowed to complete his movement phase but rules are rules. No one could really argue with Tony's call but it will go down as bad sportsmanship. Alex in the post game talk was a complete gentleman about it. Its difficult to argue with this call because someone like Alex Fennel (a previous LVO winner) shouldn't have made that mistake but sadly it really cheapens Tony's win.
Thanks to FLG.tv for an awesome twitch showing.
The beautiful karma/irony is that in the final with Tony against Nick Nanavati it was a pretty much mirror match. Tony advanced some models with the intention of using the stratagem to charge after advancing but he played it wrong and tried to use the strat in the wrong order. NIck said sorry you can't do that out of the order sequence for using the strat. This appeared to cost Tony the game but I am in the UK so I had to get to bed. Didn't see the end of the game but it looked like Nick had the upper hand.
BaconCatBug wrote: Tony was absolutely in the right. Alex ended his movement phase by bringing in the deep strikers.
Might as well get annoyed if your opponent demands you roll to hit for shooting.
This is a competitive setting. The entire point is to win. To not capitalise on a mistake made by an opponent is illogical.
I'd agree, except Tony made a similar mistake in the finals and whined when he got burned by it.
That's the kicker for me, really. It's fine if you're going to play hard ball but expect it in return.
Oh I agree, him whining about him making the same mistake is inexcusable. I understand the upset about that, but anyone getting upset about Tony capitalising on an error from an opponent is simply in the wrong.
BaconCatBug wrote: Tony was absolutely in the right. Alex ended his movement phase by bringing in the deep strikers.
Might as well get annoyed if your opponent demands you roll to hit for shooting.
This is a competitive setting. The entire point is to win. To not capitalise on a mistake made by an opponent is illogical.
I agree completely with you. However the actual controversy was the agreement to play by intent and the apparent slow playing. It was suggested in the twitch chat that Tony does this on purpose to frustrate opponents into making mistakes. But at the end of the day this is one of the top competitive environaments in the world for our hobby and the mistake wasn't Tony's it was Alex's and he paid for it.
Lanlaorn wrote: I think the numbers show pretty clearly that Infantry Squads are in the same category as Dark Reapers.
Funny you mention that. Numbers? You realize dark reapers cost virtually same as infantry squads? Let the incompetence of Phil Kelly sink in - a model with 3+ save and unmodifiable 3+ to hit that works even on things like Culexus cost same as model with 5+ save and 4+ to hit. Yup, you read that right, 5 points, for stats (these that matter that is) better than 15 pts space marine. And on top of that colossal mountain of cheese, their missile launchers are better and cheaper than SM or IG ones.
If numbers say anything, it's how colossal hyperbole and blinkers on IG are around these parts
Am i missing something with your comparison attempt? At 81 points for 3 models, i'd hardly consider that to be "virtually the same cost" as an Infantry Squad.
Martel732 wrote: I don't understand how Tyranids didn't do much better.
Tyranids lose to reaper spam. That's that.
John Prins wrote: If both players had been faster, the BA player would have been wiped by turn 5, probably with 4 flyrants remaining.
This is truth. Tyranids will struggle because we just don't score high enough because of how long it takes to play our army. I win my ITC games scoring like 14-18 points only, because i get 2 turns, maybe 3.
I disagree with this. Some Tyranid lists loss to Reaper spam, but others don’t. The ones that are currently getting hit hard are the ones spamming Flying Tyrants, however, there are a lot of Genestealer spam lists out there that are really putting a lot of pressure on Eldar lists and running over Reaper spam.
Why do a lot of 40k competitive players sound like spoilt 5 year old brats? I seriously saw one once say he only plays the game to win and would never accept a loss! If you feel like that then you can't be having a good time... You're just using the game to fell good rather than feeling good playing the game...
Also I feel if the games work on time then it should be like chess. The two players should have a set amount of time each and should then press a button when their turn is over. That way you afe responsible for your own actions and can't frustrate other players by slow turns.
lolman1c wrote: Why do a lot of 40k competitive players sound like spoilt 5 year old brats? I seriously saw one once say he only plays the game to win and would never accept a loss! If you feel like that then you can't be having a good time... You're just using the game to fell good rather than feeling good playing the game...
Also I feel if the games work on time then it should be like chess. The two players should have a set amount of time each and should then press a button when their turn is over. That way you afe responsible for your own actions and can't frustrate other players by slow turns.
Yea this is the fix.
Give players a set amount of time for their turns and penalise them for every minute/10 minutes or whatever they go over. Dock points.
So, I think I know why Tyranids, Orks and pure Guard armies didn’t show well in the top 100, and this is based off what I saw at the Last Chance Open, the weekend before the LVO.
It all comes down to the scoring of the ITC Champions Missions, in that, once the time runs out the game ends and no more points are scored. Whilst a lot of armies might have won the vast majority of their games, if they only make it to turn 2 or 3, they suffer heavily on the scoreboard as a result of their primary and secondary scores. Generally, any game that gets called for time on turn 5 or 6 is going to score more points than a turn 2 or 3 game. When there is only a max of 42 points in primaries and secondaries per game, not getting the turns has a big impact on the final score.
For example, the Tyranid list that won the LCO only managed to do so due to him winning all 6 games, the only person to do so. However, over the first 3 rounds, he was also one of the lowest scoring players out of all the players on 3 wins due to games going to time and only picking up 15-20 points a game. Alternatively, my first 2 games ended in a tabling so I picked up 38 and 37 points. It really does change the dynamic a lot for armies that struggle with time restrictions, making it a lot harder for them to build the points and make up the difference over 6-9 games.
The biggest strugglers with this, is, Tyranids, Orks and Guard. Whether or not, this then leads to the “best” codices being on top, is debatable, but instead points to the “best built armies for the missions” to be there instead. It could also be another reason why the pure BA player did so well.
And from what I knew - Eldar was like, mostly Dark Reaper spam. Can you spot the next incoming nerf? I can
Is soup and mixing and matching various things really "Chaos" though? In the sense that most people talk about when they talk about a faction being strong? I wouldn't think so. The majority of people when they talk about X faction being strong, they really mean that faction without taking various bits and pieces, they usually mean Chaos as in "I want a pure iron warriors list" or "I want a pure noise marine army" not "I'm going to take slaanesh obliterators and brimstone horrors and magnus and blah blah blah" together into some frankenstein army.
In 8th ed yes. Single faction armies are days looong past and not coming back in a hurry(requires new leadership and developers from GW with radically different principles)
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Daedalus81 wrote: This is precisely why it is GOOD to see, because we can highlight it and hand it over to GW to fix and we can KNOW that we'll get a response.
Don't neccessarily hold your breath. It's been how many months since the assault weapon loop hole has been brought to their attention? Fix still not nowhere near...
They're going to get nerfed. No worries.
With GW don't be so sure. They have history of buffing broken units rather than nerfing. Seeing they change values just for sake of £££ no surprise. They might nerf them if they have sold enough and don't expect to keep selling so time to shuffle things around something else(what is irrelevant for GW) sells in return but that's it.
Am i missing something with your comparison attempt? At 81 points for 3 models, i'd hardly consider that to be "virtually the same cost" as an Infantry Squad.
A Dark Reaper technically costs 5 pts, but you can't take them without the 22 pt Reaper Launcher. Irbis is trolling.
Am i missing something with your comparison attempt? At 81 points for 3 models, i'd hardly consider that to be "virtually the same cost" as an Infantry Squad.
A Dark Reaper technically costs 5 pts, but you can't take them without the 22 pt Reaper Launcher. Irbis is trolling.
Which is silly. 1 point for better save, always hitting on 3+ plus whatever else he gets...
Am i missing something with your comparison attempt? At 81 points for 3 models, i'd hardly consider that to be "virtually the same cost" as an Infantry Squad.
A Dark Reaper technically costs 5 pts, but you can't take them without the 22 pt Reaper Launcher. Irbis is trolling.
Which is silly. 1 point for better save, always hitting on 3+ plus whatever else he gets...
Would it be any better if the Reaper Launcher was free and the Reaper was 27 points base?
Am i missing something with your comparison attempt? At 81 points for 3 models, i'd hardly consider that to be "virtually the same cost" as an Infantry Squad.
A Dark Reaper technically costs 5 pts, but you can't take them without the 22 pt Reaper Launcher. Irbis is trolling.
Which is silly. 1 point for better save, always hitting on 3+ plus whatever else he gets...
Would it be any better if the Reaper Launcher was free and the Reaper was 27 points base?
No since that would still mean they pay just 1 point for their abilities.
As a sidenote, Chaos didn't finish 6th, as he was DQed.
I think why Nids performed so poorly is due to historic reasons. Nids have hardly ever been the competitive choice, thus few competitive players had Nids to dust off for the LVO.
What I'm most curious about is the diversity of units within these lists. Top lists in 7th only had a few viable lists (Warp Spiders/Scatbikes, Riptides, SM drop pod-lists in some variant, and WarCon), and while the ITC missions punish spam at the top level through the secondary missions, though that didn't seem to affect them last year. The Eldar lists were somewhat different and I wouldn't call any of them as spammy as the Warp Spider and Scatbike-lists of yore. I really need to get the BCP app.
Looking at four of the Top 8 Eldar Lists, there were 11 different units in Nick Nanavati's list,11 in Tony Grippando's list, 14 in Sean Nayden's (and no Dark Reapers), and 9 in Jeff Poole's list. That's 11.25 different units per list on average. These included the following 19 (!) different units:
Rangers
Spiritseer
Farseer
Warlock
Wave Serpent
Dark Reapers
Yvraine
Autarch Skyrunner
Dark Eldar Warriors
Shining Spears
Yncarne
Guardians
Maugan Ra
Eldrad Ulthran
Swooping Hawks
Autarch
Storm Guardians
Ilic Nightspear
Crimson Hunter
1) The Death Guard player is running like 10 plagueburst crawlers though to "prove" to GW it's OP and needs a nerf.
2) The Eldar guy in #1 is using the dubious interpretation of a rule as written to get the craftworld bonus PLUS Ynnari to abuse it. He's literally playing to the rules, not playing the game.
Is this really the kind of bullgak we want to see? Tournament or not. Min/maxing lists are one thing. But exploiting obvious loopholes just because you can? Is that what we have really degenerated into? At that point why not trot out that bullgak about how by the letter of the rules you can't advance and fire assault weapons due to the wording? Where do you draw the line at "This clearly isn't intended but I can get away with it by claiming RAW"?
There is nothing dubious about what the Eldar list does.
The pure Craftworld Detachments unlocks all Strategems which can then be used on <Craftworld> units in other detachments.
He did not get or use the Craftworld traits of the Ynnari detachment since you need to be in a pure detachment for that.
1) The Death Guard player is running like 10 plagueburst crawlers though to "prove" to GW it's OP and needs a nerf.
2) The Eldar guy in #1 is using the dubious interpretation of a rule as written to get the craftworld bonus PLUS Ynnari to abuse it. He's literally playing to the rules, not playing the game.
Is this really the kind of bullgak we want to see? Tournament or not. Min/maxing lists are one thing. But exploiting obvious loopholes just because you can? Is that what we have really degenerated into? At that point why not trot out that bullgak about how by the letter of the rules you can't advance and fire assault weapons due to the wording? Where do you draw the line at "This clearly isn't intended but I can get away with it by claiming RAW"?
This is tournament play. Playing like tournament play as intended. Exploiting loopholes just because you can has been a time honored tradition since even back in the 90s and the GWGTs. We used to have a tournament team that would literally drill ourselves on the rules and be able to argue several controversial rules both ways because in a tournament, being able to browbeat the judge or your opponent with lawyering was just as important as understanding that starcannon spam back in those days was awesome.
BaconCatBug wrote: Following the rules? That's Heresy. Everyone knows following the rules makes you a jerk!
Pointing out "But it's RAW!" when you know it's not the intent IS being a jerk. Exploiting shoddily written rules (by "incompetents" as you are so quick to scream) to get an advantage is. You seem like the type of person who would also argue that advance+assault nonsense during a game too (in fact I think you were the first person I saw pointing it out) and hide behind "It's the rules yo!"
Watching karma come back to bite Tony was something simply beautiful. After being such a jerk about the other player not following the exact order (which more would have been on his side if his turn wasn’t an hour long forcing Alex to pay a turn in like 15min). Then crying like a baby for the rest of the next game when he got called on the exact same style mistake. He did everyone from whine and moan to call over a judge to ask about moving onto ruins (something he had done the previous game) just to throw a tantrum. Nothing is better then watching someone like that get their BS thrown back in their face.
The pure Craftworld Detachments unlocks all Strategems which can then be used on <Craftworld> units in other detachments.
He did not get or use the Craftworld traits of the Ynnari detachment since you need to be in a pure detachment for that.
A mixed IG, SM or CSM army can do the same.
No. IG, SM or CSM cannot do that. Those books all have explicit rules stating Stratagems cannot cross from, say, Vanilla Marines to Space Wolves, even if the Adeptus Astartes Keywords match. There is a similar rule forbidding it in the Eldar Codex for Dark Eldar, Harlequins, etc.., they simply forgot to put Ynnari in with it. No unlocking Space Marine Stratagems with some Scouts and Tigurius to use Honour the Chapter on a unit of Wulfen or something.
Doing it with Ynnari is currently legal, but it's almost certainly an omission/typo to be fixed soon.
The pure Craftworld Detachments unlocks all Strategems which can then be used on <Craftworld> units in other detachments.
He did not get or use the Craftworld traits of the Ynnari detachment since you need to be in a pure detachment for that.
A mixed IG, SM or CSM army can do the same.
No. IG, SM or CSM cannot do that. Those books all have explicit rules stating Stratagems cannot cross from, say, Vanilla Marines to Space Wolves, even if the Adeptus Astartes Keywords match. There is a similar rule forbidding it in the Eldar Codex for Dark Eldar, Harlequins, etc.., they simply forgot to put Ynnari in with it. No unlocking Space Marine Stratagems with some Scouts and Tigurius to use Honour the Chapter on a unit of Wulfen or something.
Doing it with Ynnari is currently legal, but it's almost certainly an omission/typo to be fixed soon.
Incorrect. As the Death Guard FAQ proves, all you need to do is unlock them, then the stratagems can be used on ANY legal unit.
Incorrect. As the Death Guard FAQ proves, all you need to do is unlock them, then the stratagems can be used on ANY legal unit.
The Death Guard FAQ cannot override a rule in the Space Marine Codex.
It's actually a quite interesting question on whether the Death Guard FAQ can override the CSM Codex rule that states the exact opposite, since an FAQ is not an errata. But even if it does, the Death Guard FAQ simply creates another anomaly exception for Death Guard (alongside Ynnari). The CSM Codex explicitly and clearly states the Death Guard cannot do what the FAQ states they can do (without actually providing errata to change the former).
The rule in the CSM Codex is quite clear. Death Guard and TS cannot make use of any rules or abilities in the CSM rules section (which includes Stratagems).
I misunderstood the "dubious" part. It's the fact you can, by RAW, use for example the Biel-tan stratagem on a Biel-tan craftworld unit in a Ynnari detachment, which is where the gray area comes from. It's technically allowed, but it seems like a weird thing that is likely not intended, because they aren't a Craftworld detachment they are Ynnari, but the stratagem specifies the craftworld keyword, which they retain. I think the solution would be to just make Ynnari replace the Craftworld/Kabal/Troupe keyword instead of being an addition.
Also, unrelated to this debate: Is it true that the final table was basically the exact same list against each other? I also heard the top 3 lists were A) All Eldar and B) All essentially the same list, with very little modifications. If so, that's ridiculously funny. Most balanced edition, indeed.
Why shouldnt it be allowed? Just b.c they are Ynnari doesnt mean they forgo all their all abilities and years spent training or modifications to their gear, should it?
Wayniac wrote: I misunderstood the "dubious" part. It's the fact you can, by RAW, use for example the Biel-tan stratagem on a Biel-tan craftworld unit in a Ynnari detachment, which is where the gray area comes from. It's technically allowed, but it seems like a weird thing that is likely not intended, because they aren't a Craftworld detachment they are Ynnari, but the stratagem specifies the craftworld keyword, which they retain. I think the solution would be to just make Ynnari replace the Craftworld/Kabal/Troupe keyword instead of being an addition.
Also, unrelated to this debate: Is it true that the final table was basically the exact same list against each other? I also heard the top 3 lists were A) All Eldar and B) All essentially the same list, with very little modifications. If so, that's ridiculously funny. Most balanced edition, indeed.
Don’t think they were carbon copies but it was a mirror matchup and close to the same list.
Amishprn86 wrote: Why shouldnt it be allowed? Just b.c they are Ynnari doesnt mean they forgo all their all abilities and years spent training or modifications to their gear, should it?
This exactly as the Ynarri rules are currently. It is possible this could change when Ynarri get a codex of some sort. This would be no different from an SM army having a Ravenguard detachment alongside a mixed detachment containing RG units. The RG detachment unlocks access to the RG strats and the RG from the mixed detachment could have those strats played on them. In the case of deathguard/csm most of the csm strats specify legion keywords but Tide of traitors doesn't hence it works. Nick's army list specified the craftworld type of each unit in the Ynarri detachment so completely legal.
Amishprn86 wrote: Why shouldnt it be allowed? Just b.c they are Ynnari doesnt mean they forgo all their all abilities and years spent training or modifications to their gear, should it?
I think the main contention here it's the limit of the Detachment restrictions.
Some people believe the Craftworld/Space marines/CSM Death guard and such entries exclude everything from that point in the codex to be used outside the proper Detachment. (this should refer the specific detachment rules, the stratagems, relics and walord traits as example) hence why they say granting the keyword to a unit so it can get access to the stratagem it's not allowed.
Others just believe that restriction apply only to the specific Army traits and rules like Battle focus, The red thirst, Chapter tactics and such thus being allowed.
The pure Craftworld Detachments unlocks all Strategems which can then be used on <Craftworld> units in other detachments.
He did not get or use the Craftworld traits of the Ynnari detachment since you need to be in a pure detachment for that.
A mixed IG, SM or CSM army can do the same.
No. IG, SM or CSM cannot do that. Those books all have explicit rules stating Stratagems cannot cross from, say, Vanilla Marines to Space Wolves, even if the Adeptus Astartes Keywords match. There is a similar rule forbidding it in the Eldar Codex for Dark Eldar, Harlequins, etc.., they simply forgot to put Ynnari in with it. No unlocking Space Marine Stratagems with some Scouts and Tigurius to use Honour the Chapter on a unit of Wulfen or something.
Doing it with Ynnari is currently legal, but it's almost certainly an omission/typo to be fixed soon.
I can have a pure Cadian detachment and a soup Imperium detachment that contains a Tallarn unit and use a Tallarn stratagem on them.
I can have a pure Imperial Fist detachment and a soup Imperium detachment that contains an Ultramarine unit and use an Ultramarine stratagem on them.
I can have a pure Black Legion detachment and a soup Chaos detachment that contains a Word Bearer unit and use a Word Bearer stratagem on them.
Yes Armies with their own codex are excluded from this (BA,DA,SW,DG,TS) but that is not the case here. There is no such exception listed for Yannari (nor is there one for DE or Harlequins, there is no need since they dont have the Asuryani or Craftworld keyword) and no reason to believe this is an oversight considering GW did put in an exception for Craftworld traits.
(which doesn't mean GW might not change it in a faq if they deem is necessary).
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
I'll wait for the next update in March before I complain about GW not addressing Eldar.
They need to either reduce the points for the matches or extend the time. Currently you need to finish your turn in less than 15 minutes per side, which unless you’re playing a low model count list, just isn’t feasible most of the time.
They need to either reduce the points for the matches or extend the time. Currently you need to finish your turn in less than 15 minutes per side, which unless you’re playing a low model count list, just isn’t feasible most of the time.
He wasn't DQ'ed as such. There was a mistake is the scoring of his last game. Both players realized the mistake and Josh voluntarily stepped out of the top 8 in favor of his opponent.
They need to either reduce the points for the matches or extend the time. Currently you need to finish your turn in less than 15 minutes per side, which unless you’re playing a low model count list, just isn’t feasible most of the time.
He wasn't DQ'ed as such. There was a mistake is the scoring of his last game. Both players realized the mistake and Josh voluntarily stepped out of the top 8 in favor of his opponent.
Amishprn86 wrote: Why shouldnt it be allowed? Just b.c they are Ynnari doesnt mean they forgo all their all abilities and years spent training or modifications to their gear, should it?
This exactly as the Ynarri rules are currently. It is possible this could change when Ynarri get a codex of some sort. This would be no different from an SM army having a Ravenguard detachment alongside a mixed detachment containing RG units. The RG detachment unlocks access to the RG strats and the RG from the mixed detachment could have those strats played on them. In the case of deathguard/csm most of the csm strats specify legion keywords but Tide of traitors doesn't hence it works. Nick's army list specified the craftworld type of each unit in the Ynarri detachment so completely legal.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
Yeah. A big part of the problem is that competitive players think listbuilding and finding loopholes/exploits is the pinnacle of skill in this game.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
Yeah. A big part of the problem is that competitive players think listbuilding and finding loopholes/exploits is the pinnacle of skill in this game.
Way to project.
List building is part of the game. And one that you have the most influence on as a player (much of the actual tabletop game is influenced by RNG). Making the most of it is normal for competition.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
Yeah. A big part of the problem is that competitive players think listbuilding and finding loopholes/exploits is the pinnacle of skill in this game.
This mindset is such cancer.
Sometimes I go into the 'youmakethecall' threads and just want to facepalm.
Came to this thread to learn about what lists people took and what worked and what didn't.
Instead I'm reading a bunch of blowhards compare phallus size and throw poo at each other.
Yeesh guys, tone it down a bit; the tourney made some rulings live with it.
Some things from this old geezer that I noticed:
1. Conscript spam was decent, but only so because no one was playing hard counters for it. Which leads to....
2. People who know how the assault phase works are winning matches which is why large blobs aren't effective anymore. It's better to stay away from assault or have hard counters to it. Eldar lists with flying units are very very hard counters to the assault style lists.
3. Dark Reapers need to be adjusted a bit, not killed off.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd just like to see 8th not be the third edition in a row where the rest of us have to kneel to our Eldar overlords, but it's not looking too good.
I'd like to see an edition where a pair of lists don't force everyone to kneel before them the entire time. Actual balance and where listbuilding (or copying someone else's list as is often the case) be secondary to playing.
Yeah. A big part of the problem is that competitive players think listbuilding and finding loopholes/exploits is the pinnacle of skill in this game.
Yep! I remember the KDK "character and/or" argument and literally had to tell a TO to go away as he kept trying to correct me to use the broke as all hell interpretation against my opponent I had been playing 2 turns already with. (Oh yeah, just gonna play the rule differently because you said so??? Great sportsmanship there chief.)
Any lists that include Imperial Guard Superheavies?
I can't get an eye on the list (sadly) but I'd like to see where they ended up, just out of curiosity. I see a bit of guard filtering around in the top lists, which is fine and dandy, but the big tanks are conspicuously absent.
2. People who know how the assault phase works are winning matches which is why large blobs aren't effective anymore. It's better to stay away from assault or have hard counters to it. Eldar lists with flying units are very very hard counters to the assault style lists.
As someone who briefly left this board (because Warframe absorbed me like Kim Kardiashian does to news media) when people were crying "IG are OP! Eldar will never catch on!" this is rather hilarious to me.
I'm sure this could all be fixed by throwing a few shadowswords at it, Right? Riiiiiight?
Joking aside, given how fast the meta has changed in just a handful of months, I do take this as a good sign since this is a sign that either GW is working towards balance (which, to be very honest, is not possible to perfectly achieve, but something to strive for) or that their attempts at balance is working, since it seems that players can no longer agree on what is cheese and what is not (unlike 7th edition where Wraithknight and Gladius spam were basically the undisputed champions above all else).
The pure Craftworld Detachments unlocks all Strategems which can then be used on <Craftworld> units in other detachments.
He did not get or use the Craftworld traits of the Ynnari detachment since you need to be in a pure detachment for that.
A mixed IG, SM or CSM army can do the same.
No. IG, SM or CSM cannot do that. Those books all have explicit rules stating Stratagems cannot cross from, say, Vanilla Marines to Space Wolves, even if the Adeptus Astartes Keywords match. There is a similar rule forbidding it in the Eldar Codex for Dark Eldar, Harlequins, etc.., they simply forgot to put Ynnari in with it. No unlocking Space Marine Stratagems with some Scouts and Tigurius to use Honour the Chapter on a unit of Wulfen or something.
Doing it with Ynnari is currently legal, but it's almost certainly an omission/typo to be fixed soon.
The DGFAQ clarifies they absolutely can do this, explaining that a CSM stratagem which targets cultists can be used on DG cultists if you have a full detachment from the generic CSM codex (as DG didn't get that specific stratagem). So DG don't unlock the stratagem but can use them on applicable units if unlocked.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: As someone who briefly left this board (because Warframe absorbed me like Kim Kardiashian does to news media) when people were crying "IG are OP! Eldar will never catch on!" this is rather hilarious to me.
I'm sure this could all be fixed by throwing a few shadowswords at it, Right? Riiiiiight?
Joking aside, given how fast the meta has changed in just a handful of months, I do take this as a good sign since this is a sign that either GW is working towards balance (which, to be very honest, is not possible to perfectly achieve, but something to strive for) or that their attempts at balance is working, since it seems that players can no longer agree on what is cheese and what is not (unlike 7th edition where Wraithknight and Gladius spam were basically the undisputed champions above all else).
The previous broken nonsense got nerfed (brimstones, conscripts) and new broken units were added (dark reapers). When dark reapers get nerfed balance will shift again.
1) The Death Guard player is running like 10 plagueburst crawlers though to "prove" to GW it's OP and needs a nerf.
2) The Eldar guy in #1 is using the dubious interpretation of a rule as written to get the craftworld bonus PLUS Ynnari to abuse it. He's literally playing to the rules, not playing the game.
Is this really the kind of bullgak we want to see? Tournament or not. Min/maxing lists are one thing. But exploiting obvious loopholes just because you can? Is that what we have really degenerated into? At that point why not trot out that bullgak about how by the letter of the rules you can't advance and fire assault weapons due to the wording? Where do you draw the line at "This clearly isn't intended but I can get away with it by claiming RAW"?
You don't understand what a competitive tournament is, do you?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competive tournament shouldn't mean abusing loop holes in wording and deliberate slow playing. It's different building hard lists and playing to max. Another thing being jerk.
tneva82 wrote: Or dark reapers are ignored or even buffed
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competive tournament shouldn't mean abusing loop holes in wording and deliberate slow playing. It's different building hard lists and playing to max. Another thing being jerk.
One man's loophole is another man's obvious interpretation.
Blame GeeDerps, 30 years and they still can't write watertight rules. At least we get rapid FAQ's though.
Edit: we also need a proper judging and enforcement/penalty system. Then we can crack down on slow play and other gamesmanship.
M:tG has been doing this for twenty years. 40K is waaaaay behind. I'm not sure it will ever catch up (or necessarily should, tbh).
tneva82 wrote: Or dark reapers are ignored or even buffed
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competive tournament shouldn't mean abusing loop holes in wording and deliberate slow playing. It's different building hard lists and playing to max. Another thing being jerk.
One man's loophole is another man's obvious interpretation.
Blame GeeDerps, 30 years and they still can't write watertight rules. At least we get rapid FAQ's though.
Edit: we also need a proper judging and enforcement/penalty system. Then we can crack down on slow play and other gamesmanship.
M:tG has been doing this for twenty years. 40K is waaaaay behind. I'm not sure it will ever catch up (or necessarily should, tbh).
The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
tneva82 wrote: Or dark reapers are ignored or even buffed
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competive tournament shouldn't mean abusing loop holes in wording and deliberate slow playing. It's different building hard lists and playing to max. Another thing being jerk.
One man's loophole is another man's obvious interpretation.
Blame GeeDerps, 30 years and they still can't write watertight rules. At least we get rapid FAQ's though.
Edit: we also need a proper judging and enforcement/penalty system. Then we can crack down on slow play and other gamesmanship.
M:tG has been doing this for twenty years. 40K is waaaaay behind. I'm not sure it will ever catch up (or necessarily should, tbh).
The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
Easy, you use the players. Everyone and their mothers has a smart phone with a stop watch
Chess clocks are 100% the way to go. If you have 3 hours then each player gets 1.5 hours on the clock and you can spend it however you want but once you are out of time you simply skip turns
Yeah, I can't see why chess clocks aren't part of tournaments. I think other games use them.
I actually feel really bad when I finish a turn and think "christ, was that turn... 30 minutes?"
I feel like 1.5 hours is pretty short for any sort of large army.
Even you only have 15 units, you're getting 6 minutes for each unit for the entire game.
One shooting phase with a unit of Kastelan robots with Cawl giving rerolls and 6's doing mortal wounds can take about 5 minutes... One combat phase with a big old squad of Orks takes 5 minutes at least.
If you knew you had 90 minutes and when your time ran out you were a sitting duck and could take no more actions, it would dramatically change the "volume of dice and models wins" meta.
Ordana wrote: The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
This seems like a good idea, but does it unfairly punish horde armies?
Ordana wrote: The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
This seems like a good idea, but does it unfairly punish horde armies?
You can ask the inverse too. Does allowing players with big armies to monopolize time punish small armies?
There's plenty of games I've had where an army would've been tabled by Round 5 but we never get there because the Horde eats over half the time and the game ends on Turn 2.
tneva82 wrote: Or dark reapers are ignored or even buffed
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competive tournament shouldn't mean abusing loop holes in wording and deliberate slow playing. It's different building hard lists and playing to max. Another thing being jerk.
One man's loophole is another man's obvious interpretation.
Blame GeeDerps, 30 years and they still can't write watertight rules. At least we get rapid FAQ's though.
Edit: we also need a proper judging and enforcement/penalty system. Then we can crack down on slow play and other gamesmanship.
M:tG has been doing this for twenty years. 40K is waaaaay behind. I'm not sure it will ever catch up (or necessarily should, tbh).
The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
There are issues with clocks. Nothing in the rules deals with time, game length is not something accounted for by GW, and 40k is dramatically more complex with Chess. There's a lot of stuff to physically move. Armies can have very different numbers of actions required to move them through a turn. What would take a Custodes or GK army 3 or 4 minutes may take an Ork, IG or Tyranid army 15 minutes. Likewise, both players act in each others turns, a stalling player can run out their opponent's clock, and attempting slapping a clock back and forth every time someone rolls a die or moves something is wayyyyy too messy to work.
Clocks have been suggested before, many times, but in practice they're just not terribly functional. They just introduce another level of gamesmanship and something else to fight over and waste more time with.
400 players is 200 chess clocks, you can probably get a discount at that bulk, but we'll go low retail and call it 20$ a clock. That's four thousand dollars for an event that has to pinch pennies to stay in the black. It's just too easy to game a cell phone, it goes in your pocket, your opponent doesn't have access to it, so I'd say that's a non-starter.
Instead I'd just add two boxes to the scoring sheet for turn start and turn end, you're already checking your opponents sheet for scoring, so checking to make sure they wrote down the time correctly isn't much of an added burden. That way delay of game is in black and white, with no added overhead.
The trick is how to implement the timer fairly, if the timer is too harsh you'll punish large armies, not harsh enough and people will game it. Then there is the dragging your feet on your opponent's turn, which we saw in the final 8 (cough cough tony).
Planning on three turns per player at 20 mins a turn seems like a good idea (making a game length of two hours), so going beyond a 20 min turn gets you a warning, three warnings and your out. However you need something else otherwise two 39 min turns is an acceptable strategy. So in addition you also need a hard cap on how much time someone can take. The idea being you start checking total time at the end of turn two, and if your opponent took more than 25 minutes * the number of rounds they forfeit. So you can have a 30 min turn 1, but you better be on the clock for turn 2.
Chess Clocks are pretty great. They put all of the power of getting through the game in the hands of the players and largely don't interfere much with play. There are issues with them, but they're corner case stuff that only gets shaken out as you use them and is generally pretty easy to adapt to. Just remember to ship the clock during your opponent's armor saves.
The stalling out another player's clock is a totally false argument. When you are acting then it's on your clock. Other game systems that use dice don't seem to have a "messy" problem with switching the clock back and forth during a game. The clocks don't care whose turn it is.
Ordana wrote: The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
This seems like a good idea, but does it unfairly punish horde armies?
You can ask the inverse too. Does allowing players with big armies to monopolize time punish small armies?
There's plenty of games I've had where an army would've been tabled by Round 5 but we never get there because the Horde eats over half the time and the game ends on Turn 2.
A good point, but are we making a distinction between someone slow playing a horde and someone making a legitimate effort?
Does this cripple certain armies like Tyranids that rely on lots of small models regardless? Will this reduce list diversity?
Grimgold wrote: 400 players is 200 chess clocks, you can probably get a discount at that bulk, but we'll go low retail and call it 20$ a clock. That's four thousand dollars for an event that has to pinch pennies to stay in the black. It's just too easy to game a cell phone, it goes in your pocket, your opponent doesn't have access to it, so I'd say that's a non-starter.
If you buy them you have to store them too, so rental is probably more sensible for one long weekend a year. A little Googling suggests $10/clock for a long weekend is a common rate and you'd need one clock per two players. $5 added to the registration cost doesn't seem likely to discourage many players already budgeting for trans-continental airfare and hotels.
Grimgold wrote: 400 players is 200 chess clocks, you can probably get a discount at that bulk, but we'll go low retail and call it 20$ a clock. That's four thousand dollars for an event that has to pinch pennies to stay in the black. It's just too easy to game a cell phone, it goes in your pocket, your opponent doesn't have access to it, so I'd say that's a non-starter.
I bet one could easily make an app that allows two phones to connect to each other. The problem is battery usage and what happens when someone's phone dies.
Instead I'd just add two boxes to the scoring sheet for turn start and turn end, you're already checking your opponents sheet for scoring, so checking to make sure they wrote down the time correctly isn't much of an added burden. That way delay of game is in black and white, with no added overhead.
This is likely the most practical.
The trick is how to implement the timer fairly, if the timer is too harsh you'll punish large armies, not harsh enough and people will game it. Then there is the dragging your feet on your opponent's turn, which we saw in the final 8 (cough cough tony).
Planning on three turns per player at 20 mins a turn seems like a good idea (making a game length of two hours), so going beyond a 20 min turn gets you a warning, three warnings and your out. However you need something else otherwise two 39 min turns is an acceptable strategy. So in addition you also need a hard cap on how much time someone can take. The idea being you start checking total time at the end of turn two, and if your opponent took more than 25 minutes * the number of rounds they forfeit. So you can have a 30 min turn 1, but you better be on the clock for turn 2.
I would think it better to have a pool of minutes so your initial turns may be front loaded with more time, but later ones are fast and as long as you don't exceed your pool it's fine.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: The stalling out another player's clock is a totally false argument. When you are acting then it's on your clock.
in which case you're having to switch back and forth frequently, which gets messy.
Other game systems that use dice don't seem to have a "messy" problem with switching the clock back and forth during a game. The clocks don't care whose turn it is.
How many other tabletop mini's games use chess clocks? The only one Im aware of that does so with any frequency or at any large events is Warmachine, and thats a much different game thats much more heavily built around time and competition and dramatically fewer models/actions.
Kings of War also uses Chess Clocks. I don't think anybody is asking for chess clocks in EVERY tournament. But the biggest one in the planet, maybe thats a good place to have them.
2. People who know how the assault phase works are winning matches which is why large blobs aren't effective anymore. It's better to stay away from assault or have hard counters to it. Eldar lists with flying units are very very hard counters to the assault style lists.
Explain?
I was impressed with what Ynnarri Shinning Spears can do in CC. Soulbursting another fight phase seems to do a lot of work.
Any claim that chess clocks hurt horde armies also has to concede that a horde army taking hour-long turns hurts elite armies (i play IG and used to play a goblin horde in WHFB so it's not like I'm proposing this because it benefits me). It's simply unfair to players that would win games if only they got to play out the game as it is meant to.
I know there are dice apps (i think there is a GW official one if I'm not mistaken). if there isn't a GW official one they should develop it and allow for it to be used in competitive play. That way instead of counting out 100 dice then plucking up 4+ or whatever you could type it in and roll it in a fraction of the time.
I know there are dice apps (i think there is a GW official one if I'm not mistaken). if there isn't a GW official one they should develop it and allow for it to be used in competitive play. That way instead of counting out 100 dice then plucking up 4+ or whatever you could type it in and roll it in a fraction of the time.
There are plenty of apps, but you're facing two issues:
1) People like to roll dice
2) Distrust of apps
If there was indeed one that could verify rolls and prevent app tampering it could work, but would require constant communication with a server.
Grimgold wrote: 400 players is 200 chess clocks, you can probably get a discount at that bulk, but we'll go low retail and call it 20$ a clock. That's four thousand dollars for an event that has to pinch pennies to stay in the black. It's just too easy to game a cell phone, it goes in your pocket, your opponent doesn't have access to it, so I'd say that's a non-starter.
I bet one could easily make an app that allows two phones to connect to each other. The problem is battery usage and what happens when someone's phone dies.
Instead I'd just add two boxes to the scoring sheet for turn start and turn end, you're already checking your opponents sheet for scoring, so checking to make sure they wrote down the time correctly isn't much of an added burden. That way delay of game is in black and white, with no added overhead.
This is likely the most practical.
The trick is how to implement the timer fairly, if the timer is too harsh you'll punish large armies, not harsh enough and people will game it. Then there is the dragging your feet on your opponent's turn, which we saw in the final 8 (cough cough tony).
Planning on three turns per player at 20 mins a turn seems like a good idea (making a game length of two hours), so going beyond a 20 min turn gets you a warning, three warnings and your out. However you need something else otherwise two 39 min turns is an acceptable strategy. So in addition you also need a hard cap on how much time someone can take. The idea being you start checking total time at the end of turn two, and if your opponent took more than 25 minutes * the number of rounds they forfeit. So you can have a 30 min turn 1, but you better be on the clock for turn 2.
I would think it better to have a pool of minutes so your initial turns may be front loaded with more time, but later ones are fast and as long as you don't exceed your pool it's fine.
A pool is effectively what you have, 5 minutes per turn, and since you don't start checking until the end of turn 2, your first turn can take an additional 10 minutes. The idea is if you take more than 25% of your opponents time you are disqualified, so for three rounds in two hours, if you play for more than 75 minutes of it you lose.
daedalus wrote: I'm surprised there weren't both more Dark Angels players, and higher ranking Dark Angels players.
Dark angels is fairly solid stand alone army, but brings relatively little to a soup army. It focuses on having a broad range of tactics, which soup armies generally do better by taking specialized elements from different armies. At least, that's my takeaway from the codex, it should perform solidly at local games but at something like lvo I'd be surprised if it gained much traction.
daedalus wrote: I'm surprised there weren't both more Dark Angels players, and higher ranking Dark Angels players.
Dark angels is fairly solid stand alone army, but brings relatively little to a soup army. It focuses on having a broad range of tactics, which soup armies generally do better by taking specialized elements from different armies. At least, that's my takeaway from the codex, it should perform solidly at local games but at something like lvo I'd be surprised if it gained much traction.
That's what I've been hearing in general, though I have seen a couple nasty ones that splash GMDK and some infantry squads. I'm not sure what more BA brings to the table that DA doesn't, but that's probably out of scope of the current discussion.
WM/H has been using chess clocks for years and there are zero problems. Yes, 40k has more time spent in your opponent's turn doing stuff, but you tap it over to their turn while rolling saves. Not a problem.
BaconCatBug wrote: Tony was absolutely in the right. Alex ended his movement phase by bringing in the deep strikers.
Might as well get annoyed if your opponent demands you roll to hit for shooting.
This is a competitive setting. The entire point is to win. To not capitalise on a mistake made by an opponent is illogical.
I'd agree, except Tony made a similar mistake in the finals and whined when he got burned by it.
That's the kicker for me, really. It's fine if you're going to play hard ball but expect it in return.
Oh I agree, him whining about him making the same mistake is inexcusable. I understand the upset about that, but anyone getting upset about Tony capitalising on an error from an opponent is simply in the wrong.
I have to disagree. It doesn't matter what was on the line - it was a dick move 100%.
The problem is you need black and white rule, if you have to much grey or let him fix his turn mistake, players will try to abuse the system and recall.
I always place Dice at the start of my turn where i think i want my DS'er to go, mostly b.c i forget sometimes.
When i do forget i just wait till next turn, i try to play by the rules, but sometimes if its just at the start of psychic and i didnt cast yet i'll ask my partner if its ok, most the time there is no problem, but i DONT blame them for saying i shouldnt, it was my fault.
I know there are dice apps (i think there is a GW official one if I'm not mistaken). if there isn't a GW official one they should develop it and allow for it to be used in competitive play. That way instead of counting out 100 dice then plucking up 4+ or whatever you could type it in and roll it in a fraction of the time.
There are plenty of apps, but you're facing two issues:
1) People like to roll dice
2) Distrust of apps
If there was indeed one that could verify rolls and prevent app tampering it could work, but would require constant communication with a server.
1. People could still roll dice it would simply take more of their time.
2. That’s why it would have to be the official ITC or GW app.
It would be just as easy to bring loaded dice to a tournament as it would be to hack the app
1.) using it at only big events favors people that are accustomed to it. So either it will trickle down to store level play or people will mess up during big events. So it isn't fair to say only use it at big events.
2.)There will be a lot of switching back and forth. Anytime interaction happens which is a lot. Psychic phase (denial, removing models, taking saves.), shooting removing models, taking saves, assault (pile in, saves, attacks). Any check of measurement, rules question, Los check. This is way more than war machine with abstract LOS rules, and little interaction on your opponents turn.
3.) if you run out of time and need to skip turns, do you also skip saves? Attacks in combat etc. risk of this is huge and largely favors static gunlines who don't need to move. Or assault.
It comes down to if time is frequently going over, either shrink army size or increase round times.
Other things that would help are event supplied dice pools that are shared, that way you just pick up the wound dice and roll them for saves. Maybe specific amount of time for deployment that cannot be exceeded and models not deployed are lost. Not sure, but really clocks are not likely to happen in the game because it is just too complicated.
daedalus wrote: I'm surprised there weren't both more Dark Angels players, and higher ranking Dark Angels players.
Dark angels like to gunline. Specifically stand still and shoot to get that free re-roll and stay in Azazels 4++. There are other armies that do this better than DA. Not moving and winning is very difficult using the ITC champion rules. Also without proper chaff they lose to the melee bomb gate-keeper lists (hard to for marines to have proper chaff). They need a more reliable deepstrike so they don't get alpha'd off the table before they can weaken the enemy enough to survive getting shot at (hard to do with webwaying eldar, deepstriking oblits, non-los artillery/bugs, range tanking fire raptors, melee bombs, character targeting shenanigans, what else is strong in the meta?)
Also, dark reapers eat marine gunlines for breakfast so you got that too. They do even more work against primaris and bikers (DA staples) and don't care about your darkshroud.
BA deepstrike so they usually at least get to their target before they get blasted off the board. Also their captain smash-fer (or whatever we are calling the DC captain with 6-8 thunder hammer attacks) with their other characters is absurdly strong (single rounded a fire raptor by himself in one game). Backed by some DC and support characters BA have a really good deepstrike melee bomb.
Plasma inceptors are good but outclassed by other glass cannon units (shining spears) and again are great targets for the boogie men (reapers).
mugginns wrote: WM/H has been using chess clocks for years and there are zero problems. Yes, 40k has more time spent in your opponent's turn doing stuff, but you tap it over to their turn while rolling saves. Not a problem.
warmahordes is a very different game, with fewer models, smaller scale, less dice, and a play paradigm built around time and pace. Most minis games are not, and its why we dont see chess clocks particularly prevalent (or at all) outside of PP, at least in my experience. Thinking back to Gencon last year, I dont recall seeing chessclocks at any event I participated in or spectated at, even ones with time limits.
If time really is an issue at events, that should tell the organizers they need to reduce the game size and crack down on individuals, not attempt to layer on a new dimension of gameable mechanics that can introduce yet more drama.
1.) using it at only big events favors people that are accustomed to it. So either it will trickle down to store level play or people will mess up during big events. So it isn't fair to say only use it at big events.
2.)There will be a lot of switching back and forth. Anytime interaction happens which is a lot. Psychic phase (denial, removing models, taking saves.), shooting removing models, taking saves, assault (pile in, saves, attacks). Any check of measurement, rules question, Los check. This is way more than war machine with abstract LOS rules, and little interaction on your opponents turn.
3.) if you run out of time and need to skip turns, do you also skip saves? Attacks in combat etc. risk of this is huge and largely favors static gunlines who don't need to move. Or assault.
It comes down to if time is frequently going over, either shrink army size or increase round times.
Other things that would help are event supplied dice pools that are shared, that way you just pick up the wound dice and roll them for saves. Maybe specific amount of time for deployment that cannot be exceeded and models not deployed are lost. Not sure, but really clocks are not likely to happen in the game because it is just too complicated.
1. Chess clocks are simple to use and if you want to play in a major GT you have to learn to play with what they use. No different from special mission packets or terrain rules
2. I’d say keep it simple with any save rolls your opponent does staying on the same clock. But you could switch for every roll
3. I’d say you still roll saves/ attacks because those happen in your opponents turn. When your turn comes you would simply have to pass
I’d also be open to shrinking down to 1750 points. I think it would help the tournament scene a lot
Honestly, the tail end of 7th had a really interesting thing where some tournaments were trying 1650 (down from 1850) as a way to both curb some of the really nasty lists and to speed up the games. I recall one podcast talking about it (can't remember which) where they said at 1850 they had like 60% percentage of games conclude without going to time, and at 1650 it was like over 90%.
Also, lower points would curb some of the CP-abusing BS you see.
Honestly, the tail end of 7th had a really interesting thing where some tournaments were trying 1650 (down from 1850) as a way to both curb some of the really nasty lists and to speed up the games. I recall one podcast talking about it (can't remember which) where they said at 1850 they had like 60% percentage of games conclude without going to time, and at 1650 it was like over 90%.
Also, lower points would curb some of the CP-abusing BS you see.
mugginns wrote: WM/H has been using chess clocks for years and there are zero problems. Yes, 40k has more time spent in your opponent's turn doing stuff, but you tap it over to their turn while rolling saves. Not a problem.
warmahordes is a very different game, with fewer models, smaller scale, less dice, and a play paradigm built around time and pace. Most minis games are not, and its why we dont see chess clocks particularly prevalent (or at all) outside of PP, at least in my experience. Thinking back to Gencon last year, I dont recall seeing chessclocks at any event I participated in or spectated at, even ones with time limits.
If time really is an issue at events, that should tell the organizers they need to reduce the game size and crack down on individuals, not attempt to layer on a new dimension of gameable mechanics that can introduce yet more drama.
Most other games don't have a problem with players taking forever to play the game.
mugginns wrote: WM/H has been using chess clocks for years and there are zero problems. Yes, 40k has more time spent in your opponent's turn doing stuff, but you tap it over to their turn while rolling saves. Not a problem.
warmahordes is a very different game, with fewer models, smaller scale, less dice, and a play paradigm built around time and pace. Most minis games are not, and its why we dont see chess clocks particularly prevalent (or at all) outside of PP, at least in my experience. Thinking back to Gencon last year, I dont recall seeing chessclocks at any event I participated in or spectated at, even ones with time limits.
If time really is an issue at events, that should tell the organizers they need to reduce the game size and crack down on individuals, not attempt to layer on a new dimension of gameable mechanics that can introduce yet more drama.
Most other games don't have a problem with players taking forever to play the game.
people play to time frequently in many games. Hell, I didnt finish a single game at the L5R reboot event at Gencon, they all went to time
With respect to 40k, most time issues are with game size. Drop it down and you solve most of the honest issues with time, and make intentional slow play that much harder and more awkward and easy to spot, all without the awkward extra elements and costs. With top dudes on top tables playing streamed games, well, thats what you have judges for, if they cant get passed turn 2 like that, the judges need to step in.
I play very fast for the size of my army, but there's a lot of models and i just can't move that fast.
Additionally, I literally have turns where i'll roll 400 dice. No matter how fast you are at rolling dice, it simply cannot be done at speed.
And, I do think GW will adjust reapers. Because, everyone know Reapers would there in force, but people weren't really able to deal with them. When you *know* you're going to face a unit and you can't list build and plan to counter play, that's a problem. I know there are a lot of Eldar players who will disagree, but i don't think it's healthy to have one army that you can't adjust to play against. And it doesn't have to be a major change. But enough of a change where lists don't have 30+ reapers in them.
In Warmachine when you run out of time you simply lose. There's more complicated ways of doing it (Guild Ball has some wonky sudden death rules), but its pretty fair. To win the game you have to play your half of the game in the time required. It's not a huge deal and the turn limit in 40k makes it even less of an issue (WM recently put a turn limit on to remove issues with chess clocks). I would probably make a stipulation for games that go past turn 5 though.
As far as clock flipping goes; its actually a nice bit of etiquette once you get used it it. You flip the clock when your opponent has an opportunity to make a decision and they flip it back to give you control. It's easy and honestly, kind of fun. If your opponent is on the ball for things like Deny's and the like you generally don't even flip it over. It really just keeps the game moving.
As for usage; honestly, its easier to start using them at local events than the big ones. They're really not that expensive and even bringing one to your normal games can help you get games in at a better pace. They're also way easier on TOs than other forms of timers and do a much better job resolving rounds on time for everyone.
I play very fast for the size of my army, but there's a lot of models and i just can't move that fast.
Additionally, I literally have turns where i'll roll 400 dice. No matter how fast you are at rolling dice, it simply cannot be done at speed.
And, I do think GW will adjust reapers. Because, everyone know Reapers would there in force, but people weren't really able to deal with them. When you *know* you're going to face a unit and you can't list build and plan to counter play, that's a problem. I know there are a lot of Eldar players who will disagree, but i don't think it's healthy to have one army that you can't adjust to play against. And it doesn't have to be a major change. But enough of a change where lists don't have 30+ reapers in them.
A chess clock would have almost no affect on you if you are currently finishing games in time at tournaments. Except in the rare cases where you are just taking your opponents time to finish a game before 2 1/2 hours - which isn't actually fair ether. Everyone should have the same amount of time to complete their 4-5 turns.
Personally - they don't allow enough time IMO. Make it 3 hours each game - that seems more appropriate.
None of my IRL eldar friends pretend to think DR or SS are balanced units. Totally unbalanced units is what they are. Using craft-world stratagems from multiple craftworlds in a ynnari detachment is also enormously stupid. I can't believe that hasn't been FAQ'ed to not allow it.
Part of the other issue with chess clocks imo is that assault usually takes longer than shooting.
Steps in the shooting phase:
1) Pick unit, pick weapon declare target
2) Roll hit and wound
3) Roll saves
4) remove casualties
Repeat per unit, sometimes shooting twice.
Steps in the charge then assault phases:
1) Pick unit, declare charge on target unit
2) Resolve overwatch
3) Remove casualties
4) Roll distance
5) move to within 1"
repeat for each unit, then
1) Pick unit, but it had to charge first
2) move up to 3", but only if you end closer than you started to the nearest unit
3) roll to hit and to wound
4) roll saves
5) Remove casualties
6) move up to 3", but only if you end closer than you started to the nearest unit
repeat with each unit, for both sides, in one phase.
You'll find armies that depend on assaulting ending their games less quickly than armies that depend on shooting, I'll bet.
I play very fast for the size of my army, but there's a lot of models and i just can't move that fast.
Additionally, I literally have turns where i'll roll 400 dice. No matter how fast you are at rolling dice, it simply cannot be done at speed.
And, I do think GW will adjust reapers. Because, everyone know Reapers would there in force, but people weren't really able to deal with them. When you *know* you're going to face a unit and you can't list build and plan to counter play, that's a problem. I know there are a lot of Eldar players who will disagree, but i don't think it's healthy to have one army that you can't adjust to play against. And it doesn't have to be a major change. But enough of a change where lists don't have 30+ reapers in them.
A chess clock would have almost no affect on you if you are currently finishing games in time at tournaments. Except in the rare cases where you are just taking your opponents time to finish a game before 2 1/2 hours - which isn't actually fair ether. Everyone should have the same amount of time to complete their 4-5 turns.
Personally - they don't allow enough time IMO. Make it 3 hours each game - that seems more appropriate.
My games never make it past turn 3.. much of the time is taken by me, and not because i'm slow playing. But of course we get equal number of turns.
Marmatag wrote: None of my IRL eldar friends pretend to think DR or SS are balanced units. Totally unbalanced units is what they are. Using craft-world stratagems from multiple craftworlds in a ynnari detachment is also enormously stupid. I can't believe that hasn't been FAQ'ed to not allow it.
Same, all of my Eldar playing buddies understand and appreciate that the unit is broken. I could see them restricting the stratagems... and also the general cost, especially of the Tempest Launcher.
Martel732 wrote: Single rounded a fire raptor after cheating, but we get the idea.
how did he cheat?
He burned descent of angels without arriving from deep strike.
Do you happen to know what his range for the charge was?
No, but it was an illegal play.
It also seems stupid anyways.
He's using it on his captain instead of a unit of 15 DC. He was lucky to just survive the overwatch - maybe he was out of LOS. I always assumed that the double move and the 3d6 charge were being used on the 2x DC units. Or on a DC unit and a SG unit.
I play very fast for the size of my army, but there's a lot of models and i just can't move that fast.
Additionally, I literally have turns where i'll roll 400 dice. No matter how fast you are at rolling dice, it simply cannot be done at speed.
And, I do think GW will adjust reapers. Because, everyone know Reapers would there in force, but people weren't really able to deal with them. When you *know* you're going to face a unit and you can't list build and plan to counter play, that's a problem. I know there are a lot of Eldar players who will disagree, but i don't think it's healthy to have one army that you can't adjust to play against. And it doesn't have to be a major change. But enough of a change where lists don't have 30+ reapers in them.
A chess clock would have almost no affect on you if you are currently finishing games in time at tournaments. Except in the rare cases where you are just taking your opponents time to finish a game before 2 1/2 hours - which isn't actually fair ether. Everyone should have the same amount of time to complete their 4-5 turns.
Personally - they don't allow enough time IMO. Make it 3 hours each game - that seems more appropriate.
My games never make it past turn 3.. much of the time is taken by me, and not because i'm slow playing. But of course we get equal number of turns.
Marmatag wrote: None of my IRL eldar friends pretend to think DR or SS are balanced units. Totally unbalanced units is what they are. Using craft-world stratagems from multiple craftworlds in a ynnari detachment is also enormously stupid. I can't believe that hasn't been FAQ'ed to not allow it.
Same, all of my Eldar playing buddies understand and appreciate that the unit is broken. I could see them restricting the stratagems... and also the general cost, especially of the Tempest Launcher.
Would you then agree that total time is the issue? The game is really ment to go to turn 4-5-6.
Martel732 wrote: Single rounded a fire raptor after cheating, but we get the idea.
how did he cheat?
He burned descent of angels without arriving from deep strike.
Do you happen to know what his range for the charge was?
No, but it was an illegal play.
It also seems stupid anyways.
He's using it on his captain instead of a unit of 15 DC. He was lucky to just survive the overwatch - maybe he was out of LOS. I always assumed that the double move and the 3d6 charge were being used on the 2x DC units. Or on a DC unit and a SG unit.
Captain SmashF-er typically is given the relic "The Angel's Wings", which allows re-rolling failed charges and no overwatch. I'm sure this one was the same.
Would you then agree that total time is the issue? The game is really ment to go to turn 4-5-6.
I would say just set the requirement that games are played through turn 4, and only ends earlier if someone is tabled, or gives up. I would *guess* that most games would resolve around 3 hours if that were the case, but by eliminating the time altogether, there's really nothing to be gained by slow playing.
Would you then agree that total time is the issue? The game is really ment to go to turn 4-5-6.
I would say just set the requirement that games are played through turn 4, and only ends earlier if someone is tabled, or gives up. I would *guess* that most games would resolve around 3 hours if that were the case, but by eliminating the time altogether, there's really nothing to be gained by slow playing.
In an ideal world every game would finish, but in a tournament you just can't have 1 game go 7 hours while everyone else is done in 3.
Would you then agree that total time is the issue? The game is really ment to go to turn 4-5-6.
I would say just set the requirement that games are played through turn 4, and only ends earlier if someone is tabled, or gives up. I would *guess* that most games would resolve around 3 hours if that were the case, but by eliminating the time altogether, there's really nothing to be gained by slow playing.
That wont work though - tournaments have to run on a schedule. How else are you going to enforce a 4 turn requirement other than timing the match?
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
Players just take the best options, that's just how competitive games work. If Grey Knight Paladins were the best, we'd all have 30 model armies.
Implementing a timer would change what the best option is. If getting turn time down is important, there are basically two ways tio can be done, shoehorn the existing meta into shorter turns via threat of forfeit, or reducing points. Both have pluses and minuses,
Reducing points to say 1500, would nicely reduce game length, less models means less rolls, less movement, less decisions. Even if it straight reduced turn length by 25% that would be the equivalent of getting another turn in for both players. I think there is a good case for the fact that it would speed it up much more than 25% though. It would cut down on detachment spam, because a lot of detachments won't work at reduced points, less special rules and stratagems will speed the game up, and I don't think anyone is going to cry over the loss of soup lists. It also cuts down on over the top special characters like Mortarion, Magnus and Guilliman, they are fine at 20% of your lists points, but when they are a third of your points you are starting to get too many eggs in a single basket.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.
Most competitions have good rules and aren't subject to such variables as WH. My daughter does competition skating (synchronized) - a comp has a very specific time limit, format, number of people on the team, etc. Their grading scale makes it so a team of almost-out-of-age-range kids can't steamroll a younger team. Hell, even in my racing events - the cars are basically identical by the time you deal with points and bracketing. It comes down to skill.
I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won". Or, for lulz - a victory with a top cheese army is worth 1 point, a win with a middle tier is worth 5 points. Let the underdog actually have a chance at winning,make things interesting.
Since the list building aspect of WH will always be skewed to bringing the most power/rule skirting grey areas as possible, I don't really view it as anything worth perusing personally either. For those enjoy that sort of thing, more power to ya. I'd rather make pew pew noises and have a beer when I play with little plastic soldiers.
Ehhh - reducing the points is very uninteresting to me. The game gets more interesting the more points you play at. I play a lot of 2500 point games and they are a lot of fun. IMO the game would be a lot more competitive at 2500. 2000 seems like the perfect spot to have quicker style Warhammer games. The worst part is someone can still slow play a 1500 game too - it doesn't actually solve the problem. A chess timer is absolutely the way to go with this. It's the only thing that address the real problem which is slow play.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.
Most competitions have good rules and aren't subject to such variables as WH. My daughter does competition skating (synchronized) - a comp has a very specific time limit, format, number of people on the team, etc. Their grading scale makes it so a team of almost-out-of-age-range kids can't steamroll a younger team. Hell, even in my racing events - the cars are basically identical by the time you deal with points and bracketing. It comes down to skill.
I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won". Or, for lulz - a victory with a top cheese army is worth 1 point, a win with a middle tier is worth 5 points. Let the underdog actually have a chance at winning,make things interesting.
Since the list building aspect of WH will always be skewed to bringing the most power/rule skirting grey areas as possible, I don't really view it as anything worth perusing personally either. For those enjoy that sort of thing, more power to ya. I'd rather make pew pew noises and have a beer when I play with little plastic soldiers.
Great points. It's too bad armies aren't more or less powerful but "different". Then we'd have something a little closer to what you are talking about.
The one issue with timers is they need to make sure there is enough time for all styles of play. If I have 2500 points of Custodes, it's going to be much easier to play in a timely manner than something like 2500 points of Orks. As long as the timer allots for a reasonable amount of time for larger model armies, it should be fine. Being hurried puts you at an inherent disadvantage if you are having to move at a faster pace than someone else.
That's a tactical decision you make when list building. If you know you only have X minutes to play then you're going to have to tailor your army to reach that goal and/or practice a lot more to get quicker with your decisions.
I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won".
Holy hell, this sounds like an amazing idea. I'd play the hell out of that tournament.
Xenomancers wrote: Ehhh - reducing the points is very uninteresting to me. The game gets more interesting the more points you play at. I play a lot of 2500 point games and they are a lot of fun. IMO the game would be a lot more competitive at 2500. 2000 seems like the perfect spot to have quicker style Warhammer games.
These higher points values let you comfortably cover all basis and even add in flair, I understand the desire to play at this level, but at the same time, you can still play a themed, powerful and capable army at 1500pts. 2500pt tournaments used to be a thing, they were awful. Remember 'Ard Boyz? At 2500pts there's not enough room on many tables for some armies to even fully deploy.
Personally, Ive always been a fan of 2k. However, 1500 makes the most sense for organized play if time is an issue, and todays 1500 is 3E or 4E's 2k or 2250. 1500 also cuts down on a lot of the super powerful stuff and detachment/CP abuse, and its generally been GW's target balance point.
I get why people like 1850 and 2k, I like that too. But going to 1500 is dramatically simpler and easier than introducing and managing chess clocks just because people dont want to drop any toys from their list.
The worst part is someone can still slow play a 1500 game too - it doesn't actually solve the problem. A chess timer is absolutely the way to go with this. It's the only thing that address the real problem which is slow play.
You can slow play anything. But if 40% of games arent being finished at 1850 but obly 10% of games are not being finished at 1500, you remove most of the time related issues without having to introduce a new mechanic and cost, and made slow play much more obvious and difficult to pull off.
A chess clock can be gamed too, and is probably more prone to creating error in a game with lots of back and forth like 40k than it will solve in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, especially next to something as simple and effortless as a points reduction.
I can already see the drama around a couple missed clock hits or a mucked up action sequence or two players arguing over whos time is being used to call a judge, etc.
Hoodwink wrote: The one issue with timers is they need to make sure there is enough time for all styles of play. If I have 2500 points of Custodes, it's going to be much easier to play in a timely manner than something like 2500 points of Orks. As long as the timer allots for a reasonable amount of time for larger model armies, it should be fine. Being hurried puts you at an inherent disadvantage if you are having to move at a faster pace than someone else.
I started 40k with Nids. I've also played GKs quite a bit. From my experience, the number of models is less a factor than the competence to the player. It literally only takes a few mere seconds to move more models. At the end of the day, horde armies only have about twice the UNITS even if they have 5x the models
Competitive players that want to use a horde list should be good enough to play them in close to the same amount of time as an average Marine player. It really is that simple
If you cannot do this (and I assure you it is possible) than maybe bringing that kind of list to a tourney isn't the most polite of ideas.
Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.
As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.
auticus wrote: In the 90s and early 2000s, 40k tournaments were 1500 points. To include the RTTs and GTs.
From what I can recall (I played back in 3rd/early 4th and just started again), 1500 was typically seen as the "standard" in those days, while 2000 or even 2500 was more normal for WHFB.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.
Yup I super understand that but from what I can gather, 400 space ork lists aren't exactly world beaters.
I've got a local 1500 tournament coming up, and I'm really looking forward to it. So many fewer ways to game the system
It's not like this would be the first time the points value standard changed, last LVO it was 1850. If the game is too slow and too hard to balance at 2k, then it absolutely makes sense to try other points values.
Also here is how I imagine strict time limits will be perceived:
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.
Yup I super understand that but from what I can gather, 400 space ork lists aren't exactly world beaters.
I can totally see some people loving playing both with and against 400 orks though. x400
In casual play, if you don't like what your opponents brings, you can either ask him to play something else or go play someone else. People have different opinions on what's fun, some may like lists that roll 400 dice a turn, and there's really no reason both you and your opponent shouldn't be able to enjoy the game. An opponent you don't like may be someone else's favourite.
In competitive play, if you don't like what your opponents brings, you can either grin and bear it or go play a fun casual game with a cool guy instead of playing in a tournament.
There are TFGs though, you wanna dodge those. Keep track of them so you can avoid them in casual play, and either prepare to grin and bear it if you come across them in a tournament, or just don't play tournaments.
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
Wow, okay? This post was bad and you should feel bad.
Rolling for advancing, rolling for stratagems, rolling for shooting, rolling for charging, rolling for fighting... An army that actually plays in every phase of the game will roll quite a bit of dice. Just a fact. Most armies can fight twice, or shoot twice, and have some form of rerolls on top of all the dice rolling.
If you fire 200 dice, rerolling misses (hitting on 4's) that's 300 dice rolled expected per shooting phase until you get diminished. For example.
Galas wrote: Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.
As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.
Back in 4th, I played 6k+ games semi regularly and would finish 5 turns in about 4 hours. Because myself and my opponent knew our rules very well. I've played a 9k point game that only took 6 hours for 5 turns. What I'm trying to say is that, if you know your rules and don't sweat the small stuff. You can finish the game in plenty of time.
Galas wrote: Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.
As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.
Back in 4th, I played 6k+ games semi regularly and would finish 5 turns in about 4 hours. Because myself and my opponent knew our rules very well. I've played a 9k point game that only took 6 hours for 5 turns. What I'm trying to say is that, if you know your rules and don't sweat the small stuff. You can finish the game in plenty of time.
Tournaments are won and lost by sweating the small stuff, and 4th ed had a lot less special rules than now.
HuskyWarhammer wrote: It's curious that "Eldar are tearing up the meta" when 2 of their 20 players were in the top 5, but there's much less criticism/doomsaying about Blood Angels achieving the same result, but with only 6 players.
I think what we're really learning is that it's a meta that's still being defined. Reapers were thought to be strong, sure, but there's a lot less reaper spam than people are implying. What it seems to me as the crux of powerful in this edition is the ability to use (read: abuse) force multipliers.
And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning
HuskyWarhammer wrote: It's curious that "Eldar are tearing up the meta" when 2 of their 20 players were in the top 5, but there's much less criticism/doomsaying about Blood Angels achieving the same result, but with only 6 players.
I think what we're really learning is that it's a meta that's still being defined. Reapers were thought to be strong, sure, but there's a lot less reaper spam than people are implying. What it seems to me as the crux of powerful in this edition is the ability to use (read: abuse) force multipliers.
And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning
And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning
Probably the most truth stated in this thread
Yeah thats why Imperial Guard players and Space Marine players love each other and they always support the other faction This "Imperial players" has become such a big mantra this edition. Unbelievable.
Yeah thats why Imperial Guard players and Space Marine players love each other and they always support the other faction This "Imperial players" has become such a big mantra this edition. Unbelievable.
I think there's always been a boogyman that's crept into a 40k codex writer's house each edition and threatened them at gunpoint to make some faction "too good". Or, at least in the eyes of other 40k players.
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that the result of it is that 8th edition will wind up being whatever edition 40k players deserve most.
After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.
Commissar Benny wrote: After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.
That's the problem with competitive tabletop hobbies with large investment and lock-in. People associate things being better than 'theirs' as making 'theirs' worse.
Imo there's no fix to knee jerk reactions for W40k unless all armies are interchangeable and models are re-usable which - thank goodness - should never happen.
Commissar Benny wrote: After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.
Hmmm... no? They ended with 10 players in the top 100. Only Eldar had more (20) and Chaos if we combine all (Daemons, Death Guard and CSM, so three Codex) with 24. And the highest ranking list was 13. Yeah, maybe many of those Imperial Guard lists had souped imperial elements. Just like most other Imperial Armies (Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Adeptus Astartes) had souped Imperial Guard units, nearly all Eldar armies had Ynnari elements and all Chaos armies where some kind of soup. This is 8th edition. Thats why the Blood Angel army was such a surprise, because it was 100% BA.
Imperial Guard was the second codex with most representation in the top 100. Theres more powerfull factions out there, thats obvious. Only the most close minded individuals keep banging the "Imperial Guard are the most OP faction!" drum. But they are still in a very good place in general.
Just look at Tyranids, they had a very good codex both from internal and external balanced and THEY were stomped. Just because Dark Eldar spam makes them inviable. Outside that specific list they are a very good army.
Commissar Benny wrote: After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.
Commissar Benny wrote: After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.
I mean, the only pure lists that made it to the top 10 were Alaitoc and Blood Angels, and people are talking about adjustments to their power units (dark reapers and the Death Company Captain, respectively). Chaos didn't get in the top 10 at all, whether pure or soup incarnations. I ain't gonna call for the malefic lord nerf to be revoked because of that.
nintura wrote: The inclusion of chess clocks, especially if your event has a separate top 8 just seems completely obvious to me.
I can see not wanting to get them for a full field of 400+ people tho.
Easy, you use the players. Everyone and their mothers has a smart phone with a stop watch
Which then basically requires organizer provide charging point next to each table. I would not fancy odds of my phone surviving on one charge thorough tournament day.
1. People could still roll dice it would simply take more of their time.
2. That’s why it would have to be the official ITC or GW app.
It would be just as easy to bring loaded dice to a tournament as it would be to hack the app
Official app should be preeeeetty hard to duplicate look. Most of the dice roll apps I have seen are ones easily fakeble. Not even sure simply having detailed background photo would be hard to fake for my phone so I could easily make one that nudges odds just a weeeee bit on my favour.
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Xenomancers wrote: A chess clock would have almost no affect on you if you are currently finishing games in time at tournaments. Except in the rare cases where you are just taking your opponents time to finish a game before 2 1/2 hours - which isn't actually fair ether. Everyone should have the same amount of time to complete their 4-5 turns.
Personally - they don't allow enough time IMO. Make it 3 hours each game - that seems more appropriate.
None of my IRL eldar friends pretend to think DR or SS are balanced units. Totally unbalanced units is what they are. Using craft-world stratagems from multiple craftworlds in a ynnari detachment is also enormously stupid. I can't believe that hasn't been FAQ'ed to not allow it.
Tournament game sizes should be so that both armies can make game. If horde armies starts to lose due to time then that's not fair either. Game is DESIGNED so that certain armies need hordes. So by making point sizes so big that horde armies can't compete in that time you are basically banning entire armies. Might just as well say "no orks, no tyranids" in rules.
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mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
Nice. so universal ban of ork armies for one. Might just as well make it official rule(no orks allowed) if you ban basically only way orks can avoid being stomped.
We've tried to play with chess clock at a local tourney but screwed it up with the amount of rolling you take in other player's turn. For example, i easilly went out of time with orks against a primaris gunline because he's been rolling buckets of dice and i had to roll a lot of saves. Most of the time is occupied by dice rolling - not thinking and moving. It was so bad, i had to forego a lot of 6+++ fnp saves just to not run out of time for my own gaming turn. If we use this system next time, i'll have to adjust my list to simply run even more boyz with as few saves as possible.
Playing Tyranids I couldn't get through more than 3 turns and I didn't have all that many models. It's the buckets of dice. 90 shots here, shooting twice. 80 attacks in hth there, attacking twice. Thanks stratagems, I love you but you do slow down the game dramatically.
I think they either need to lower the points, or give us another 30 mins per round. Usually by the time the 2 1/2 hours is over, the game rounds are going much faster at that point and we'd probably only need that much time to finish up.
I dont think a chess clock would work for 40k, as 40k simply isn't designed with that in mind.
Compare it to Kings of War for example, which design is more favourable to chess clocks. In KoW you only ever roll dice in your turn, so your opponent cant slow down your turn with dice rolls such as saves. Also in 40k the position and gear of individual models matter, so if you have 100 models on the field that's a 100 models you have to move and micro-manage separately, while a 100 models big army in KoW could be 5 units, arranged in regiments so you dont have to bother with the individual models.
dotcomee wrote: Playing Tyranids I couldn't get through more than 3 turns and I didn't have all that many models. It's the buckets of dice. 90 shots here, shooting twice. 80 attacks in hth there, attacking twice. Thanks stratagems, I love you but you do slow down the game dramatically.
I think they either need to lower the points, or give us another 30 mins per round. Usually by the time the 2 1/2 hours is over, the game rounds are going much faster at that point and we'd probably only need that much time to finish up.
I somewhat agree, but it then leads to the extra problems of scheduling in the extra 1.5-2 hours of gaming into the day.
At the LCO, they also had a limit – at 20 mins left you couldn’t start another battle round. This came into effect for me twice – once on turn 4 and the other on turn 3. It did have an impact on the outcome of the game, and it definitely did for other games as well, but, sometimes the schedule has to take precedence. Any lower, and you then run the risk of one player not getting their last turn after the call. Tough choices.
I am, however, firmly in the camp of making the games 3 hours long, with a dedicated 20-minute deployment phase built in (so 2 hours 40 mins of playing, last turn starting no later than with 20 mins to go). Any table unable to fully deploy and setup within the set 20 mins would both receive a points penalty and a warning. More than 1 warning would result in further punishment of some kind.
If things games are still struggling to reach the natural end of the game, I would then look at dropping back down to 2.5 hours and reducing the points down to 1500-1750 and detachment limit down to 2. I’d prefer to avoid this option though, but might be necessary for competitive play.
Or if they can't make 3h rounds lower the point values.
It's rather silly how GW keeps dropping point costs and players keep upping game sizes. Used to be 1500k with troops generally costing more. Then it went to 1750. Then 1850. 8th ed came and vehicles etc went up in cost so players up size to 2k. Then GW drops points on vehicles. Points stay 2k. Soon we'll probably be playing 2.5k on tournaments.
Players are GW's best marketing tools since players keep forcing players buy more models :lol:
I think people are misunderstanding how a chess clock would work in a event with comments like "shooting takes longer then assault".
Say each player gets 1 hour 30 minutes on the clock, anything you do is on your clock. So for shooting armies your movement phase will probably take next to no time but a long shooting phase. Similarly with a assault army movement will take long due to correctly positioning / checking LoS etc etc.
The clock is only on you when it's your turn, it allows players to allocate the time they want to the game. If you can have that 50 minute turn 2 if you really need it, just means your other turns need to be shorted and it becomes a resource to be used.
I'd love to see chess clocks in 40k events, the stories I've heard from my friends actually stop me going to 40k events. One of my friends waited 57 minutes why a guard player with 120 infantry and in total 39 lascannon heavy weapon teams shot him (between deciding what to shoot, re-rolling hit dice and then to wound and damage).
I'd be SUPER pissed if I only got to play 2-3 turns against a slow player and then lost because of it. Time should totally be a resource managed by players.
AaronWilson wrote: I think people are misunderstanding how a chess clock would work in a event with comments like "shooting takes longer then assault".
Say each player gets 1 hour 30 minutes on the clock, anything you do is on your clock. So for shooting armies your movement phase will probably take next to no time but a long shooting phase. Similarly with a assault army movement will take long due to correctly positioning / checking LoS etc etc.
The clock is only on you when it's your turn, it allows players to allocate the time they want to the game. If you can have that 50 minute turn 2 if you really need it, just means your other turns need to be shorted and it becomes a resource to be used.
I'd love to see chess clocks in 40k events, the stories I've heard from my friends actually stop me going to 40k events. One of my friends waited 57 minutes why a guard player with 120 infantry and in total 39 lascannon heavy weapon teams shot him (between deciding what to shoot, re-rolling hit dice and then to wound and damage).
I'd be SUPER pissed if I only got to play 2-3 turns against a slow player and then lost because of it. Time should totally be a resource managed by players.
Issues would then be interaction in opponents turn resulting either in constant back and forth of clock(takes time, easy to make mistake especially for non-hardcore player) or still allows stalling(with possiiblity of winning by clock). Also the time needs to be then set so that all kind of armies have reasonable time. Ie 1 players time needs to be on by slowest army. Time it takes to play with army is design choise done by GW. You mess up with balance if you force orks to bring elite army(and lose) to not auto-lose by time.
AaronWilson wrote: I think people are misunderstanding how a chess clock would work in a event with comments like "shooting takes longer then assault".
Say each player gets 1 hour 30 minutes on the clock, anything you do is on your clock.
Say, you've inflicted 30 bolter wounds to at an ork unit with 6+ armor and 6+++ fnp. Now he has to roll around 55 dice. And which player's time is ticking?
As an Ork player that regularly plays with 200+ models, I would definitely welcome a chess clock. While a horde army is slower to play, a lot of players could play a lot faster than they do. A lot of it comes down to practice and motivation.
The clock would also serve as a signal indicating transfer of play. Like, if you want to use the counter offensive in your opponents turn, the first thing you have to do is to slap the clock. Afterwards you declare your attention to do whatever.
The only problem would be things like saves and FNP rolls. Slowplaying these would ruin the system, and clock-transfer for every save is probably not practical.
AaronWilson wrote: You'd flick the clock over for your opponents armor saves, is is THAT hard to comprehend?
No, not hard to comprehend. It could just lead to a lot of people rolling one attack at a time, in order to hurt your opponents time management. In the absence of splitfire, it might work though.
I don't understand.....the topic is regarding the top lists in one of the most competitive environments and we've spent like 5 pages talking about chess clocks lol?!
Here's some questions I'd like those more intelligent and informed than me to answer, please;
1. What have we learnt from the tournament results regarding the meta?
2. Is the game more balanced than previous editions (seems that way to me)?
3. Apart from Reapers (lol) were there any other units that "stood out".
4. Were there any surprise units? From an Ork perspective I understand a player did relatively well with Flash Gits, a unit that is considered awful by most Orks (myself included).
5. Do we feel that the "Age of chaff spam" is over? Are we moving towards smaller more concentrated and powerful units or dare I say a mix?
6. Why did so many games fail to finish? This edition is supposed to be (and in my experience is) faster? Are players spending a ton of time making calculations? Is it the dreaded measurement game?
An Actual Englishman wrote: I don't understand.....the topic is regarding the top lists in one of the most competitive environments and we've spent like 5 pages talking about chess clocks lol?!
Here's some questions I'd like those more intelligent and informed than me to answer, please;
1. What have we learnt from the tournament results regarding the meta?
2. Is the game more balanced than previous editions (seems that way to me)?
3. Apart from Reapers (lol) were there any other units that "stood out".
4. Were there any surprise units? From an Ork perspective I understand a player did relatively well with Flash Gits, a unit that is considered awful by most Orks (myself included).
5. Do we feel that the "Age of chaff spam" is over? Are we moving towards smaller more concentrated and powerful units or dare I say a mix?
6. Why did so many games fail to finish? This edition is supposed to be (and in my experience is) faster? Are players spending a ton of time making calculations? Is it the dreaded measurement game?
6 is mostly down to weight of dice rolling – hordes or no hordes.
5 AssCan Razorbacks with BobbyG is an example of this.
Movement and the Eldar/Chaos Psychic phases can also slow the game down, but it is mostly the sheer amount of dice being rolled from my experience.
tneva82 wrote: Or if they can't make 3h rounds lower the point values.
It's rather silly how GW keeps dropping point costs and players keep upping game sizes. Used to be 1500k with troops generally costing more. Then it went to 1750. Then 1850. 8th ed came and vehicles etc went up in cost so players up size to 2k. Then GW drops points on vehicles. Points stay 2k. Soon we'll probably be playing 2.5k on tournaments.
Players are GW's best marketing tools since players keep forcing players buy more models :lol:
I agree, the problem with the game size is we now have in regular games lots of models that should belong to huge games, like 3000+ points. All superheroes and LoWs basically.
The GW politics that encourage (force) players to buy more models is perfectly fine IMHO, but it should go into another direction, which is to encourage collecting different armies rather than adding new stuff over and over to already existing collections.
Flyers, LoWs, superheroes were introduced in the last years because many players already had tons of miniatures, and those things were new additions. IMHOGW should have promoted and buffed a specific army for a few months and then switched to another one, and so on. Instead of releasing big new SM just promote orks, tau (not only the huge dudes) dark eldar or sisters, encourage players to buy those models.
I think having 2x2000 points armies is better for the meta than a single 4000 points one. And the lack of 300+ points models in 1500-2000 points games could make the game way more interesting.
An Actual Englishman wrote: I don't understand.....the topic is regarding the top lists in one of the most competitive environments and we've spent like 5 pages talking about chess clocks lol?!
Here's some questions I'd like those more intelligent and informed than me to answer, please;
1. What have we learnt from the tournament results regarding the meta?
2. Is the game more balanced than previous editions (seems that way to me)?
3. Apart from Reapers (lol) were there any other units that "stood out".
4. Were there any surprise units? From an Ork perspective I understand a player did relatively well with Flash Gits, a unit that is considered awful by most Orks (myself included).
5. Do we feel that the "Age of chaff spam" is over? Are we moving towards smaller more concentrated and powerful units or dare I say a mix?
6. Why did so many games fail to finish? This edition is supposed to be (and in my experience is) faster? Are players spending a ton of time making calculations? Is it the dreaded measurement game?
Play Eldar
Hard to say with 3 identical eldar in top 4 and 5 in the top 8 but outside of the very top. Yes I would say so.
Shining Spears
A bunch of Blood Angel stuff did (imo) surprisingly well
Walls and walls of dudes, kinda yeah. But select units to keep deepstrikers out and catch assault units are still used a lot
Lots of slow play, probably to many points for the time.
An Actual Englishman wrote: I don't understand.....the topic is regarding the top lists in one of the most competitive environments and we've spent like 5 pages talking about chess clocks lol?!
Here's some questions I'd like those more intelligent and informed than me to answer, please;
1. What have we learnt from the tournament results regarding the meta?
2. Is the game more balanced than previous editions (seems that way to me)?
3. Apart from Reapers (lol) were there any other units that "stood out".
4. Were there any surprise units? From an Ork perspective I understand a player did relatively well with Flash Gits, a unit that is considered awful by most Orks (myself included).
5. Do we feel that the "Age of chaff spam" is over? Are we moving towards smaller more concentrated and powerful units or dare I say a mix?
6. Why did so many games fail to finish? This edition is supposed to be (and in my experience is) faster? Are players spending a ton of time making calculations? Is it the dreaded measurement game?
1. The meta still generally favors abusing undercosted units and boosting them with synergy over any other considerations.
2. In the sense that the broken undercosted stuff is getting nerfed faster, yes. It's still a bit of a crap shoot on initial releases though.
3. I'd look at the BA lists, something was working though it may just be synergy.
4. There was the list that hit 13 using almost nothing but plague burst crawlers we've been discussing in the DG thread. Intercessors were getting used by one pure BA list which placed top 10 (maybe 5?).
5. It's hard to say, with two of the worst offenders nerfed and reapers being so dominant it looks that way, but that could just be an outlier. Though the BA presence even with IG allies does lead weight to it.
6. No idea, wasn't paying that close of attention to people talking about the games in detail.
I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won".
Holy hell, this sounds like an amazing idea. I'd play the hell out of that tournament.
This has actually been tried in 8th ed Warhammer Fantasy. Google "warhammer World Series" and "hoodling" to find the blog articles.
Imperial guard is fine. However Gw needs to fix commissars from the unplayable mess (just allow them to grant a reroll to morale without killing someone) they did to it and unnerf the cost increase of conscripts. All the other nerfs to conscript was more then enough to give parity to infantry squads.
Nerf reavers, nerf BA captains and buff the heck out of the tau, necron, ork, codexs
Might even want to allow tau to have gsw type Guard detachment and Orks a demon detachment. And necron a pokeball detschment.
And release the long awaited fw list of ad mech units for 40k with the new squire knight.
AaronWilson wrote: You'd flick the clock over for your opponents armor saves, is is THAT hard to comprehend?
That's a lot of wasted time flicking the clock - especially for single but frequent dice rolls.
Personally, I wouldn't bother switching versus a reasonable opponent, but if someone is intentionally slow-rolling their armour saves, it would be nice to have the option.
AaronWilson wrote: I think people are misunderstanding how a chess clock would work in a event with comments like "shooting takes longer then assault".
Say each player gets 1 hour 30 minutes on the clock, anything you do is on your clock.
Say, you've inflicted 30 bolter wounds to at an ork unit with 6+ armor and 6+++ fnp. Now he has to roll around 55 dice. And which player's time is ticking?
Completely agree with koooaei - "anything you do is on your clock" will just make the new slow play strategy to force you to perform as many actions as possible to run your timer down before your turn starts, if there is no clock switching it then just becomes operation slow play in opponents turn.
A chess clock only works in chess as you have a mirror match and an exact number of moves per turn - every turn should be equal.
I really wish there was a way to see the guard lists. I am curious how many IG superheavies made it into the top 100 vs how many superheavies of other types, e.g. magnus, mortarion, monoliths, etc.
LunarSol wrote: Flipping the clock doesn't take any time. It takes substantially less time than telling your opponent to do whatever it is they're failing to do.
I can see some problems though.
"I want to see your book." tap while the other player finds it.
Other player finds book. "I'll read it, play on." tap
"I don't want to play while you read, as this affects my decision." tap.
"But I already know the rule, and you questioning me on it shouldn't cost me my time." tap.
"I don't trust your knowledge of the rules." tap.
"JUUUUDGE!"
See how easy that was? A real time shark can even start an argument over whose time should be ticking while a rule is looked up, lol.
Players should never argue like that. If you end up in a rules dispute, you call a judge. Immediately. That's what they're there for and are a fantastic resource that works best the sooner its used. I've always been way happier when players call me over for preventative care than being summoned to deal with an escalated issue.
Leo_the_Rat wrote:Anyone can be TFG in any game. Most people are mature enough to understand how to use a chess clock and when it is appropriate to switch the timer.
That's literally what slowplaying is. Being a TFG. If "chess clocks fix slowplaying TFGs" is the claim, you actually have to show why people can't TFG them.
LunarSol wrote:Players should never argue like that. If you end up in a rules dispute, you call a judge. Immediately. That's what they're there for and are a fantastic resource that works best the sooner its used. I've always been way happier when players call me over for preventative care than being summoned to deal with an escalated issue.
Whose clock does the Judge's Consultation happen on? Or do they extend the round past the time limit to account for judges time? And by how much? Does it change based on how long a judge was at a given table, giving different tables different round ending points? Or could dice down happen while both players have time on their clocks because the judge simply paused the time?
LunarSol wrote: Flipping the clock doesn't take any time. It takes substantially less time than telling your opponent to do whatever it is they're failing to do.
I can see some problems though.
"I want to see your book." tap while the other player finds it.
Other player finds book. "I'll read it, play on." tap
"I don't want to play while you read, as this affects my decision." tap.
"But I already know the rule, and you questioning me on it shouldn't cost me my time." tap.
"I don't trust your knowledge of the rules." tap.
"JUUUUDGE!"
See how easy that was? A real time shark can even start an argument over whose time should be ticking while a rule is looked up, lol.
Other wargames use chess clocks and deal with this just fine. If there's a rules dispute at any point you call for a judge and pause the timer. No player is penalised for requesting a judge ruling. If somebody keeps using it as a tactic to screw with their opponent's time the judges quickly become aware of it.
I'm seriously starting to wonder if the people opposed to chess clocks stop to think about their objections at all? We know other games use them and we know they work just fine there. Why is it so hard to accept they may at least be worth trying in 40k? It's a very simple thing to roll to hit and to wound, declare number of successes, then switch time to your opponent to roll their dice, then they switch back to you once done. It takes less than a second to switch the clock and becomes second nature extremely quickly.
LunarSol wrote: Flipping the clock doesn't take any time. It takes substantially less time than telling your opponent to do whatever it is they're failing to do.
I can see some problems though.
"I want to see your book." tap while the other player finds it.
Other player finds book. "I'll read it, play on." tap
"I don't want to play while you read, as this affects my decision." tap.
"But I already know the rule, and you questioning me on it shouldn't cost me my time." tap.
"I don't trust your knowledge of the rules." tap.
"JUUUUDGE!"
See how easy that was? A real time shark can even start an argument over whose time should be ticking while a rule is looked up, lol.
Other wargames use chess clocks and deal with this just fine. If there's a rules dispute at any point you call for a judge and pause the timer. No player is penalised for requesting a judge ruling. If somebody keeps using it as a tactic to screw with their opponent's time the judges quickly become aware of it.
I'm seriously starting to wonder if the people opposed to chess clocks stop to think about their objections at all? We know other games use them and we know they work just fine there. Why is it so hard to accept they may at least be worth trying in 40k? It's a very simple thing to roll to hit and to wound, declare number of successes, then switch time to your opponent to roll their dice, then they switch back to you once done. It takes less than a second to switch the clock and becomes second nature extremely quickly.
So you're seriously telling me that no one in any other tournament has ever gamed the clock? Ever? Not once?
And if a judge pauses the clock, is that game now allowed to go beyond the total 2.5 hours allotted for playtime, since some of the time was spent standing around talking to a judge?
Rules disputes happen between people who aren't TFG though. The clock is bad in a game where people don't have perfect knowledge of the other persons' data sheets, stratagems, rules, etc.
I suggest that people read how Privateer Press handles their death clock rules. When I first read them I thought that it would be hard to do but it's just like any other facet of the game. You learn how to use it and move on.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Anyone can be TFG in any game. Most people are mature enough to understand how to use a chess clock and when it is appropriate to switch the timer.
Most people are mature enough to not slow play. If they're not mature enough to not slow play, they're probably not mature enough to not treat a clock as just another gameable element.
LunarSol wrote: Flipping the clock doesn't take any time. It takes substantially less time than telling your opponent to do whatever it is they're failing to do.
I can see some problems though.
"I want to see your book." tap while the other player finds it.
Other player finds book. "I'll read it, play on." tap
"I don't want to play while you read, as this affects my decision." tap.
"But I already know the rule, and you questioning me on it shouldn't cost me my time." tap.
"I don't trust your knowledge of the rules." tap.
"JUUUUDGE!"
See how easy that was? A real time shark can even start an argument over whose time should be ticking while a rule is looked up, lol.
Other wargames use chess clocks and deal with this just fine. If there's a rules dispute at any point you call for a judge and pause the timer. No player is penalised for requesting a judge ruling. If somebody keeps using it as a tactic to screw with their opponent's time the judges quickly become aware of it.
I'm seriously starting to wonder if the people opposed to chess clocks stop to think about their objections at all? We know other games use them and we know they work just fine there. Why is it so hard to accept they may at least be worth trying in 40k? It's a very simple thing to roll to hit and to wound, declare number of successes, then switch time to your opponent to roll their dice, then they switch back to you once done. It takes less than a second to switch the clock and becomes second nature extremely quickly.
They're not very common in other games, and when present, such games are designed around a time component as an inherent part of the rules or experience, and there's little or no back-and-forth in actions and armies tend to be much smaller, none of which is true with 40k.
Can people get slick at it? Sure. Will it work without any issues for most players most of the time? Yes. However, does the current time scheme work for most players most of the time? Also yes. Can chess clocks raise their own issues? Yes. Are lots of people who engage in the 40k hobby less than outstandingly capable people? Yes. Do people routinely mess up simple things all the time? Yes.
Again, a smaller points limit is going to be an easier, simpler, and cleaner solution.
LunarSol wrote: Flipping the clock doesn't take any time. It takes substantially less time than telling your opponent to do whatever it is they're failing to do.
I can see some problems though.
"I want to see your book." tap while the other player finds it.
Other player finds book. "I'll read it, play on." tap
"I don't want to play while you read, as this affects my decision." tap.
"But I already know the rule, and you questioning me on it shouldn't cost me my time." tap.
"I don't trust your knowledge of the rules." tap.
"JUUUUDGE!"
See how easy that was? A real time shark can even start an argument over whose time should be ticking while a rule is looked up, lol.
Other wargames use chess clocks and deal with this just fine. If there's a rules dispute at any point you call for a judge and pause the timer. No player is penalised for requesting a judge ruling. If somebody keeps using it as a tactic to screw with their opponent's time the judges quickly become aware of it.
I'm seriously starting to wonder if the people opposed to chess clocks stop to think about their objections at all? We know other games use them and we know they work just fine there. Why is it so hard to accept they may at least be worth trying in 40k? It's a very simple thing to roll to hit and to wound, declare number of successes, then switch time to your opponent to roll their dice, then they switch back to you once done. It takes less than a second to switch the clock and becomes second nature extremely quickly.
So you're seriously telling me that no one in any other tournament has ever gamed the clock? Ever? Not once?
And if a judge pauses the clock, is that game now allowed to go beyond the total 2.5 hours allotted for playtime, since some of the time was spent standing around talking to a judge?
Of course people will try to game the clock. I never said they wouldn't so I don't know where you're getting that from. TFGs are TFGs whatever the system. The point is we can put procedures in place to prevent as much of that as possible,
Yes, games can go beyond the allotted time if a judge needs to make a call on something. However, it's a very rare game that requires constant genuine judge intervention so at most you're looking at around 3-5 minutes extra, and that's being generous. If a judge is constantly being called to sort out rules disputes you have a problem with the players. This system allows that problem to be identified and sorted. Minor rules disputes over things like weapon or unit stats or special rules are dealt with the same way they are now: by showing your opponent the relevant rule and getting on with the game. You don't switch the clock for these kind of things unless they start to get egregious.
Again, I really can't stress this enough, chess clocks are used to good effect and with very few issues I'm aware of in Warmachine/Hordes and Kings of War. They manage to deal with rules issues, both minor and major, within this system just fine. A chess clock system doesn't prevent 100% of abuses but if we want 100% efficiency in our solutions we'll never implement any changes at all. I think they'd be an overall good and I don't think any of the issues people have raised her are insurmountable,
So you're seriously telling me that no one in any other tournament has ever gamed the clock? Ever? Not once?
And if a judge pauses the clock, is that game now allowed to go beyond the total 2.5 hours allotted for playtime, since some of the time was spent standing around talking to a judge?
Only the judge is allowed to pause the clock. Generally there's a round timer slightly longer than the total time on the clocks. It's in the judge's vested interest to resolve the dispute within that buffer so it really only comes up if players are repeatedly calling the judge.... at which point you have a game which is under pretty close scrutiny and a judge who's going to be quite interested in who might need to be ejected.
Have people gamed the clock? Absolutely. Is it still a better system? It 100% is. Honestly, the biggest advantage is simply that when someone is gaming the clock, their opponent can obviously tell what's happening. Under round timers, when someone games the clock, their opponent doesn't realize it until the judge tells them its too late to do anything about it.
I think the problem is not that it's "a solution that can't fix 100% of the problems but can fix 99% of them".
My objection is "it won't work in a few cases so it won't work at all." It's far more nuanced than that:
Premise 1) TFGs will be TFGs.
2) TFGs will game the system whatever it is.
3) There is no current need for Chess Clocks outside of TFGs slowplaying (that has been identified).
4) Chess clocks are a new system.
5) TFGs will still game them.
So you're not fixing anything. The problem is that slow playing will disappear and be replaced with clock manipulation as the TFG tactic of choice. It's just changing the symptoms and not treating the problems.
Same with lowering the points: slow-playing can happen at 1500.
The best solution is for TO's to step up when painfully obvious slowplaying is happening (like a 60 minute first turn with Tony's list) and actually tell TFGs to GTFO or shape up.
The issue is not with rules, but rather with enforcement. Adding more or different rules while enforcement is still bad is just going to move the problem around until the rules start becoming enforced.
So besides Alaitoc and Ynnari, what was the highest other Craftworld finish? That way we know that there is a TRUE Eldar problem and not a specific one.
Vaktathi wrote: They're not very common in other games, and when present, such games are designed around a time component as an inherent part of the rules or experience, and there's little or no back-and-forth in actions and armies tend to be much smaller, none of which is true with 40k.
Can people get slick at it? Sure. Will it work without any issues for most players most of the time? Yes. However, does the current time scheme work for most players most of the time? Also yes. Can chess clocks raise their own issues? Yes. Are lots of people who engage in the 40k hobby less than outstandingly capable people? Yes. Do people routinely mess up simple things all the time? Yes.
Again, a smaller points limit is going to be an easier, simpler, and cleaner solution.
Warmachine is really the game that started pushing chess clocks and really doesn't have anything in its design that makes it better suited to using chess clocks. There's certainly no time component inherent in the game and it used round timers for years before introducing turn timers to deal with slow play. The issue there is that turn timers just aren't how a game actually functions, as turn times vary greatly over the course of the game.
All chess clocks do is take all the time a round timer is attempting to allocate to you and give it to you as a lump sum for you to budget as you see fit. I've had players on my turn flip the clock to themselves and go to the bathroom in the middle of our game and you know what? It's their time, good for them.
Also, fwiw, as far as armor saves go, I play Trollbloods in WM, an army defined by making an army save 1 by 1 for every attack your opponent makes. I assure you, its not a problem.
bullyboy wrote: So besides Alaitoc and Ynnari, what was the highest other Craftworld finish? That way we know that there is a TRUE Eldar problem and not a specific one.
All flavors of Eldar have access to spam reapers.
And Alaitoc has an insane Craftworld trait... Ulthwe was in the top 50 i believe too.
Warmachine also has a smaller amount of interactions. I'm fairly certain the opponent has opportunities to interrupt every single phase of the game I play.
In movement, he can play a stratagem to shoot at a deep striking unit.
In psychic, he can deny my stuff.
In shooting, he can make saves.
In charges, he fires overwatch.
In assault, he ... well, essentially does a whole assault phase himself.
In morale, same thing. Assault and morale are damn near completely shared between both players, depending on what happened during the turn.
That's fine. Swap the clock. In fact, tapping the clock to myself is a great way to announce that I'm using a strategem. Flipping the clock to my opponent after I declare a charge is a great way to let them declare or decline Overwatch. Cast a power, flip the clock; they can flip it right back if they don't want to deny it.
Guild Ball uses a chess clock and its got alternating activations. The system can handle rapid back and forth. It's what its really designed for.
A problem is that people don't like to be confrontational without back up. This is try for players and judges. At least with a clock a person can have something to point at as proof of a person being TFG.
You are correct that if TO/Judges were more aggressive about enforcing the rules about poor sportsman type behaviors then we would all have better games.
I haven't played in a 40K event but I have played in many PP events. I can tell you that the clock takes a lot of wind out of the sails of most game play problems. It also seems to me that when you have timed rounds that the play time should be fairly even if not exactly even. I really hate to use this line but, if you want to use an army that eats up a lot of time just get good with it when using a clock
Automatically Appended Next Post: Warmachine has just as many interuption/interactions. When you move I have the option of counter charging or moving away from you.
When you cast spells I have abilities that cancel them or interrupt you by attacking the caster.
When you attack I can counter attack or redirect your attack.
Granted not all of these interruptions are available to all armies all the time but it's not uncommon for me to be attacking you when it's your turn but on my clock.
I still maintain there's no value in clocks if TOs/opponents/whatever won't enforce the rules.
Slowplaying LITERALLY HAPPENED on stream. There's video evidence. If video evidence of a rule breaking exists and the TO still won't enforce the rules, then clock evidence won't help either.
My overall view here is that chess clocks won't make the game more enjoyable (the reason most people are playing). Very few people actually get purposefully slow played. The only use I see for one is as a judging tool if there is a complaint of slow play put a clock on the game. Otherwise I think it will just make players have less enjoyment during events.
Breng77 wrote: My overall view here is that chess clocks won't make the game more enjoyable (the reason most people are playing). Very few people actually get purposefully slow played. The only use I see for one is as a judging tool if there is a complaint of slow play put a clock on the game. Otherwise I think it will just make players have less enjoyment during events.
Essentially this, except even if there is slow play a judge still won't enforce anything because they don't even when there's live, ongoing video evidence with thousands (okay that was excessive) hundreds of viewers, and multiple threads on different community forums as well as the official Warhammer 40k Facebook.
I have seen literally 0 people in all those places argue that Tony wasn't slowplaying, and yet the judges (whether at the time or now) do nothing.
As someone who plays WM/H competitively, part of list building is understanding what you can effectively play with the clock. Also knowing when to skip shooting/fighting with a unit that has a very low chance of doing anything useful in order to save time.
Breng77 wrote: My overall view here is that chess clocks won't make the game more enjoyable (the reason most people are playing). Very few people actually get purposefully slow played. The only use I see for one is as a judging tool if there is a complaint of slow play put a clock on the game. Otherwise I think it will just make players have less enjoyment during events.
This. And a clock doesn't tell the story.
It just tells you time used, not if that time was used in slow playing or not.
Player 1: Horde army
Player 2: Tiny elite army
If they each take 45 minutes on their first turn, the clock shows no problem. Maybe player 2 is slow playing though, because 45 minutes for his army is SUPER LONG.
Marmatag wrote: Players need time to decide if they want to use a stratagem. Players need to reference their own rules on your opponents turn.
A clock is punitive in a game like this. Most games aren't played in bad faith. Why would you throw the baby out with the bath water?
How is this different from any other game that uses a clock. You're allowed to think on your opponent's clock. If you want to do something then you punch the clock to your time and do it. If you can't think fast enough then how is that any better if you're constantly asking your opponent to "wait a moment while I decide". At least with a clock it's on your time and if you take too much time it should be punitive. Both players knew the rules coming into the game (equal time) what makes your delaying any better than his?
I remember this same sort of reaction to the Force Organization Chart when 3rd came into play. Players were crying all over the place about how GW killed the game by requiring 1 HQ and 2 Troops to be played by an army. Now it's no big deal. The players adapted to the rule and moved on. Adding a clock to the game would be the same effect.
So here we are 5 pages into arguing about clocks, and I have to say smaller point values look better each page. Even without intentional delay of game, most 2k battles are too slow to complete within a 2 hour window.
The reason we have this problem is simple, 8th ed is slower than 7th ed, yet we increased the points in the tournament scene. There are lots of reasons why 8th ed is slower, and not much we can do about it. So rather than threatening players with no malintent with harsh timers and the risk of forfeit, we should just reduce the scope of the game so it has an easier time fitting within the allotted time box.
Is 1500 the right points value, hard to say, but we can try it out and dial it in over the year. Or we can keep arguing about clocks I suppose and how to fit 7 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I still maintain there's no value in clocks if TOs/opponents/whatever won't enforce the rules.
Slowplaying LITERALLY HAPPENED on stream. There's video evidence. If video evidence of a rule breaking exists and the TO still won't enforce the rules, then clock evidence won't help either.
^^^^^^^
If a game being livestreamed to many thousands of people in real time as part of a high profile commercial event can't deal with slowplaying, my confidence in a chess clock fixing anything is minimal.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: A problem is that people don't like to be confrontational without back up. This is try for players and judges. At least with a clock a person can have something to point at as proof of a person being TFG.
You are correct that if TO/Judges were more aggressive about enforcing the rules about poor sportsman type behaviors then we would all have better games.
I haven't played in a 40K event but I have played in many PP events. I can tell you that the clock takes a lot of wind out of the sails of most game play problems. It also seems to me that when you have timed rounds that the play time should be fairly even if not exactly even. I really hate to use this line but, if you want to use an army that eats up a lot of time just get good with it when using a clock
Automatically Appended Next Post: Warmachine has just as many interuption/interactions. When you move I have the option of counter charging or moving away from you.
When you cast spells I have abilities that cancel them or interrupt you by attacking the caster.
When you attack I can counter attack or redirect your attack.
Granted not all of these interruptions are available to all armies all the time but it's not uncommon for me to be attacking you when it's your turn but on my clock.
these interrupt events are exceptions generally, not your opponent rolling something literally every time you attack them or do something as a rule. You probably also dont have 100-200 models on the table. Each army probably has 4-6 maneuver elements as opposed to a 40k army that will have double or triple that or more. You dont have a lot that can shoot across the entire table, most units wont be attacking more than a couple of times instead of often literally every turn. The total number of actions and passbacks, rolls and unit count, at least from my memory of WM back when I played, is dramatically less than in a game of 40k.
Warmahordes is a game where the rules, game design ethos, and flow of play make the game much more amenable to timers. 40k is not. Warmahordes is about as close to MtG ae you can get with minis, its a very ability/combo oriented game built around decisive actions and killing blows, this plays to a timer much better and the rules writers are assuming you are likely to be playing more than one game in a sitting, 40k is much more an attritional battle sandbox where the rules assume youre not playing more than one game a day.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I still maintain there's no value in clocks if TOs/opponents/whatever won't enforce the rules.
Slowplaying LITERALLY HAPPENED on stream. There's video evidence. If video evidence of a rule breaking exists and the TO still won't enforce the rules, then clock evidence won't help either.
Clock evidence? With a clock you can slowplay as much as you like, you will just lose. No one slowplay in chess, for that same reason.
But I just don't think that 40k current mechanics can work well with a chess clock. Who should roll for saves, and on whose clock?
mugginns wrote: Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.
Wow, okay? This post was bad and you should feel bad.
Rolling for advancing, rolling for stratagems, rolling for shooting, rolling for charging, rolling for fighting... An army that actually plays in every phase of the game will roll quite a bit of dice. Just a fact. Most armies can fight twice, or shoot twice, and have some form of rerolls on top of all the dice rolling.
If you fire 200 dice, rerolling misses (hitting on 4's) that's 300 dice rolled expected per shooting phase until you get diminished. For example.
What's your point here?
But I just don't think that 40k current mechanics can work well with a chess clock. Who should roll for saves, and on whose clock?
If a game being livestreamed to many thousands of people in real time as part of a high profile commercial event can't deal with slowplaying, my confidence in a chess clock fixing anything is minima
Why? Clocks are not there to stop slowplaying. They just make slowplayers lose, or, at the very least, play on with a disadvantage.
Personally I don't see how a chess clock would fit in 40k mechanically. But I have no doubt, that they would improve the game experience if you could do it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the problem is not that it's "a solution that can't fix 100% of the problems but can fix 99% of them".
My objection is "it won't work in a few cases so it won't work at all." It's far more nuanced than that:
Premise 1) TFGs will be TFGs.
2) TFGs will game the system whatever it is.
3) There is no current need for Chess Clocks outside of TFGs slowplaying (that has been identified).
4) Chess clocks are a new system.
5) TFGs will still game them.
So you're not fixing anything. The problem is that slow playing will disappear and be replaced with clock manipulation as the TFG tactic of choice. It's just changing the symptoms and not treating the problems.
Same with lowering the points: slow-playing can happen at 1500.
The best solution is for TO's to step up when painfully obvious slowplaying is happening (like a 60 minute first turn with Tony's list) and actually tell TFGs to GTFO or shape up.
The issue is not with rules, but rather with enforcement. Adding more or different rules while enforcement is still bad is just going to move the problem around until the rules start becoming enforced.
I want to make sure I understand, you think its easier for TOs to police a tournament of 500+ people for slow play, or require the players to report it and then act on it, in a hobby full of lots of socially awkward dudes who hate confrontation or have to see this person for another 2 hours / weekend, you think that's easier than implementing timed rounds?
Who should roll for saves, and on whose clock?
No one has given a useful answer m8
Not really true, no. You roll for saves on your own clock. Been mentioned a dozen times.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I still maintain there's no value in clocks if TOs/opponents/whatever won't enforce the rules.
Slowplaying LITERALLY HAPPENED on stream. There's video evidence. If video evidence of a rule breaking exists and the TO still won't enforce the rules, then clock evidence won't help either.
Clock evidence? With a clock you can slowplay as much as you like, you will just lose. No one slowplay in chess, for that same reason.
But I just don't think that 40k current mechanics can work well with a chess clock. Who should roll for saves, and on whose clock?
Yeah. 40k would have to have like Warmahordes, where you're comparing stats and only if you have Tough (e.g. FNP) do you roll during your opponent's turn (which is done on your clock). The fact it has armor saves throws a wrench into that. Instead of saves there would have to be an Armor value (which wouldn't be bad, but is a fundamental shift of the rules)
auticus wrote: Slow play is one reason why I think tournaments fail (that and the bad balance in the game).
I prefer leagues. Where you play a series of games over a certain time frame in days or weeks. That way slow play is never a factor.
People are just used to tournament events being what they are though to change that.
Leagues don't work for competitive ranked play, though.
They could try to make the tournament a 3-day tournament instead of a 2- day tournament to have plenty of time. Yeah it will cost them more money, but I think they could recoup expenses if they make the fee higher, like 5-10$. Thats 5k$ more if they need to rent the place one more day, etc... in a 500 player tournament like this.
No, the clocks will make TFGs move from slow-playing to gaming the clock.
And the rules still won't be enforced, apparently even on a livestream.
So there will still be the same tired old problems (TFGs) and all you've done is given the normal players who don't have any trouble something more to worry about. There's 500+ players at the event, and I'd say based on my 8 games at NOVA (all of which finished before time to their natural conclusion) that a solid majority of them finished to time. So you've put an additional burden on those people in an effort to rein in TFGs, while just making the TFGs feth around with the clock instead of fething around with slowplaying. Either way, the TFGs get to feth around, no rules are enforced - except with clocks, the more middle-of-the-road players have more gak to do, keep track of, and argue about in an already complex game.
It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
LunarSol wrote:It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
I know you say it's not hard. But I can definitely imagine an argument starting over the clock in the mind of a fatigued, otherwise well-meaning person, and if it's starting even one more during-game argument than otherwise would happen, while applying no benefit because the TOs won't enforce the rules anyways, then what the feth is the point?
mugginns wrote:What if they don't game the clock system? Like, its not possible?
From what I've heard, people actually do game the clock.
And it's totally possible to do so. Even something as simple as not reminding someone to flip the clock and then rolling saves one at a time until they remember is gaming the clock. Heck, you could outright break the rules by going over time, and if the TOs don't enforce anything (which is essentially the status quo) then who cares? It's not like breaking the rules and going over time actually /means/ anything.
LunarSol wrote:It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
mugginns wrote:What if they don't game the clock system? Like, its not possible?
From what I've heard, people actually do game the clock.
And it's totally possible to do so. Even something as simple as not reminding someone to flip the clock and then rolling saves one at a time until they remember is gaming the clock. Heck, you could outright break the rules by going over time, and if the TOs don't enforce anything (which is essentially the status quo) then who cares? It's not like breaking the rules and going over time actually /means/ anything.
What if they bring weighted dice and win a tournament?
LunarSol wrote:It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
mugginns wrote:What if they don't game the clock system? Like, its not possible?
From what I've heard, people actually do game the clock.
And it's totally possible to do so. Even something as simple as not reminding someone to flip the clock and then rolling saves one at a time until they remember is gaming the clock. Heck, you could outright break the rules by going over time, and if the TOs don't enforce anything (which is essentially the status quo) then who cares? It's not like breaking the rules and going over time actually /means/ anything.
What if they bring weighted dice and win a tournament?
Then they'll probably get away with that too until the TOs start enforcing the rules.
LunarSol wrote:It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
mugginns wrote:What if they don't game the clock system? Like, its not possible?
From what I've heard, people actually do game the clock.
And it's totally possible to do so. Even something as simple as not reminding someone to flip the clock and then rolling saves one at a time until they remember is gaming the clock. Heck, you could outright break the rules by going over time, and if the TOs don't enforce anything (which is essentially the status quo) then who cares? It's not like breaking the rules and going over time actually /means/ anything.
What if they bring weighted dice and win a tournament?
Then they'll probably get away with that too until the TOs start enforcing the rules.
So its probably just best to not use dice then, yeah?
LunarSol wrote:It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard. Not even a little bit. They're built to be flipped way faster than any wargame will make use of.
Warmachine went through all of these same arguments. Players even argued that it wouldn't work because Trolls have tough on everything. It's just not a problem in practice.
mugginns wrote:What if they don't game the clock system? Like, its not possible?
From what I've heard, people actually do game the clock.
And it's totally possible to do so. Even something as simple as not reminding someone to flip the clock and then rolling saves one at a time until they remember is gaming the clock. Heck, you could outright break the rules by going over time, and if the TOs don't enforce anything (which is essentially the status quo) then who cares? It's not like breaking the rules and going over time actually /means/ anything.
What if they bring weighted dice and win a tournament?
Then they'll probably get away with that too until the TOs start enforcing the rules.
So its probably just best to not use dice then, yeah?
If it wasn't mandatory for the core rules of the game to function, then yea, dice would be an unnecessary requirement that probably should be dispensed with.
Tell me if clocks are mandatory for the core rules of the game, would you please?
They could be =) If a tournament made it clear in the tournament rules!
Really though what you're seeing is, and this comes up on any DD thread where someone proposes a change to 40k: you could come up with edge cases for ten days to deny any kind of change.
Again, you really think enforcing 'slow play' restrictions, something that can't be measured at all, would be easier for 500+ people than using chess clocks? C'mon man.
The ETC introduced quite an effective way to punish slow playing. Essentially, people had to keep a time sheet that tracked how much time was spent on each phase, and everyone who went overtime was put on a watch list. If a person went overtime in multiple games, they would be punished (points deduction usually). Since the slow-playing TFG individuals were usually known anyway, it was a pretty effective deterrent.
Of course, if a significant percentage of the games at a tournament end prematurely, this indicates the time limit should be raised, or the points value lowered.
Ushtarador wrote: The ETC introduced quite an effective way to punish slow playing. Essentially, people had to keep a time sheet that tracked how much time was spent on each phase, and everyone who went overtime was put on a watch list. If a person went overtime in multiple games, they would be punished (points deduction usually). Since the slow-playing TFG individuals were usually known anyway, it was a pretty effective deterrent.
Of course, if a significant percentage of the games at a tournament end prematurely, this indicates the time limit should be raised, or the points value lowered.
So.... players kept a running tab of their time allocation during the game to ensure equitable usage? Sounds like it would be convenient to have some sort of device that did this for you...
I think that question depends on how bad of a problem slow play really is, which is something we don't have much data for.
Based on my experience at NOVA, watching for slow play on the tables around me (because I find watching armies and games in general very fun) as well as my own games, I would say it's fairly uncommon, and when it does happen, it's painfully obvious.
One would see things like someone rolling 5+ invuln saves for a terminator squad 1 at a time after suffering like 8 wounds from a Baneblade Cannon, or making sure their conscripts were exactly 2" apart in a game without templates.
The largest issue is opponents not having a problem with this (and I understand why) and not calling a judge, and the second largest issue is that apparently the TOs/judges don't care anyways.
If slowplaying is really such a huge issue that it has to be micromanaged at every table by the judges, then clocks are probably the best solution. But in my experience, it's not nearly that bad.
auticus wrote: Slow play is one reason why I think tournaments fail (that and the bad balance in the game).
I prefer leagues. Where you play a series of games over a certain time frame in days or weeks. That way slow play is never a factor.
People are just used to tournament events being what they are though to change that.
If we play our league game Thursday night at the local store I can still slowplay you. Not like your going to take pictures of the board when we run out of time and resume next week.
auticus wrote: Slow play is one reason why I think tournaments fail (that and the bad balance in the game).
I prefer leagues. Where you play a series of games over a certain time frame in days or weeks. That way slow play is never a factor.
People are just used to tournament events being what they are though to change that.
Leagues don't work for competitive ranked play, though.
They could try to make the tournament a 3-day tournament instead of a 2- day tournament to have plenty of time. Yeah it will cost them more money, but I think they could recoup expenses if they make the fee higher, like 5-10$. Thats 5k$ more if they need to rent the place one more day, etc... in a 500 player tournament like this.
LVO is already a 3 day tournament. And going over 2 days means you can't fit it inside a weekend and people need to take time off of work which is a big deal.
LunarSol wrote: It really doesn't. Flipping the clock is not hard.
Nobody said the physical act of doing so was hard. The issue is that 40k has more units, more models, more actions, more interrupt events, more exceptions, more rolling and dice, more range, more variance in army style and size, etc than games like Warmahordes, and that makes it much more prone to error, drama, gamesmanship and simply losing ones place, in addition to imposing an additonal cost for play/event organizing to tackle a problem that, while present, is limited in scale and has other alternatives that are less disruptive.
Clocks work in some games. I would have no issues with a clock in a game like Dropzone Commander for example where force sizes are generally very similar, games can be won without killing a single enemy model, boards are 4x4 may have no more than a dozen ground units in total between both sides, LoS is extremely limited and weapons ranges are restricted, you're almost never rolling double digits worth of dice, saves are rare and interrupts quick actions from a hand of card abilities, and models with more than 1 or 2 wounds are very uncommon even among things like heavy battletanks. For DzC, clocks can work just fine.
But in 40k? 40k is a comparative mess, built inherently around attritional battle, and clocks are just going to add to that mess
Ushtarador wrote: The ETC introduced quite an effective way to punish slow playing. Essentially, people had to keep a time sheet that tracked how much time was spent on each phase, and everyone who went overtime was put on a watch list. If a person went overtime in multiple games, they would be punished (points deduction usually). Since the slow-playing TFG individuals were usually known anyway, it was a pretty effective deterrent.
Of course, if a significant percentage of the games at a tournament end prematurely, this indicates the time limit should be raised, or the points value lowered.
So.... players kept a running tab of their time allocation during the game to ensure equitable usage? Sounds like it would be convenient to have some sort of device that did this for you...
No, it doesn't matter if one person uses much more time than the other, as long as all their games play out to the end. In the end, the TFG will always find a way to make the game unpleasant, chess clocks just add another angle.
If the time limit and point value match up well, most games conclude normally, and it's very easy to identify the people who slowplay on purpose - and it's always the TOs task to deal with them accordingly, clock or no.
But in 40k? 40k is a comparative mess, built inherently around attritional battle, and clocks are just going to add to that mess
40k is really comparatively simple. There's more of it, but in terms of what happens, enough is abstracted to where there really aren't as many individual moments of agency or really even as many things to track as Warmachine. I'd suggest if these are the kinds of problems being seen in the competitive scene, then its worth finding ways to improve the situation. Tokens to track activations for example are a good way to speed up getting through your turn without missing anything. Make them double sided and its pretty easy to "flip everything blue" to move and "flip everything red" to shoot.
If people really want 40k tournaments then there's a lot of work that needs to be done to manage simple logistics of a large game in a constrained time. Warmachine fought all these fights. Tracking game state was a thing for a while, time equity was a thing, measurement controversies had their time, but the community worked through them. Really, the important difference was at the end of the day, someone official from PP put out a document that says; hey, this is what worked, so its the way its going to be from now on. Chess Clocks started as an optional rule that became the default because once players started using them, they realized they worked and overall improved the experience. I suspect 40k would largely find the same, even if it might take a year or so to work out the bugs.
Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that question depends on how bad of a problem slow play really is, which is something we don't have much data for.
Based on my experience at NOVA, watching for slow play on the tables around me (because I find watching armies and games in general very fun) as well as my own games, I would say it's fairly uncommon, and when it does happen, it's painfully obvious.
One would see things like someone rolling 5+ invuln saves for a terminator squad 1 at a time after suffering like 8 wounds from a Baneblade Cannon, or making sure their conscripts were exactly 2" apart in a game without templates.
The largest issue is opponents not having a problem with this (and I understand why) and not calling a judge, and the second largest issue is that apparently the TOs/judges don't care anyways.
If slowplaying is really such a huge issue that it has to be micromanaged at every table by the judges, then clocks are probably the best solution. But in my experience, it's not nearly that bad.
We don't need data on slow playing. We know it occurs and that is enough to do something about it. Really - the majority of slow play is probably unintentional or subconscious bias - clocks would really help in this case because if you change the parameters to actually punish slow play ergo (you lose if you run out of time) - it forces you to play faster. It will make everyone play faster - maybe we will see turn 4 sometimes in a GD tournament. Maybe people will start learning their rules and the rules of other players armies if they know it's going to cost THEIR game time to suffer for having to look stuff up during the game.
I just don't see any reason to oppose the chess clock proposal unless you are:
- A slow player because it's hard for you to play fast (you need to get good)
- You play slow on purpose to give yourself an advantage (you won't be able to do this anymore with chess clocks) or subconsciously you do it (your subconscious bias will change when you are hurting yourself by slow playing).
- You trust in the good nature of human beings (you are a naive person.)
- You just don't want to be bothered with it (your laziness is interfering with progress - please step aside and redirect your efforts to something else)
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that question depends on how bad of a problem slow play really is, which is something we don't have much data for.
Based on my experience at NOVA, watching for slow play on the tables around me (because I find watching armies and games in general very fun) as well as my own games, I would say it's fairly uncommon, and when it does happen, it's painfully obvious.
One would see things like someone rolling 5+ invuln saves for a terminator squad 1 at a time after suffering like 8 wounds from a Baneblade Cannon, or making sure their conscripts were exactly 2" apart in a game without templates.
The largest issue is opponents not having a problem with this (and I understand why) and not calling a judge, and the second largest issue is that apparently the TOs/judges don't care anyways.
If slowplaying is really such a huge issue that it has to be micromanaged at every table by the judges, then clocks are probably the best solution. But in my experience, it's not nearly that bad.
We don't need data on slow playing. We know it occurs and that is enough to do something about it. Really - the majority of slow play is probably unintentional or subconscious bias - clocks would really help in this case because if you change the parameters to actually punish slow play ergo (you lose if you run out of time) - it forces you to play faster. It will make everyone play faster - maybe we will see turn 4 sometimes in a GD tournament. Maybe people will start learning their rules and the rules of other players armies if they know it's going to cost THEIR game time to suffer for having to look stuff up during the game.
I just don't see any reason to oppose the chess clock proposal unless you are:
- A slow player because it's hard for you to play fast (you need to get good)
- You play slow on purpose to give yourself an advantage (you won't be able to do this anymore with chess clocks) or subconsciously you do it (your subconscious bias will change when you are hurting yourself by slow playing).
- You trust in the good nature of human beings (you are a naive person.)
- You just don't want to be bothered with it (your laziness is interfering with progress - please step aside and redirect your efforts to something else)
How about:
- You have been to a major tournament (unlike yourself) and know the fatigue and exhaustion that can happen after three days of drinking and gaming and know that adding yet another burden to the shoulders of a regular player for no benefit is silly.
Galas wrote: Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?
Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...
Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that question depends on how bad of a problem slow play really is, which is something we don't have much data for.
Based on my experience at NOVA, watching for slow play on the tables around me (because I find watching armies and games in general very fun) as well as my own games, I would say it's fairly uncommon, and when it does happen, it's painfully obvious.
One would see things like someone rolling 5+ invuln saves for a terminator squad 1 at a time after suffering like 8 wounds from a Baneblade Cannon, or making sure their conscripts were exactly 2" apart in a game without templates.
The largest issue is opponents not having a problem with this (and I understand why) and not calling a judge, and the second largest issue is that apparently the TOs/judges don't care anyways.
If slowplaying is really such a huge issue that it has to be micromanaged at every table by the judges, then clocks are probably the best solution. But in my experience, it's not nearly that bad.
We don't need data on slow playing. We know it occurs and that is enough to do something about it. Really - the majority of slow play is probably unintentional or subconscious bias - clocks would really help in this case because if you change the parameters to actually punish slow play ergo (you lose if you run out of time) - it forces you to play faster. It will make everyone play faster - maybe we will see turn 4 sometimes in a GD tournament. Maybe people will start learning their rules and the rules of other players armies if they know it's going to cost THEIR game time to suffer for having to look stuff up during the game.
I just don't see any reason to oppose the chess clock proposal unless you are:
- A slow player because it's hard for you to play fast (you need to get good)
- You play slow on purpose to give yourself an advantage (you won't be able to do this anymore with chess clocks) or subconsciously you do it (your subconscious bias will change when you are hurting yourself by slow playing).
- You trust in the good nature of human beings (you are a naive person.)
- You just don't want to be bothered with it (your laziness is interfering with progress - please step aside and redirect your efforts to something else)
How about:
- You have been to a major tournament (unlike yourself) and know the fatigue and exhaustion that can happen after three days of drinking and gaming and know that adding yet another burden to the shoulders of a regular player for no benefit is silly.
That is also an irrelevant stance. You wont be able to push a button a few times a game because you are too drunk? or hung over? Holy crap man. Tell me you have something else.
Galas wrote: Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?
Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...
Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.
There's a difference between "OP" and "top 5 OP in the game" though.
That is also an irrelevant stance. You wont be able to push a button a few times a game because you are too drunk? or hung over? Holy crap man. Tell me you have something else.
Galas wrote: Guys, theres the Tournament Discussion if you want to discuss about clocks, do we really need two threads to discuss the same thing? Can we leave this thread to discuss the lists, the combinations, the changes in the meta, etc...?
Sure -
How about those 9 man Shining Spears units I was warning about...
Apparently only 1% of Dakka thinks SS are OP but they are the corner stone of the winning eldar list. I wonder if their opinion will change.
There's a difference between "OP" and "top 5 OP in the game" though.
If we play our league game Thursday night at the local store I can still slowplay you. Not like your going to take pictures of the board when we run out of time and resume next week.
Ran leagues for years. Never experienced this ever. And that was with notorious slow players. If you were going to play slow players you didn't go iinto the store before it was going to close, you would go well early into the day.
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