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Codexes are much more impactful than you're inferring.

MVBrandt wrote:
Codexes are much more impactful than you're inferring.

Discounting any balance changes related to points adjustments and unit options being added for balance reasons.
All a codex adds are a single relic, a different warlord trait, a small chapter tactic buff, a unique stratagem (and new psychic powers). Using the Space marine codex as the ONLY example units that were good are still good and units that were bad are still bad... nothing really changed.... Except for rebalancing with point adjustments on certain choices like power fists going down 8 pts, which should be happening constantly according to the devs. Psychic powers are honestly the most drastic changes as they can completely change an army, given that the initial psychic power selection was limited.

 Vector Strike wrote:
My app shows the following selections at start:

Events
Ticket Sales
Account Details
Payment Account
Support
Logout

clicking on 'Events', goes to a screen letting me serach for one or add a New Event. There isn't any 'Recent Events' button or tab.

I'm not sure how to help you at this point. My AP is up to date. I have an android, maybe that is the difference.

gungo wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Codexes are much more impactful than you're inferring.

Discounting any balance changes related to points adjustments and unit options being added for balance reasons.
All a codex adds are a single relic, a different warlord trait, a small chapter tactic buff, a unique stratagem (and new psychic powers). Using the Space marine codex as the ONLY example units that were good are still good and units that were bad are still bad... nothing really changed.... Except for rebalancing with point adjustments on certain choices like power fists going down 8 pts, which should be happening constantly according to the devs. Psychic powers are honestly the most drastic changes as they can completely change an army, given that the initial psychic power selection was limited.

SM troops gained obsec. That is huge and something that will come to a lot of codexes if hints from FLG and others are to be believed. That alone will adjust the meta a good deal from devestators all day every day to at least a choice to be made.

There's 16 SM non-chapter specific strategems + 1(x7) that are chapter specific. So lot more than 1.

Lots of units got better because of the new combinations of rules tweaks, strategems and chapter tactics. Vanguard with hit and run. Sternguard with bolter drill or +1 to wound. etc etc.

Chapter Approved is coming at the end of the year also. Will shake things up just like General Handbook did for AoS more than likely.

Already several meta changing errata and rules re-writes, suspect more will continue to come.

So yeah its one event, 6 weeks after edition launch. Meta will adjust and rules releases are gonna be part of that, as well as changes to what people are bringing.

 Vector Strike wrote:
My app shows the following selections at start:

Events
Ticket Sales
Account Details
Payment Account
Support
Logout

clicking on 'Events', goes to a screen letting me serach for one or add a New Event. There isn't any 'Recent Events' button or tab.

There are TWO BCP applications, you need to download the player app as I think you downloaded the one for event organizers (e.g., the wrong one).

 mortetvie wrote:

There are TWO BCP applications, you need to download the player app as I think you downloaded the one for event organizers (e.g., the wrong one).

Damn, lol. Thanks for the heads up

gungo wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Again - this was an index only tourney. So I assume items will change as the new codex creep sets in.

Um codexs aren't coming out for a while AND codexs aren't drastically changing armies. a single relic, a different warlord trait, a small chapter tactic buff, and a unique stratagem isn't going to radically change what is overpowered or underpowered in the game (in fact you will only see people choose which tactics/strategems makes the best most efficient units BETTER). Furthermore you are talking at least 2 years worth of releases.

People within the first 3-4weeks were able to accurately predict (both mathematically and in playtested battlereports) which units were already overpowered. Conscript spam and plasmagun/pistol spam is predominantly in half the top 10 lists and in both undefeated lists. That is a HUGE outlier that needs to be addressed. There are other units that are slightly undercosted (FW basilisk carriages, guilliman, tau commanders, brimstone horrors, etc) and I wouldnt mind seeing those units playtested a little longer but nothing that was as drastic and clearly an issue as the above two units. if you want to see real balance without 1 army type taking over half the top 10 rankings we need to see those items adjusted sooner then later.

Have you seen the new chaos ones that came out today? CSM that are Slaanesh marked/legion will always strike first in combat, a new psyker power that gives Slaanesh Troops a 5+ FNP on all wounds (mortal included) and a new stratgem that for 2CP allows a slaanesh unit to fire AGAIN.

Those are drastically changing anything at all...

"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

I continue to think major tournaments should play using chess clocks. Having a significant fraction of games end early is IMO basically unacceptable from a competitive standpoint, and has been a thorn in the side of the 40k scene for a long time.

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

What do you guys mean by "not planning properly for their dice"? I don't follow...

RiTides wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

What do you guys mean by "not planning properly for their dice"? I don't follow...

I'm 99% certain he means that people weren't using all the tricks to playing super fast, like having their dice organized into lots of a specific amount to make rolling quicker and easier.

Kingsley wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

I continue to think major tournaments should play using chess clocks. Having a significant fraction of games end early is IMO basically unacceptable from a competitive standpoint, and has been a thorn in the side of the 40k scene for a long time.

And chess clocks will only ever make a real difference if most people not finishing their games are intentionally slow-playing, which is absolutely not the case. So you introduce chess clocks to punish the rare intentional slow-player and you instead end up making the event completely miserable for the people who are genuinely trying to finish on time but can't because the games aren't given the proper time for their point value, which eventually just drives more people out of attending tournaments and/or pushes them towards playing small model count armies (which reduces the diversity of armies people will face, which is a bad thing).

As always for 40k, the right way to handle this is to lower point values/raise round time limits and to track players that don't finish games over multiple events to really target the true slow-players while getting the point level/round times 'right' for the majority.

Without knowing any firsthand details, if a lot of people weren't finishing their games, then it sounds like the point level, especially for the first event featuring entirely new rules, was too high. Eventually events can probably handle that amount of points in that amount of time, but for now you still have a LOT of people that are still probably really learning the new game, and that should have been taken into consideration.

 RiTides wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

What do you guys mean by "not planning properly for their dice"? I don't follow...

Planning for having to roll large chunks of dice for a single unit, putting them in sets ahead of time to not have to waste time counting out dice. Like myself, I dont have 80+ conscripts but I do run 30+ so I have 120 dice, bagged in 20s so that i can get going faster and then when the opponent starts moving I can rebag them so they are ready for my next phase. We all should be doing something like this, it helps out alot in making things go faster.

My games averaged 1.5-hours only out of 2.5 time limit.

8th is definitely faster to play than 7th, but you still need to practice. It's just that a lot of players still aren't very familiar with 8th rules and their armies yet.

any chance we can get all the lists, as i see only the top lists playing all the same, decent necron list would be fun to use a start for improvement!

All the lists are on BestCoastPairings.com and its free to use/see. You should download it onto your phone.

anyone know where the results are?

jy2, how important would you say first turn alpha strikes are and does it need balance?

I know a lot of people are concerned about it and so far the T8 lists seem to be built around that alpha strike, so I'm wondering if we need more to balance it out. Strategems do seem like they could be easily added to make T1 go a lot more fairly, either by making night fight a more universally available strategm and/or (preferabbly and) allowing for alternating activation of a single unit. Something like:

2CP, counter shooting offensive

This Strategem is used in the first battle round right after an enemy unit has
made a shooting attack. Select one of your own units that has not yet made a
shooting attack this battle around and make a shooting attack with it next. The
unit cannot make a shooting attack again in this battle round.

That way you get alternating activation for a single unit before it dies and balance out the power of alpha strike. But you dont get to shoot twice or do any other shanangins with that unit.

 yakface wrote:

Kingsley wrote:I continue to think major tournaments should play using chess clocks. Having a significant fraction of games end early is IMO basically unacceptable from a competitive standpoint, and has been a thorn in the side of the 40k scene for a long time.

And chess clocks will only ever make a real difference if most people not finishing their games are intentionally slow-playing, which is absolutely not the case. So you introduce chess clocks to punish the rare intentional slow-player and you instead end up making the event completely miserable for the people who are genuinely trying to finish on time but can't because the games aren't given the proper time for their point value, which eventually just drives more people out of attending tournaments and/or pushes them towards playing small model count armies (which reduces the diversity of armies people will face, which is a bad thing).

As always for 40k, the right way to handle this is to lower point values/raise round time limits and to track players that don't finish games over multiple events to really target the true slow-players while getting the point level/round times 'right' for the majority.

Without knowing any firsthand details, if a lot of people weren't finishing their games, then it sounds like the point level, especially for the first event featuring entirely new rules, was too high. Eventually events can probably handle that amount of points in that amount of time, but for now you still have a LOT of people that are still probably really learning the new game, and that should have been taken into consideration.

Oh, I'm not just interested in punishing intentional slow play. I don't care if it's intentional or not - if you can't play your army in the time allotted, you shouldn't be taking that army to a tournament.

Now, I do also think time limits and points values should be appropriately calibrated. But once that's taken care of, I'm still in favor of chess clocks at competitive events in order to get people playing the game at a proper speed.

Wow, another awesome BAO on the books! Thanks to everyone that came, we had a great time. Loved seeing all our old friends and making new ones! 8th is stupid easy to T.O., lol, hardly any rules questions and most of it was just clarifications, not actual rules conundrums.

Post event write-up here: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/07/31/bay-area-open-2017-top-8-players-factions-and-awards/

Big shout out to Brandon Grant who won it again this year!



@Thread

The vast majority of games finished early or on time. Only a few games each round went long and that was almost entirely due to players, not the game or lists.

Codexes have a MASSIVE impact on the game, lol. Trust me on this. Things are going to get very interesting, very fast. I can't wait until the meta catches up to them a bit, the game will be so much more fun, and it is already a huge hit.

Fair enough! Just the fact that we've gotten, what, 2 faqs in a couple of weeks tweaking and updating things is pretty awesome.

The fact that we're *only* quibbling about conscripts, potential flyer spam (but even thats way better with the FAQ, and would probably be totally solved if they couldnt block wounds for chars) and brims is a big deal.

So thank you Reecius for all your work in helping balance this edition! Now that that's out of the way.. LISTEN TO ALL MY STUFF NOW PLEASE. I MUST BE HEARD.

 Reecius wrote:


@Thread

The vast majority of games finished early or on time. Only a few games each round went long and that was almost entirely due to players, not the game or lists.

I disagree. I had 2 games that ended in 3 rounds and others on my team had games end on 3 as well. My one loss was to Paul McKelvey (who came 4th) and we were right in the middle of a slobber knocker when we timed out after round 3, and I was off all of the objectives. My other game that ended early was against Andrew Ford who is leading the overall ITC standings, so the games were quite critical.

Most of the time a lot of people are playing alpha strike or beta strike lists and they were tabling, or being tabled in about an hour and a half and had plenty of time. I know I did in the 3 games that I tabled my opponent. The problem is that my army is very resilient, and does not go gently into the night. So there are a ton of dice rolls and a lot of back and forth and the game ends up going long. Paul had a ton of shooting with a million drones and commanders and a lot of moving. Andrew had a smallish harlequin army that had a lot of shadow specters that shot like crazy and with Strength from Death had a lot of extra shooting rounds. For the most part my army is small, but I operate heavily in the psychic, shooting and assault phases.

I do not feel like we played slow, but certain armies take a while to play if they do not get crushed. I heard that orks and some other games went long as well.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
"What is worrisome is that folks are not planning properly for their dice and not making it through at least 3 full turns a player."

The new slow play army. :(

I continue to think major tournaments should play using chess clocks. Having a significant fraction of games end early is IMO basically unacceptable from a competitive standpoint, and has been a thorn in the side of the 40k scene for a long time.

But how many of the players have a real issue with it? If they want to play tournaments that average turn 3 games and are happy then leave it be. If most are angry then something should be done within reason but honestly attendance doesn't seem to suffer from it, and it's an added expense to organizers to buy and maintain clocks and I am not sure it wouldn't slow the game down with arguments anyway. I mean, the only real problem with games not finishing naturally in a times event is the results, nobody takes a tournament win as seriously when it finished 5 3 round games as a tournament that had most of it's games conclude naturally for the top tables. Maybe a better solution is to start every one with a set number of points as a final modifier to scores but that one bonus pool is docked X amount for each turn the game fell short of whatever mark you want to meet. That way people can see how well a player does, but that they may not have progressed in the later rounds due to games not finishing.

Some would say this punishes horde armies but honestly I would suggest that if a player knows how to prepare for a large army and is practiced with it they can easily finish and those are the players that deserve to play said armies rather then meta jumpers chasing whats strongest on paper. It's difficult to juggle but as I started off saying, it's only really a problem if attendees are unhappy, if as an outsider you are annoyed with tournament results from short games I'd suggest not bothering with tracking them to begin with, tabletop gaming wins are not very important in the grand scheme of things after all.

Any who, my two cents.

Largo39 wrote:
jy2, how important would you say first turn alpha strikes are and does it need balance?

I know a lot of people are concerned about it and so far the T8 lists seem to be built around that alpha strike, so I'm wondering if we need more to balance it out. Strategems do seem like they could be easily added to make T1 go a lot more fairly, either by making night fight a more universally available strategm and/or (preferabbly and) allowing for alternating activation of a single unit. Something like:

2CP, counter shooting offensive

This Strategem is used in the first battle round right after an enemy unit has
made a shooting attack. Select one of your own units that has not yet made a
shooting attack this battle around and make a shooting attack with it next. The
unit cannot make a shooting attack again in this battle round.

That way you get alternating activation for a single unit before it dies and balance out the power of alpha strike. But you dont get to shoot twice or do any other shanangins with that unit.

This edition is very alpha-strikey.

However, the best lists are not only the alpha-strike lists, but they can beta-strike as well.

5 of the 6 opponents I played against brought alpha-strike armies. 3 of them were hardcore alpha- and beta-strike armies. I myself brought an alpha-strike army. Unfortunately for me, in 5 out of 6 games, I wend 2nd.

You make some good suggestions. However, every time FLG comes out with a house-rule, they get a lot of blowback. (Take, for instance, the +1 to 1st-turn roll.) So they don't do anything about it and people complain about the meta. They make a change to make the meta more balanced and then people complain about them. Lol. Wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

It is what it is. So far, this edition has been very 1st Turn alpha-strike oriented in the competitive scene. That appears to be the norm. If your army does not have the capability for an alpha-strike, then you better make sure it is especially resilient, because you will be playing with a handicap. On the other hand, if your army has the flexibility to do an alpha-strike or beta-strike, then you've got a top-tier tournament army.

cant see the list. I know BOA is a sponsored event on BCA, but you still have to pay in order to search past events. Again I am on an Iphone, is there a way to pull it up?

Also I have a question. Since this person made top 8 I'm going to make an assumption his list was checked over again and verified. But the top Ynarri player did not pay for the spirit stones on his hemlock, is there a reason for this? I thought it was covered in the space marine company champion FAQ.

Chancetragedy wrote:
Also I have a question. Since this person made top 8 I'm going to make an assumption his list was checked over again and verified. But the top Ynarri player did not pay for the spirit stones on his hemlock, is there a reason for this? I thought it was covered in the space marine company champion FAQ.

Probably because it isn't listed as a wargear. Rather, it is an ability for the Hemlock unless the FAQ says otherwise (and I don't see it changed in the FAQ).

 jy2 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
Also I have a question. Since this person made top 8 I'm going to make an assumption his list was checked over again and verified. But the top Ynarri player did not pay for the spirit stones on his hemlock, is there a reason for this? I thought it was covered in the space marine company champion FAQ.

Probably because it isn't listed as a wargear. Rather, it is an ability for the Hemlock unless the FAQ says otherwise (and I don't see it changed in the FAQ).

That's kind of what I was trying to figure out. In the index imperium 1 FAQ it says the company champion has to pay for his combat shield even though its listed under the abilities section. Then GW refers to all "other wargear" needing to be paid for the ability has a points cost in the wargear section. Since Reece prides himself in being a play tester and this is the first real major event I was curious to find out if I'm reading that wrong or what the actual deal is. Thanks for the response though Jim!

No prob.

Yeah, the Imperium FAQ shows the intent of GW. However, until it is also applied to the FAQ of the Xenos army, RAW-wise, the Hemlocks get a freebie.

It's also a brand new edition and even the FAQ's are not all complete. Last season (and throughout the tournament history), ITC and third-party TO's have had to supplement GW FAQ's with their own for more completeness. Well, we haven't quite gotten there yet. We need to fix the mistakes that GW's corrections didn't fix. Give it some time and I am sure we will.

One more thing, this is a gray area of list-building that I think most TO's will forgive. When I'm building an army, it is my responsibility to check the relevant books and FAQ's. Outside of that, do I need to check other irrelevant documentation? For example, if I am building an Eldar army, yeah, I need to check the Eldar codex, the Eldar FAQ's and probably the BRB FAQ as well. But do I really have to check the Tyranid/Ork/SM/Astra Militarum/etc. FAQ's as well? Do I need to check Forgeworld FAQ's as well to see if my army is truly legal? I think most TO's would forgive the player if they didn't because it just isn't reasonable to expect the player to know everything about everything else just to build their army. They just need to know everything about their own army.

Fair enough, was just curious because Reece and co have a lot more info into all this than we do. Your explanation makes sense though.

Thing is the house rule came out right when 8th edition was first started to be played publicly. Why wasn't it caught by GW's playtesters? It's too early to make a change that has such a huge impact.