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 greyknight12 wrote:
I actually think that the way to do in a tournament this isn't more randomness within the mission, but rather more variety of missions. Right now every single mission is ITC primary+secondaries, with the only variable being where the objectives are placed. Changing the points each objective is worth, having a mission with a lot, one with a few, having a kill points mission, bringing back the Relic (but in a sensible way), or even having one with only end game scoring are all ways to make each game feel different.

I like the sound of this, not only for new missions (the missions are pretty much the same for many months now, with subtle changes) but I think it brings us back to the problems ITC players complained about a couple years ago; some missions were inherently imbalanced, like Relic (which you do point out needs to be made sensible, if it were brought back) and well,
...
the following sounds lame coming out of my mouth (typing), but too many varied missions made it harder to keep your tactical goals in mind from one round to the next, especially in 5 to 6 round GTs. To restate, and summarize the ITC's response over the years, we (organizers, players, TOs, etc.) voted to streamline them, but trying to keep a tiny bit of variety.

And I think that's the crux, the very thin crossing of the two intents:
a. enough variety to keep from being bored game after game
and
b. similarity/familiarity in missions so one doesn't need to drastically alter what you're going to do from one round to the next.

I don't think there's a lot of room to nail it, and I would agree that while it *is* acceptable to most players, but it might not be possible to appease the minority (a large percentage, but less than the majority)

For me, an average to low tier player, I recall in 6e getting confused about what I needed to get done toward turn 4, heading into 5 or 6, and losing games because I moved models to win the previous game's mission. With 8e ITC missions being pretty much the same with slightly different garnish (usually the bonus points) I'm able to focus on making my complicated army (space elves of either type or chaos soup) and simply trying to make it work. While I would readily welcome quite varied missions, I dunno as I'd be able to 'shift gears' from one game to the next. It's enough for me to have just played against Ad Mech, and now must face Imperial soup and then round off against Space Wolves or orks.

I might think my skill level represents the average tourney attendee, and possibly be representative of the rest (Sherlock Holmes inductive reasoning, eh? ) and thus accepting of missions that don't vary too much, only in different numbers of objective markers & bonus points. But the game itself, with a score or so of different kinds of opponent match ups providing that variety.

Then again, maybe that thinking is the low-tier, baby-seal mentality that makes me a sucky player.

What kind of variety would you add in though?

Sure you could add stuff in like "raze'ing" objectives, or only characters could score (like the data carriers).

I don't dislike those personally, but you also have to remember that the missions you get have to be equal points-wise to the others.


Something like being able to burn objectives would make your total primary score unable to match up to another mission that could let you score the whole game for example, making that round of the tourney worth less.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
What kind of variety would you add in though?

Sure you could add stuff in like "raze'ing" objectives, or only characters could score (like the data carriers).

I don't dislike those personally, but you also have to remember that the missions you get have to be equal points-wise to the others.


Something like being able to burn objectives would make your total primary score unable to match up to another mission that could let you score the whole game for example, making that round of the tourney worth less.

I don't think it's at all necessary to resort to burning objectives or straight-up maelstrom to add variety. Having varied points for each objective is one way; in past editions there have been missions like this (the scouring in 6th/7th). You just need to shift how you earn points in each mission, with the max remaining the same. Some example ideas:
1. Place 4 objectives, 1 in each corner. 2 of them (diagonal to each other) are worth 1 point, the others are 2 points with a 5th objective in the middle worth 3 points. You get a number of points each turn equal to the sum of objectives you hold, up to 5 max.
2. 2 objectives each worth 2 points outside of either player's deployment zone. You get the total points from objectives you hold each turn, plus one for "kill one" and one for "kill more".
3. 1 objective in the middle, worth 3 points per turn plus 2 others elsewhere worth 1 per turn. If you hold the center objective at the end of the game you get 10 points.
4. Kill points, you get points based on the percentage of your opponent's army (in points) you kill by the end of the game. 90% gives you full points.
5. The current ITC Champions scoring.
6. 4 objectives, each worth 2 points. Points per turn=sum of objectives (max 5).

Regardless of primary mission, you would still have your secondaries for a measure of consistency (in the current ITC ratio they are 1/3 of max points) and you'd still have to option of going for the table if sudden death is still a thing. These are just some basic ideas that "tournament-ify" previous GW mission concepts, I am sure that someone with more time and experience could make better ones.

Can someone help me understand the most recent Champions update?

Here's my situation:
I take Headhunter and Butcher's Bill. In my turn I kill an enemy character and an enemy Troops unit. Do I get a point for both those secondaries? Or do Butcher's Bill and Headhunter not stack anymore?

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
Can someone help me understand the most recent Champions update?

Here's my situation:
I take Headhunter and Butcher's Bill. In my turn I kill an enemy character and an enemy Troops unit. Do I get a point for both those secondaries? Or do Butcher's Bill and Headhunter not stack anymore?

Based on neither of them having asterisks, I read it as you can’t stack them.

Not sure why its like that, those two should stack.

The only ones that shouldn't stack are the "kill This target" missions, such as MFD, kingslayer, Headhunter, and Big game hunter.

Reaper, Butcher's Bill, and Gang Busters should all be stackable. I might have missed a change with this, but these 3 aren't picking any target in particular.





UPDATE: Ahh yeah my mistake, looks like I missed a change they just made. Butcher's bill is no longer stackable (because it was too easy to accrue points quickly if you got it and big game hunter together). They did add two new secondaries in Engineers and Pick your poison, though I don't like either one. Engineers is too easy to abuse with armies that have cheap 5-10 man troop units in my opinion. Pick your poison is far too niche and since its not stackable will almost never get used. Kingslayer can now max out on Dawneagle warlords as well. Note that while Gang busters doesn't say its stackable it actually is. You just gain a point for every 6 wounds dealt to a multi-wound unit, not for killing the unit, so you still get the points even if you end up killing the unit and getting points from something else.

 Eihnlazer wrote:


...the missions you get have to be equal points-wise to the others.

Something like being able to burn objectives would make your total primary score unable to match up to another mission that could let you score the whole game for example, making that round of the tourney worth less.

This is just one more of many issues with ITC and Nova missions. There is no 'win condition'. While you could consider scoring more points than your opponent as winning the game, the fact remains that this does nothing for you. Winning the game doesn't actually mean anything.

I think many of the ITC deployment zones are too small for some armies. I would suggest a minimum of 400 sq/in per deployment zone which is still over 100 sq/in smaller than the standard BRB deployment zones.

Wagguy80 wrote:
I think many of the ITC deployment zones are too small for some armies. I would suggest a minimum of 400 sq/in per deployment zone which is still over 100 sq/in smaller than the standard BRB deployment zones.

Uh.... don't ITC deployment zones mirror BRB standard deployment zones?

 Horst wrote:

Wagguy80 wrote:
I think many of the ITC deployment zones are too small for some armies. I would suggest a minimum of 400 sq/in per deployment zone which is still over 100 sq/in smaller than the standard BRB deployment zones.

Uh.... don't ITC deployment zones mirror BRB standard deployment zones?

Yeah... The ITC missions use the BRB deployments. So...

 oni wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:


...the missions you get have to be equal points-wise to the others.

Something like being able to burn objectives would make your total primary score unable to match up to another mission that could let you score the whole game for example, making that round of the tourney worth less.

This is just one more of many issues with ITC and Nova missions. There is no 'win condition'. While you could consider scoring more points than your opponent as winning the game, the fact remains that this does nothing for you. Winning the game doesn't actually mean anything.

Sounds like you just want a Narrative game more than a competitive tournament. They do have those, though admittedly less of those. GW used to do those big campaign events where depending on which side won (chaos, imperium, xenos) the storyline could progress a certain direction. They are great fun, but don't really have anything to do with balancing meta's vs mission packets.

 Eihnlazer wrote:

 oni wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:


...the missions you get have to be equal points-wise to the others.

Something like being able to burn objectives would make your total primary score unable to match up to another mission that could let you score the whole game for example, making that round of the tourney worth less.

This is just one more of many issues with ITC and Nova missions. There is no 'win condition'. While you could consider scoring more points than your opponent as winning the game, the fact remains that this does nothing for you. Winning the game doesn't actually mean anything.

Sounds like you just want a Narrative game more than a competitive tournament. They do have those, though admittedly less of those. GW used to do those big campaign events where depending on which side won (chaos, imperium, xenos) the storyline could progress a certain direction. They are great fun, but don't really have anything to do with balancing meta's vs mission packets.

No, actually your just trying to put words in his mouth.

What kind of "Win condition" are you asking for then?

Do you want something similar to kill team where you just have to run your guys off the board to win?

Mabey you want something like a Defend the crystal scenario, where whoever can smash the crystal first is the winner (pick one character to wield a relic hammer. That character must destroy the crystal. If he dies another character can pick it up)?

These are all fun missions that I myself would like to play, but I cant see how you could easily balance them out (battle point-wise) with other missions.

Even the BRB missions (except for the relic to an extent) come down to “have more points than your opponent”. Objectives are worth points, some other stuff is worth points, and you add up the points from what you hold at the end of the game (or throughout the game in maelstrom missions) and whoever has the most wins. I’m a huge critic of the current ITC missions, but I don’t really see that concept as the issue; rather most of the critiques here and elsewhere from players focus on how those points are accrued.

I'm not entirely sure how best to word a post that perfectly conveys the issue(s), but I'll try again.

Competition for; well, everything I can think of is based on a win / loss percentage and the victory condition is defined.

In ITC and Nova missions there is no defined game victory condition, when the game concludes, there is no determining a victor in any meaningful way; there's no award for winning the game.

Throughout ITC and Nova tournaments, the players each simply run through a set of game rounds accruing 'tournament points' to add to their pool.

At the end of the tournament the player who filled their pool the most wins the tournament.

Because the mission and 'tournament point' collecting mechanics never change and terrain remains largely unchanged as well, a player...
1. Effectively is just playing a single very long game of W40K.
2. Never needs to dramatically change their strategy.
3. Never needs to dramatically alter their deployment.

In competition, besting your opponent(s) is what determines victory, but in ITC and Nova a player just needs to amass tournament points and end the event with the most tournament points, not necessarily best their opponent(s).

Oni, I still don't understand though. You say:

Competition for; well, everything I can think of is based on a win / loss percentage and the victory condition is defined.

In ITC and Nova missions there is no defined game victory condition, when the game concludes, there is no determining a victor in any meaningful way; there's no award for winning the game.

Throughout ITC and Nova tournaments, the players each simply run through a set of game rounds accruing 'tournament points' to add to their pool.

At the end of the tournament the player who filled their pool the most wins the tournament.

I mean... We can use a sport like Football as an example of a competition. It has no "win condition". You score points in each quarter, and the person who has the most points added to their pool through the end of all four quarters wins the game.

As far as winning the actual tournament, to the best of my knowledge your win/loss rate is what matters the most, and after that there are some tiebreakers. But if you have a 3-0 record, with 60 total tournament points, and another guy has a 2-1 record and 61 total tournament points, you still win. The win/loss rate matters more.

Usually (at least from what I’ve seen) a win confers 1000 points in addition to the battle points accrued during a mission. So winning 2 games nets you 2000+battle points, the undefeated winner of a 6-round tourney has 6000+some number, etc. so that wins ultimately matter the most.
To Oni’s other points though, deployment changes as much as the BRB missions but the “decathlon” style nature of ITC missions does limit the variety from game to game, you can see some of my previous posts on the matter.

 Horst wrote:
Oni, I still don't understand though. You say:

Competition for; well, everything I can think of is based on a win / loss percentage and the victory condition is defined.

In ITC and Nova missions there is no defined game victory condition, when the game concludes, there is no determining a victor in any meaningful way; there's no award for winning the game.

Throughout ITC and Nova tournaments, the players each simply run through a set of game rounds accruing 'tournament points' to add to their pool.

At the end of the tournament the player who filled their pool the most wins the tournament.

I mean... We can use a sport like Football as an example of a competition. It has no "win condition". You score points in each quarter, and the person who has the most points added to their pool through the end of all four quarters wins the game.

As far as winning the actual tournament, to the best of my knowledge your win/loss rate is what matters the most, and after that there are some tiebreakers. But if you have a 3-0 record, with 60 total tournament points, and another guy has a 2-1 record and 61 total tournament points, you still win. The win/loss rate matters more.

Horst, I don't blame you, I'm failing miserably at explaining my point.

The thing is, if you don't like earning victory points, you don't like competitive gaming. That's literally how every professional/competitive sport is determined.

As I said earlier, you seem to want some sort of story driven big bang gameplay, which 40k wont provide for you.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The thing is, if you don't like earning victory points, you don't like competitive gaming. That's literally how every professional/competitive sport is determined.

As I said earlier, you seem to want some sort of story driven big bang gameplay, which 40k wont provide for you.

Good thing 40k isn't a professional sport then, so shouldn't necessarily follow the same rules.

I think he's saying the issue many of us have with the ITC style missions. There are only two things you need to do: Kill enemy units and control objectives. Nothing else. So as long as you min/max a list to do both of those things, you have a "good" list for ITC missions.

 oni wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how best to word a post that perfectly conveys the issue(s), but I'll try again.

Competition for; well, everything I can think of is based on a win / loss percentage and the victory condition is defined.

In ITC and Nova missions there is no defined game victory condition, when the game concludes, there is no determining a victor in any meaningful way; there's no award for winning the game.

Throughout ITC and Nova tournaments, the players each simply run through a set of game rounds accruing 'tournament points' to add to their pool.

At the end of the tournament the player who filled their pool the most wins the tournament.

Because the mission and 'tournament point' collecting mechanics never change and terrain remains largely unchanged as well, a player...
1. Effectively is just playing a single very long game of W40K.
2. Never needs to dramatically change their strategy.
3. Never needs to dramatically alter their deployment.

In competition, besting your opponent(s) is what determines victory, but in ITC and Nova a player just needs to amass tournament points and end the event with the most tournament points, not necessarily best their opponent(s).

Sorry Oni this just isn't true. What you're confusing are missions and tournament format. In a tournament that is Swiss it is the W/L record that matters first, points second. You win a game by having accrued more points at the end than your opponent. Just like a game of football, soccer, basketball, baseball etc. You are then awarded points based upon your win, which seeds you into the tournament ladder appropriately. If you're playing in a tournament that is based on Battle Points then it works the way you're describing, where winning or losing the game is secondary to accruing the largest number of points per round possible. Your points 1-3 apply to a Battle Point tournament, but not a Swiss tournament like NOVA, LVO, So Cal Open, BAO, or the vast majority of 40k tournaments. There just isn't any way that what your arguing is true from the context of it being the missions fault, it is the tournament format you have an issue with, and specifically Battle Points format.

Wayniac wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The thing is, if you don't like earning victory points, you don't like competitive gaming. That's literally how every professional/competitive sport is determined.

As I said earlier, you seem to want some sort of story driven big bang gameplay, which 40k wont provide for you.

Good thing 40k isn't a professional sport then, so shouldn't necessarily follow the same rules.

I think he's saying the issue many of us have with the ITC style missions. There are only two things you need to do: Kill enemy units and control objectives. Nothing else. So as long as you min/max a list to do both of those things, you have a "good" list for ITC missions.

What other serious victory conditions are there?

OverwatchCNC wrote:

 oni wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how best to word a post that perfectly conveys the issue(s), but I'll try again.

Competition for; well, everything I can think of is based on a win / loss percentage and the victory condition is defined.

In ITC and Nova missions there is no defined game victory condition, when the game concludes, there is no determining a victor in any meaningful way; there's no award for winning the game.

Throughout ITC and Nova tournaments, the players each simply run through a set of game rounds accruing 'tournament points' to add to their pool.

At the end of the tournament the player who filled their pool the most wins the tournament.

Because the mission and 'tournament point' collecting mechanics never change and terrain remains largely unchanged as well, a player...
1. Effectively is just playing a single very long game of W40K.
2. Never needs to dramatically change their strategy.
3. Never needs to dramatically alter their deployment.

In competition, besting your opponent(s) is what determines victory, but in ITC and Nova a player just needs to amass tournament points and end the event with the most tournament points, not necessarily best their opponent(s).

Sorry Oni this just isn't true. What you're confusing are missions and tournament format. In a tournament that is Swiss it is the W/L record that matters first, points second. You win a game by having accrued more points at the end than your opponent. Just like a game of football, soccer, basketball, baseball etc. You are then awarded points based upon your win, which seeds you into the tournament ladder appropriately. If you're playing in a tournament that is based on Battle Points then it works the way you're describing, where winning or losing the game is secondary to accruing the largest number of points per round possible. Your points 1-3 apply to a Battle Point tournament, but not a Swiss tournament like NOVA, LVO, So Cal Open, BAO, or the vast majority of 40k tournaments. There just isn't any way that what your arguing is true from the context of it being the missions fault, it is the tournament format you have an issue with, and specifically Battle Points format.

Thank you greatly for the clarification. I felt like there was definitely a disconnect somewhere for me that was inhibiting me being clear. I see now that I was on a different page because my local TO's have been running "Battle Point" tournaments using Nova missions. I was under the impression that that's just the way it was. My mistake.

Even though I was muddling mission and tournament format together, I'm still firm in my belief that ITC and Nova missions foster a very specific style of play and reward very specific types of armies. Instead of the mission(s) forcing the hand of the player(s) to change their army composition in order to accomplish finite victory conditions that change round to round, an optimization algorithm has been introduced where the army composition is tailored to the victory conditions that are ever present for all games.

Wayniac wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The thing is, if you don't like earning victory points, you don't like competitive gaming. That's literally how every professional/competitive sport is determined.

As I said earlier, you seem to want some sort of story driven big bang gameplay, which 40k wont provide for you.

Good thing 40k isn't a professional sport then, so shouldn't necessarily follow the same rules.

I think he's saying the issue many of us have with the ITC style missions. There are only two things you need to do: Kill enemy units and control objectives. Nothing else. So as long as you min/max a list to do both of those things, you have a "good" list for ITC missions.

Correction, the whole point of ITC missions is that you Don't have to control objectives. putting your army on 1 objective and occasionally touching a second one is all you need to do.

The whole issue with meta problems in the ITC is that everything revolves around kill kill kill.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Wagguy80 wrote:
I think many of the ITC deployment zones are too small for some armies. I would suggest a minimum of 400 sq/in per deployment zone which is still over 100 sq/in smaller than the standard BRB deployment zones.

Uh.... don't ITC deployment zones mirror BRB standard deployment zones?

Yeah... The ITC missions use the BRB deployments. So...

Odd checking their webpage on their missions some of their deployment zones were very small. Perhaps I was looking at a old link or something.

 Ordana wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The thing is, if you don't like earning victory points, you don't like competitive gaming. That's literally how every professional/competitive sport is determined.

As I said earlier, you seem to want some sort of story driven big bang gameplay, which 40k wont provide for you.

Good thing 40k isn't a professional sport then, so shouldn't necessarily follow the same rules.

I think he's saying the issue many of us have with the ITC style missions. There are only two things you need to do: Kill enemy units and control objectives. Nothing else. So as long as you min/max a list to do both of those things, you have a "good" list for ITC missions.

Correction, the whole point of ITC missions is that you Don't have to control objectives. putting your army on 1 objective and occasionally touching a second one is all you need to do.

The whole issue with meta problems in the ITC is that everything revolves around kill kill kill.

Even worse. That's part of the problem with them. When all you care about is killing, then guess what moves to the forefront? Listbuilding. Guess what shouldn't be such a huge part of the game? Listbuilding.

This is why we see things dominate ITC and not elsewhere, because ITC puts everything on listbuilding and winning the game with what you bring, not how you use it.

Wayniac wrote:
This is why we see things dominate ITC and not elsewhere, because ITC puts everything on listbuilding and winning the game with what you bring, not how you use it.

I played 2 lists that pretty much mirrored the top IG/Imperial soup (pretty much Brandon Grant's list) that wins GTs. I beat one, lost to the another.

It was all player skills. I defeated the one guy because he picked poor target priority, and I won because *I* targeted better, and played better to objectives, and the guy who walloped me,

...

... was a far better player; he nailed my ravagers first thing, stymied my wyches, and bubble wrapped for my scourges. Nearly the same lists, but different competencies.

Your point is not valid.

 Brothererekose wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
This is why we see things dominate ITC and not elsewhere, because ITC puts everything on listbuilding and winning the game with what you bring, not how you use it.

I played 2 lists that pretty much mirrored the top IG/Imperial soup (pretty much Brandon Grant's list) that wins GTs. I beat one, lost to the another.

It was all player skills. I defeated the one guy because he picked poor target priority, and I won because *I* targeted better, and played better to objectives, and the guy who walloped me,

...

... was a far better player; he nailed my ravagers first thing, stymied my wyches, and bubble wrapped for my scourges. Nearly the same lists, but different competencies.

Your point is not valid.

Your sample size and scope of application are far too small. Wayniac's statement cannot possibly be deemed invalid, based on two (2) games that [i}you[/i] played. It's insufficient data. What we can look to as a juxtaposition are the results of GW's official Grand Tournaments. The armies that perform well and win at these events (and similar) are much different than those at ITC and Nova.

 oni wrote:

 Brothererekose wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
This is why we see things dominate ITC and not elsewhere, because ITC puts everything on listbuilding and winning the game with what you bring, not how you use it.

I played 2 lists that pretty much mirrored the top IG/Imperial soup (pretty much Brandon Grant's list) that wins GTs. I beat one, lost to the another.

It was all player skills. I defeated the one guy because he picked poor target priority, and I won because *I* targeted better, and played better to objectives, and the guy who walloped me,

...

... was a far better player; he nailed my ravagers first thing, stymied my wyches, and bubble wrapped for my scourges. Nearly the same lists, but different competencies.

Your point is not valid.

Your sample size and scope of application are far too small. Wayniac's statement cannot possibly be deemed invalid, based on two (2) games that [i}you[/i] played. It's insufficient data. What we can look to as a juxtaposition are the results of GW's official Grand Tournaments. The armies that perform well and win at these events (and similar) are much different than those at ITC and Nova.

Check out the winning armies from tournaments over this past weekend... https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/bdh1ex/pandas_weekend_rundown_april_1314/

Seems pretty varied. I know Jim Vesal won Adepticon with Demons, and he just won an ITC event. Kind of supports the argument that good armies are good armies, and good players with good armies beat bad players with good armies. The new beta rules for ITC offer quite a few non-killing secondary objectives. Kill 1 enemy unit a turn, hold more objectives, and do Recon, Engineers, and Ground Control as secondaries... you could literally kill 6 enemy units total, and as long as you max those non-killing secondaries and try to deny your opponent some of his, you're looking at 36 points in the ITC format for a game.

 oni wrote:
Your sample size and scope of application are far too small. Wayniac's statement cannot possibly be deemed invalid, based on two (2) games that [i}you[/i] played. It's insufficient data.

Yes, my sample is singular and logically not representative, per a real survey/data gathering, etc.

Then again, when highway patrol tries to convince teen drivers that speed kills, and they only show one example of a wrecked car & the fatality (and all the facts it was speeding, etc), the kids' claim that "speed doesn't kill" still takes a hit. One car wreck from the highway patrol is insufficient data. However, you can't ignore it. It is a valid example supporting the argument, not invalidated just because it is *one* anecdote.

I could type out a long list of anecdotes, but after 6+ years of RTTs (monthly) and GTs (3 to 6 annually), I think I have valid expertise or experience in citing trends and facts of results.

Experience after experience, it's the players in southern (and northern) Calif. that play different lists and win, because they're good. Better players than me modify their armies and switch codexes and usually defeat me, because I play poorly. Sometimes good players *do* stick with one thing for a long time, e.g. Brandon Grant & AM. However, Geoff Robinson plays Custodes and 'Nids and usually finishes at the top of tourneys. Nanavati & Nayden bring different lists to LVO every year.

#NameDroppin'

Perhaps I have not made Wayniac's point invalid, but it still is wrong when placed up to my experiences and the rankings in the ITC. Players' names, not their armies.

Let's look at the failures instead of the successes. There's valid info there.

I see the same Baby Seals in the kiddie pool, event after event, because we aren't that good. We play 'Net lists; we play fluffy lists. The consistent facts are the names of the dudes at the bottom. Not our armies. We're at the bottom tables because we forget to secure objective points, forget to 'kill one more', have poor target priority, we get "deer in the head lights" logic flinches: "Crap! I was gonna place this unit *there* but then I forgot and did that to protect this unit *here*. Damn-it! There goes Line Breaker!"

 oni wrote:
What we can look to as a juxtaposition are the results of GW's official Grand Tournaments. The armies that perform well and win at these events (and similar) are much different than those at ITC and Nova.

True, those army compositions may be different, but it doesn't have any bearing on our point, unless you'd like to point out some examples of "the results of GW's official Grand Tournaments." What GSC a top dog? Did Tau dominate the top tables? Did Sisters and GK shoulder out A.M. and the pure IK lists? Where were the elves?

Here's the Broadside Bash's top armies (from last weekend, April 13/14):
Imperium (Tallarn, an assassin & Grey Fax, no Imperial Knight)
Tau
Imperium (~85% Custodes & ~15%Admech)
Tyranids
Aeldari
Imperium (3 IKs and minimum A.M. battalion)
CSM
Cult Mechanicus
CSM & orks for places 9 and 10.

There are 3 Imperial lists, but each is vastly different (I have direct access to the list compositions on BestCoastPairings cuz I attended the event). The names in those top places are: G. Robinson, R. Ahumada (local top aeldari), D. Hooson (BAO '18 winner), Waddel's 'Nids. And Mr. Raspy voice himself, Reece won it all with those Tallarn, an inquisitor and assassin.

#NameDroppin'LikeItsHAWT!


It is still my 6+ years of tourney experience that I lose to the Brandon Grants whether he's playing Dark Angels, Sisters or A.M. Carlos Kaiser (some GT on the east coast) wallops me with Custodes, Blood Angels, CSM, daemons.

A local guy finishes 4 and 1 a lot, Jon Starks, druhkari. I beat him once, because *I* have been playing drukhari since last summer and and knew precisely what needed to be done to his drukhari. I went first, Doomed and snuffed the first set of Talos, wacked his ravagers next, etc. He's defeated me 2 other times.

I play "net lists" like Doom-farseer supported drukhari.

It's not necessarily the lists. It's the doods. And their Skillz.

If you're not winning, it's cuz you gotta git gud.

Further reads:
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2019/02/10/introducing-your-2019-las-vegas-open-top-8-players/
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/itc-2015-rankings/