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Voodoo Boyz wrote:
If they aren't built for competitive play then why does GW run multiple events throughout the year (that cost a good sum of money to attend) that are centered around playing competitively.

And the fact is that playing competitively isn't something that's limited to tournaments. The problems GW has with Game Balance has gotten so bad and out of whack that new players in "friendly" environments can be screwed by picking the "wrong" army books (such as the severely overpowered ones, or the stupidly underpowered ones).

Because GW's definition of a Tournament is different than yours. Similar to Gorgon, I've been attending GT's for at least the last 8-9 years, with a little time off in between. And the GT was always defined as a "Hobby Tournament". That's why they had Composition Scores, Sportsmanship Scores, Painting Scores (and not the current simple 'is it painted?' stuff), Opponent Scoring, Battle Points, and hell, even Quiz Scoring. All of which totalled your overall score in the Tournament.

And every GT, there were fantastically painted, converted, and amazing armies across the board, especially among those who usually won (because a solid painting, sports, and comp score was more important than the battle scores - because it was about the HOBBY, not the GAME).

Over the last few years, though, that has changed, for better or worse, depending on how you view tournaments. I'm going to Baltimore this year, and not expecting nor wanting to compete for overall. Hell, I've never finished above 10th in a GT. Because meeting new people, seeing the nice (or what used to be nice) paint jobs, playing 5 games, and generally being a geek for the weekend is what I want to get out of it.

And, the most memorable parts used to be hanging around in the hotel bar afterward with the other players, GW would run a 'pub quiz', giving out free stuff, and we'd all swap war stories.

As has been mentioned, if you're looking for that super-competitive, balanced, test of skills game in a 40k Tournament, you're barking up the wrong tree. You won't find it here, that has been made painfully clear. And you know, what, that's fine for me, because I can choose not to go, or go, based upon how its structured. Sometimes I wish they'd go back the subjectively scored painting, comp, and sportsmanship, because then it wasn't just about the winning part.

Care to explain the existence of 'Ardboyz events then?

OK, to try and get this thread on to something more concrete, what are our options?


1. A ground-up rewrite by GW with exhaustive playtesting in order to address every issue and balance every unit.

While this might be on a few people's wishlist, I don't know of anyone with the ~$300M it would cost to buy GW and force them to do this.


2. Accept that the way things are is the way they'll stay. There may be improvements very slowly over time but people will never be entirely happy.

This, I'm sure would be right up the alley of people who love to go on internet forums () and moan, but isn't really satisfactory.


3. Give in completely - either change system or use GW models with whatever rules you like.

Great for you or your gaming group, but doesn't help the rest of us.


4. Identify how to make the competetive experience fairer and run events based on such changes.

Its fair to say that people who want a 'narrative wargame' or just a friendly who-cares knockabout have few(er) issues with 40k. Can we do anything to help improve the tounament scene?


5. Something else?

Is there another option I haven't considered?




Jervis always says its 'our game' as hobbyists and enthusiasts, so can we put this to the test?
Can we make it better ourselves - because it doesn't look like GW will do it for us.

@Cruentus: I went to the Chicago GT with this in mind. I took the best looking army I could and didn't bother about the winning and losing. I had a great time, and didn't feel the stress that comes with wanting to win all your games, so I was able to relax and enjoy it more.

That said, there are serious game balance issues in 40k, and there is no reason for it except sheer and utter laziness on the part of the rules team.

I'm willing to recognize a company's strengths as well as their weaknesses. The team that ran the GT was top-notch. They had excellent refs, excellent paint judges who were willing to discuss scores with people who asked (this is important to me). The event ran very smoothly. GW makes some amazing looking miniatures. This is one of their strengths. They write excellent background material (probably why so many of us are still interested). Their customer service is excellent. Since they canceled their bitz service, I've had them mail me complete replacement boxes for product with a missing piece - not even asking me to send them back the incorrect package.

And yet, there is this "we would ruin the game if we made balanced rules" mentality from Jervis.

Never mind the fact that many other companies have made games that play well as beer&peanut games and scale well into tournament games. Clearly, this can be done.

The Eurogames do it well. Settlers of Catan is a great game for playing over a few beers, yet manages to hold balanced tournaments. Puerto Rico is a game my wife and her friends enjoy, and yet it's the game used in the finals of the Board Game Championships.

CCGs do it well. M:TG is a game that I play at lunch with some of my coworkers in the office, who have never even seen a rulebook. It's intuitive enough that newbies can enjoy it without spending too much time learning intricacies. And yet, they have such well-defined rules and balanced gameplay that WotC manages to run the biggest gaming circuit of any gamer event. (I'm not including more traditional games like poker or chess here).

Video games do it. First-person shooters have a huge casual following, but scale into well-defined, well-balanced tournaments, where pro (or semi-pro) teams get sponsors and compete for big dollars.

Making a good game doesn't mean that the game no longer works for the casual gamer. Making a bad game means that the game really doesn't work for the serious gamer.

Making these changes really doesn't cost the casual gamer anything, and, if anything, it means that they get a better game out of it too. After all, if you're picking your army based on models you like, wouldn't you feel better about running a penitent engine if its point cost was more reasonably in-line with its game effect?

The message I took away from Jervis's comments wasn't that making tournament capable rules would spoil the game, so much as that GW couldn't be bothered to put in the effort.

This "narrative gaming" concept is just an excuse for not taking the trouble to write balanced codexes. It's just easier to think up fun ideas and not worry about them balancing.

In what way would players be prevented from having "narrative games" just because the codexes were balanced?

I would like to meet some of the players who make of the 95% that Jervis is talking about. Tournments are the driving force of 40k and Fantasy here in the US. The casual gamer is a dying breed and are hard to find.

Even in casual games people play tourney style. A casual game is just practice for the next tourney. I rarely seen anyone pull out there "non-tourney" list. People all play the same armies all the time.

My local gaming club has this posted on there website for people who come out to our game nights.

"We make up some of the best tournament players in the US and probably the world. Do you have what it takes? Do ya?"

and

"Show up, bring your best and plan to get your arse handed to you every now and then. Deal out your beat downs with grace and expect the same done to you."

There are also other local clubs who are very much the same way.

They have league nights just for tuning there armies.

It is all about "Punching In" and "Bringing your"A" Game"

You will get mocked and ridiculed for sloppy play, poor play, and bad army lists.

Comp and Sportsmanship are considered handicaps for weak players who can't bring it.

"If you don't play to win, don't bother coming." is a common sentintment.

"If you don't play to win, don't bother coming." is a common sentintment.

Wow. I'm glad I don't play with your group, Eli. I can't ever imagine getting that hyper-competitive over a game of freaking toy soldiers...

Our "cheese test" in our local group is to swap armies and play a second game. If you find you're not having much fun as you get gunned down by your own list, that can sometimes be a pretty potent agent for change. It'd be interesting to imagine a competition where you had to switch and use your opponent's army for a second game - you'd sure know if you won both games who the better strategist was, eh?

Commissar Molotov wrote:

"If you don't play to win, don't bother coming." is a common sentintment.

Wow. I'm glad I don't play with your group, Eli. I can't ever imagine getting that hyper-competitive over a game of freaking toy soldiers...

Our "cheese test" in our local group is to swap armies and play a second game. If you find you're not having much fun as you get gunned down by your own list, that can sometimes be a pretty potent agent for change. It'd be interesting to imagine a competition where you had to switch and use your opponent's army for a second game - you'd sure know if you won both games who the better strategist was, eh?

Ironically I don't really play with them either. I got burned out on competitve play a while ago, I was never that good anyway.


I am more interested in scenario and campaign games.

Evil Eli wrote:


I am more interested in scenario and campaign games.

Which is good, because GW is just cramming cool casual play materials down our throats. Campaign packs, interesting scenarios, perhaps even variants on the game like Kill team and Combat patrol. Oh wait.... They've cut all that stuff out completely.

I think we're looking at this from the wrong perspective. GW doesn't just hold tournament gamers in disdain, it's really pretty apathetic bout the people that play it's games at all. It's Ideal customer is a person who buys every model they make, paints them, and then buys more. To their credit, the fifth edition rules are much tighter than before, and the gap between codices is far less than it was even four years ago. On the other hand, there is very little support (outside of Apacolypse) for 40k gaming. Look at White Dwarf: Fantasy gets scenarios, mini campaigns, alternate rules, all kinds of stuff. LotR gets all kinds of rules, units, etc. 40k gets.... very little.

I'm not sure GW needs tougher play testing, although it wouldn't help. I think it just needs a common sense voice on the development team to point out the stuff that will get abused like a fiend.

Polonius wrote:
Which is good, because GW is just cramming cool casual play materials down our throats. Campaign packs, interesting scenarios, perhaps even variants on the game like Kill team and Combat patrol. Oh wait.... They've cut all that stuff out completely.

I think we're looking at this from the wrong perspective. GW doesn't just hold tournament gamers in disdain, it's really pretty apathetic bout the people that play it's games at all. It's Ideal customer is a person who buys every model they make, paints them, and then buys more. To their credit, the fifth edition rules are much tighter than before, and the gap between codices is far less than it was even four years ago. On the other hand, there is very little support (outside of Apacolypse) for 40k gaming. Look at White Dwarf: Fantasy gets scenarios, mini campaigns, alternate rules, all kinds of stuff. LotR gets all kinds of rules, units, etc. 40k gets.... very little.

I'm not sure GW needs tougher play testing, although it wouldn't help. I think it just needs a common sense voice on the development team to point out the stuff that will get abused like a fiend.

Wow, I mean, how do you keep saying such interesting stuff?

Ok, as a returning player after many years away who can remember just how unbalanced things used to be, firstly yes, there's a big problem and it's called releasing codices over many years written by people with different visions of the game. How about the gaming organisers and folks like Yakface, who write the FAQs, create a council, declare themselves 'official' and set to work on refining competition level rulesets? Surely GW would be glad to see some folks step up and take this on. If many of you are feeling GW aren't producing the level of refinement in the ruleset you want to see, take it further and organise yourselves to a national (or international) council that can have enough sway and support in the circuits to ensure your rules are used.

Let the company make the basic rules, let the enthusiasts refine it to contest level fairness.

Just a suggestion mind...

Polonius wrote:
I'm not sure GW needs tougher play testing, although it wouldn't help. I think it just needs a common sense voice on the development team to point out the stuff that will get abused like a fiend.

I think it's the opposite. They have a 'common sense' approach. It's "common sense" that no one would actually take 45 lootas. It's "common sense" than no one would make all their carnifexes shooty.

What they need is real process for testing. I started my chat with Jervis by asking how they tested, because, as a professional engineer, it's something that interests me. And, what he said was that they just play games with what they've got in the studio.

This, speaking as an engineer, fails. What does it tell you? If you lost, do you have any idea what the culprit was? If you won, was it because something was out of whack, or was it because the dice worked in your favour?

Define a process. Say that, for any codex entry, you have to play at least three games with that entry maxxed out. Have both players report if the game seemed fair, or unfair. Are 45 lootas going to make it past that test? No, the opponent is going to say that's unfair. What about 9 penitent engines? Is that going to make it through the test, or is the person playing with the penitents going to report that they got their ass handed to them each time they played.

That's process. That's unit testing. That's focused testing on each element in a codex, in an organized fashion, in a systematic fashion.

Taking a handful of models and playing a game isn't.

Here's another idea for play-testing. For any set of dice rolls over, say, 4 dice, either player may claim "average". In this case, you take as successes what would be an average result on the set of rolls. (Meaning, if I have marines taking 9 bolter shots, either I, or my opponent can claim 'average', and I get 6 hits without rolling dice.) While this doesn't make for fun games, it normalizes the effect of randomization, which should yield better testing results.

I'm not saying completely discount the 'play a few games with the models' approach, but I think that having a process that defines specific tests that need to pass before a unit makes it into a codex would help catch a lot of these problems.

A friend of mine has played Orks since he got into the game back in the early 90's, and in that time has only lost one tournament game. A large part of his tournament playing was with the last "weak" edition of the Ork codex and he regularly beat people using power build armies that they had taken up to 2nd place with in GT's.
Before the current Ork codex, a lot of the people on these boards were saying that no one could ever win a tournament with the Orks.
One thing I've learned watching his games is if the person has the talent, they could win with just about any codex most people think of as garbage, and that no "unbeatable" army is really unbeatable.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Ok, as a returning player after many years away who can remember just how unbalanced things used to be, firstly yes, there's a big problem and it's called releasing codices over many years written by people with different visions of the game. How about the gaming organisers and folks like Yakface, who write the FAQs, create a council, declare themselves 'official' and set to work on refining competition level rulesets? Surely GW would be glad to see some folks step up and take this on. If many of you are feeling GW aren't producing the level of refinement in the ruleset you want to see, take it further and organise yourselves to a national (or international) council that can have enough sway and support in the circuits to ensure your rules are used.

Let the company make the basic rules, let the enthusiasts refine it to contest level fairness.

Just a suggestion mind...

thats no a bad idea at all, however places like bell of lost souls, dakka, heresy online, and my others have all released different FAQ of their own and in bell of lost souls case, entire campaign and codecies! BOLS is where I go to find new things do add to the hobby when i want something to convert or something new and fun to do.

if all the majore online groups got togethor and created an FAQ that was published on each site, I'm sure that after a while it woule just become what FLGS's accepted as the norm because it is so easily acessible.

however its deciding who should be in this council that is the problem, there are so many differrent views on the game, and so man people to put in that position that it would be hard to find the right candidate's.

I really like this idea i'm going to look into it. 40kradio.com is doing a live show this friday, if anyone gets through ask them about this!

@ Redbeard: I think you're on the right track, but you're misunderstanding what I meant by common sense. I think the first thing a common sense player would ask upon seeing any entry is "what is this like if maxed out?"

Saying "nobody would take 45 lootas" isn't common sense, it's ignoring everything history has taught us about gamers. It's flat out wrong at worst, wishful thinking at best.

There hasn't been a broken or abusive list in the last decade that didn't rely on multiple identical units. Awareness of that fact can help weed out these problems before hand. That's what I mean by common sense.

wash-away wrote:
if all the majore online groups got togethor and created an FAQ that was published on each site, I'm sure that after a while it woule just become what FLGS's accepted as the norm because it is so easily acessible.

however its deciding who should be in this council that is the problem, there are so many differrent views on the game, and so man people to put in that position that it would be hard to find the right candidate's.

Remember how the INAT FAQ was castigated?

Steve Jackson (the Texan one) who is a highly regarded game designer, wrote an article on game design.

In this he said that it was essential that players who were not the designers of the game should test the rules because they would try all the extreme scenarios, since they did not know any better.

The specific example he gave hypothetically was an ACW ruleset that let uphill charges into entrenched artillery and infantry succeed easily.

His point was that the rule writer, being an ACW expert, would know this tactic would never work so he would never try it during testing and would fail to find the flaw.

This double failure is exactly what GW have been doing, and their explanation is not that they screwed up the rules and testing, it is that their customers have f*cked up on playing.

For the umpteenth time, I would like a non-competition player to explain why having a rule saying you can't have 45 Lootaz is worse than not having a rule saying you can't have 45 Lootaz (or whatever is beardy cheeze spam build of the month.) [/rhetorical]

As I am a non-competition player myself, I will take the liberty of answering.

It isn't, it's better.

It's much more fun to blame people's personalities, though, isn't it?

HI all.
As reguards to a 40k tournament rule set.I assume this would need to have provable levels of (im)ballance.
PV to be an accurate reflection of in game effectivness.
And strategic placement and tactical worth to be assesed and adressed AFTER accurate PV allocation.AND DO NOT ALTER PV !!(Eg limit numbers of units -unit sizes- combos etc.)

In this respect the AP and AV dammage allocation systems would need to be replaced. As they do not give graduated proportional results but, bi-conditional effects with fixed results based on situational events.

Also the army level IGO-UGO game turn may be seen as too biased to first turn advantage.

And random movment rates my preclude a lot of tactical planning.

In fact I can not think of anything in the 40k rule set that would be the most efficient method of producing a wargame suitable for ballanced competative play.

Is a Napoleonic based rule set the best basis for a futuristic war setting?
I think not.

Epic , (Space Marine and Armageddon,) give far better representations of 40k warfare IMO.

Do you think a new rule set based on modern rule sets , would be a better option than a mutated WH clone?

Could we -should we dabble in trying to develop a new 40k rule set for tournament?

TTFN
Lanrak

The problem there, Lanrak, is you're not talking about coming up with something for tournaments - you're talking about rewriting 40k from scratch using a whole host of new concepts.

As I've said twice now in this thread, its not practical!

We can improve tournaments in any number of ways to ensure that games are more tactical and less reliant on 'power builds'.

You do this with mission design, terrain design, and where necessary list restrictions/options (if people are interested I'll happily post a full list of every option I can think of).

You do NOT need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start from scratch - at the end of the day if I go to a 40k tourney, its because I want to play 40k (a game I know and enjoy) not some souped up sci-fi version of ASL...

BOLS put out an interesting article about possible tournament rules. they suggest somehting along the lines of not being able to take any duplicate entries. This means of course that you could still take 6 carnifexes they would just have to be kitted out differnently. So you could not take 45 lootas but instead, 15, 14, 13. this wouldnt solve the problem but it might at least make army lists look less copy and paste.

One idea....

KP's.....don't like them to points so much, but link them to an abstract value.

For example, basic Grunts. Always loads of them. They give - 1 Kill Point.

Character - 1 each (simply because a single character can be easy enough to kill.

Elites and Retinues - 2 Killpoints. Losing these guys is a blow to the enemy command. Also means going after a character reaps rewards, even when in a retinue.

Fast Attack - 2 Killpoints. Again, as an asset, these guys are valuable for recon, disruption, sabotage etc.

Heavy Support - 3 Kill Points. An army that loses it's HS will soon find situations it struggles with.

Just adopt something like that for Tournaments.

Ideas for list restriction/options:
You could use one or more of these in combination if you wish.

1. No more than 1500 pts at tournaments (its not impossible to power-build, but it is harder).

2. Allow a 500 pt 'sideboard' (each player would have a 1000pt core force and 2x 500pt add-ons, of which he would only be allowed to pick one. You could dice off to see who picks first, make players chose in secret, or make the player with the better record at that point in the tourney pick first as a form of handicap).

3. Insist that players have selected one elite choice, one fast attack and one heavy support before they can pick a second of any them (similarly two of each before you are allowed a third)

Bodichi wrote:BOLS put out an interesting article about possible tournament rules. they suggest somehting along the lines of not being able to take any duplicate entries. This means of course that you could still take 6 carnifexes they would just have to be kitted out differnently. So you could not take 45 lootas but instead, 15, 14, 13. this wouldnt solve the problem but it might at least make army lists look less copy and paste.

There's a much simpler way to limit spamming. Just change the Force Organizational Chart used in tournaments. For example:

HQ - 1 Required
Elites - 2 Maximum
Troops - 2 Required, 6 Maximum
Fast Attack - 2 Maximum
Heavy Support - 2 Maximum

Which of course (types in boilerplate) helps some armies and hurts others.

HI Chimera_Calvin.
You can fiddle with force restrictions and comp score all you like.
UNLESS PV are allocated accuratley to reflect comparative in game effectivness, you will never be able to get any sort of ballance aproaching the high level of balance required at the 'competative mind set' tournament.


If 1500pts is actualy anywhere between 1300pts, and 1700pts depending on the forces used.How can you say limiting the most powerful build a bit will make the game suitable for competative play?

I do not want to emulate the over complicated snoozathon of ASL thanks.(OR Newbury rules for Napoleonics either!I want to get through a game in less than a week! )

A string of 'kewl ideas' thrown together into a clone of a Napoleonic based rule set, to arrive at a 'Fun dice rolling game for ages 12 and up!' IS NOT SUITABLE for serious competative play.

If you want a rule set optimised for ballanced competative play, it HAS to be developed as such.
It is possible to get wider varietey and better interaction than current 40k provides , with much SIMPLER rules set.
But that wouldnt let GW pimp thier latest minature releases.(have you seen the latest SM codex, ).
And GW devs HAVE to do that, (unfortunatley.)

TTFN
Lanrak.

Frazzled wrote:Which of course (types in boilerplate) helps some armies and hurts others.

Like who? I can't think of any army that really "needs" that third heavy support or elites choice to be competitive.

Balancing a game is very very difficult and cannot be done with any sort of sweeping change like limiting force org slots or duplicates across the board.

Really the point of the thread is that there is one party capable of pushing 40k into a balanced competitive direction, that's GW and they are not interested.

And Doc your suggestion helps any army that has strong troop and HQ selection while typically neglecting elite, fast, and heavy. Examples include Ork horde, twin lash + plague marine chaos. While hurting any army that tends to fall back on elite, heavy, fast options in lieu of weaker or very general troop selections. Examples here are Tau, marines, IG, eldar, nids, dark eldar.

Moz wrote:Doc your suggestion helps any army that has strong troop and HQ selection while typically neglecting elite, fast, and heavy. Examples include Ork horde, twin lash + plague marine chaos. While hurting any army that tends to fall back on elite, heavy, fast options in lieu of weaker or very general troop selections. Examples here are Tau, marines, IG, eldar, nids, dark eldar.

Nah, I don't buy it.

I play all those armies, and none of them need that third heavy support or elite choice to be competative. In fact, it is in that third choice that you always find the things people complain about.

Please define how Tau, IG, and Carnifexes, are not aided by a 3rd HS support choice? For your statement to be cogent all codexes would have to have troops that had identical net values vs. cost. Are you proferring that that is the case?