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 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Once again, a tournament is pretty much the worst possible way to do this, as new players aren't going to have the skills or models to be able to seriously play games on the one hand, and being around a bunch of testosterone-fuelled hyper-competitive types is likely only going to leave a bad impression on new players by association.

Except that:

1) Having official tournaments helps build the community and gives new customers a goal to work towards. Just look at how Friday Night Magic has worked for MTG, it's a relatively casual event and participating it is an easily attainable goal for new players. And since it's consistent event it helps avoid the problem of a new customer playing a random game or two with a friend and then dropping out of the hobby because there's nothing going on.

2) Some people like competition. A competitive player who just found the game would see that competitive official events exist and be happy that they have a hyper-competitive tournament to look forward to once they finish buying their army. Again, just look at MTG, where the existence of the pro tour (with tens of thousands of dollars in cash prizes at each event) gets people to spend a lot of time and money on the game because they want to be part of it.

MTG is a highly competitive and extremely well-balanced system.

Enter 40k and WHFB.

Basically, Privateer Press does all the stuff that GW doesn't do with regards to tournaments, organized play, and community involvement, and they are growing.

GW does not do all of those things, and they are not growing within a growing hobby (translation: they're shrinking).

One can claim 'there is no benefit here', but that strikes me as the Ostrich strategy, and that has not actually worked for GW for the past several years.

 sourclams wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
GW should stay out of any tournament. It would only do harm. Tournaments work just fine without GW and I don't want a company that repeatedly alienates their customers and said that they do not care for balance.

Yes, but imagine if GW did create a rules forum where gamers could go for real-time gamedev interaction, see FAQ and errata on a 'living document', and there actually was a cohesive tournament rules set (and it was nothing more than a cleaned up GW rulebook).

Now throw in an 'official' GW tournament kit and some modest prize support and the GW tournament scene would be back and better than ever.

Yes, I can imagine people complaining about it just as much as thye complain about the rules now.

Could they do it, certainly, thou they would have to make a 180 on certain key policies. And no random charges is not an issue, the real issue is 4+ years old codexes, that is a no no. At the very least point cost should be adjusted every edition across the board. You also can not introduce a new mechanic with out counters to it, you want to introduce flyers, fine then you have to retrofit anti air into the older codexes, and no, 4 veery expensive twin linked str 7 shots is not enough.

They could start having tournaments tomorrow and people would show up. It's never too late.

They just don't want any part of it.

Well there is throne of skulls, but that might as well be a t-ball game for 8 year olds that aren't keeping score, you get more points for your opponent liking you then winning games.

And if you show up with sisters you pretty much will get a prize.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Well there is throne of skulls, but that might as well be a t-ball game for 8 year olds that aren't keeping score, you get more points for your opponent liking you then winning games.

And if you show up with sisters you pretty much will get a prize.

The army or your actual sister?

The army, each army has the "best" so if you're the only one you automatically get a prize.

Bring back the Outrider/Kommado program We volunteered to run GW events and they provided the prize support. Everyone came out ahead.

It would depend. A lot of folks have incorporated 3rd party models and bits into their armies. As they should, it just makes good sense.

If GW got really draconian about it, I would blow it off like a big fart. I won't tolerate being told what I can and can't do with my toy soldiers.

I'll throw in my $0.02 as some who goes back to the very first GW GT (1997 Baltimore). While the GW GTs weren't the most strictly competitive events -- soft scores were always an important component, although that aspect waxed and waned over their history -- I do think they succeeded in keeping things not-too-scary for first time GT attendees and were highly social events, especially in the early days. For sheer fun, I still rank those Baltimore GTs at the BWI hotel among my faves. GW *could* bring them back successfully if it was a priority for them.

But it couldn't be clearer now that the entire organization really doesn't care about competitive play anymore. Sixth edition just screams that in almost every way. And I'm okay with that. It's not as if we can't have events, it's just that the ruleset isn't optimized for that. Heck, a couple of those early GTs I mentioned were under 2nd ed rules, and 6th is worlds better as a tournament ruleset than 2nd. And with the sheer number of well-done, well-supported tabletop mini games out there, if 40K just doesn't float your boat anymore, you have other options.

And luckily, if a GW-run event doesn't float your boat, you have options, too

I'm local to Baltimore and loved the events they ran here. Of course, since then they've closed their headquarters here, closed many of the stores, closed their Bunker only to re-open it in the middle of nooooowhere several years later...

Yet, a FLGS opened in their old Bunker location with the same manager who used to run the Bunker, many local events have stepped up to the plate to fill in the lack of GW-sanctioned ones, most notably the Nova Open... definitely a "competitive" event, but one that has soft-scores emphasized, too.

So, the tourney scene in this area is doing just fine without GW... certainly, their getting back into it would add something, but it is not needed in any way (imo).

I don't see it as too late, but GW won't go back to Ard Boyz. From what I understand it was free to enter? Enough said really.

If there was an official GW tourney set up, like Ard Boyz being free to enter, even if the prize was something small like T5 pots of paint of your choice, I'd be game. Except I'd need more than a week's notice.

The Indy GT scene only became possible because of GW pulling out in the end. Back in those days, winning an Indy had no weight behind it in the community, only winning a GW GT did.

I think we as gamers are savvy now. I do think GW could make their events worthwhile again. However, it would not do what the OP asked.

 Deadshot wrote:
I don't see it as too late, but GW won't go back to Ard Boyz. From what I understand it was free to enter? Enough said really.

If GW's only concern is pimping their plastic, then they should absolutely hold an 'Ard Boyz, probably every quarter, at least through the second round.

It's an event for which people will buy entire new 2500 pt armies. What prize support actually costs GW is utterly minimal.

I can understand the headaches of 'Ard Boyz (primarily due to GW's own ambiguous rules and non-management of tournament organizers), but it really is nothing that a good errata document and a 3 page tournament pdf could rectify.

Why would people buy all new armies? Unlss they do a full counts as army, or an a non-WYSIWYG one they might only need to buy one or two competitive units.

My two cents here as a member of the Nova Open board...

Running a big GT event the size of Nova is a very expensive and time-consuming process. I'm not sure GW would benefit a whole lot from running an entire tournament themselves. But what I think would be a great investment would be if they provided support to the existing 40k GT "circuit".

As a TO "support" would look like one of four things:

1. Prize support - free product to give away either in swag bags or as prizes
2. On-site presence - a booth with some exclusives, signings, or other cool stuff
3. Advertising - list the event on the GW website and allow local stores to post events
4. Rules - provide more frequent and comprehensive FAQs or TO rules


At the very least doing #3 would cost almost nothing and would help out tournaments a great deal. We would love to have GW show up and promote their game and I think it would be an obvious win for everyone. At the Nova Open the contrast with Privateer Press (Warmachine), Battlefront (Flames of War), and Corvus Belli (Infinity) is striking. Those companies all have a much better customer and tournament interaction that benefits everyone.

I do not think we will see anything from GW US until there is a change in staff at a minimum and after that you need money in the budget.

The last community manager came from their manufacturing division (yep, as Mikhaila said, not even a gamer). I spoke with her a few times in the months after Ed S left and she was disgusted with a lot of things that had happened with the supported Indy Circuit.

Some TO's were scamming GW for loads of product and not even running their events.

Some TO's really were making GW look bad because of the cronyism/cheating/bad press.

GW had no control over how the events were making them look and needed to distance themselves from it as well as save lot of money on the Promotions line items. As it is now they can't even handle running one Throne of Skulls in the US. I cannot guess why this happened but I know that when Ed S left that was the end of Promotions.

There were events that had been around for years before the Indy Circuit started that were well run but that was not enough to keep it going. But isn't that a good thing?

We started MechaniCon the year they cancelled the US GT's, so did BOLS (Wargames Con now). NOVA started the next year. Many other events have started up and have gotten bigger and better and it was not due to GW's support - it was because of the great clubs that put things together.


I would like to see events again but I would not focus on supporting Indy GT's or even their own GT series . Go back the the beginning and make it about the game and the hobby - aim the support at the retailers who carry the games and offer their services to help get folks started.

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