Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Zywus wrote:
I think it's pretty reasonable to see one war machine (incl crew) as one model.

Otherwise, do you claim that a empire knight (or mounted model of any kind really) should count as two models? There is a horse and a rider after all.

That ogre cannon consist of a ogre gunner, a beast and a carriage so... three models?

Don't even get started on Nurgling and Scarab swarms....

Your Nurgle Champ has a Palanquin? Well, crap.

MongooseMatt wrote:
Yesterday was the Trials of Oighear event, a campaign covering Ice Mages in the Realm of Metal getting together every thousand years to prove who is best and will be their leader. The conceit here is that they can change shape at will and hire in mercenaries to do their fighting – so, for the event, you could bring any army of up to 30 models, plus one Ice Mage whose Warscroll was provided.

They are quite pokey for wizards, and have a Shield of Ice ability that gives them and one other unit +2 saves. They do not have access to arcane bolt or mystic shield, but have their own suite of spells. Frosty Blast is a pumped up arcane bolt that also slows the target unit, Lake of Ice shifts units in a random direction, and Ride the Storm effectively teleports the Ice Mage up to 20″.

The only restrictions to your army is 30 models, only one of which can be a Monster and none can be Wizards. The Ice Mage is in addition to this.

I ended up taking two units of 9 Chaos Warriors, 1 unit of 9 Chaos Knights, and a Lord on Manticore – all Tzeentch worshippers (hence the units of 9). The Ice Mage went on top of this, for which I used the Tzeentch Sorcerer Lord I had painted up earlier because… he was kinda bluey in colour…

Full report, with piccies, here: https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/event-report-trials-of-the-oighear/

I don't understand why he was allowed extra models - come one Matt you have run tournaments for various games including your own - If there are specific rules regarding army composition than everyone has to follow them?

That's a go to the organiser and ask them to intervene..........

Re army composition - if he did not break any rules then it seemed fine - as others have said you can write how and why it is what it is.

Did you ask him what the units were - that's kinda normal in pick up games?

Otherwise seems a fun idea for a tournament.

Yes, either the army broke the event rules, or his force was completely legal and within the rules. If it was illegal then a quick word with the event organiser to get him to drop 8 models would have fixed it.

Either way, I see absolutely no grounds for complaint.

Edit:

I lost, and the game lasted about 20-odd minutes, which is the quickest game I have ever had at an event.

Irrelevant.

He took a Giant in a Dwarf army (or a Destruction unit in an Order army, if you prefer).

If it was legal then this is irrelevant. If it was illegal then you should have complained.

He started off by saying that he did not fancy marching his Dwarfs across the table, so would I mind being the attacker instead of rolling randomly?

I thought the whole point of AoS was to come up with a mutually agreed upon game? Sounds like he was doing exactly what the point of AoS is. If it was illegal then you should have complained.

There were three Organ Guns, with an Engineer in the force. But you see, that does not really matter, because…

You are correct. It doesn't matter. It's either legal or irrelevant.

What I first thought was a unit of 20 Troll Slayers was actually 20 separate Dragon Slayers. In other words, there were 20 Heroes in his army. No actual troops, unless you count the three Gyrocopters.

Either this is legal or irrelevant. If his army was within the composition rules then you have no grounds to complain about its composition.

He had also taken Ungrim Ironfist, whose ability he proceeded to use upon the Giant (description says Dispossessed only).

Correct. Why did you call him out on it? Why allow him to break the rules when you knew that he broke the rules and then complain about him breaking the rules?

And he had 38 models on the table in a 30 model event.

Either this was illegal or irrelevant. If it was illegal (and if you had any doubts then check with the event organiser) then you should have brought this up with the event organiser, who would have told your opponent to drop 8 models. As others have said, it's dubious whether the organ guns crew count as separate models or not, so if in doubt then get it clarified. If you didn't then you have no reason to complain.

I just present these facts to you, you make up your own mind.

I have made my mind up, however I suspect it's a very different conclusion to the one that you drew.

 Zywus wrote:
I think it's pretty reasonable to see one war machine (incl crew) as one model.

Otherwise, do you claim that a empire knight (or mounted model of any kind really) should count as two models? There is a horse and a rider after all.

That ogre cannon consist of a ogre gunner, a beast and a carriage so... three models? Does it matter that they are on the same base? What if the dwarven war machine is mounted on a base, Surely bases explicitly don't matter in AoS?

The way I have always seen it is each separate base is a separate model. So Warmachine counts as 4, War Hydra counts as 1 (despite the two crew standing behind the monster). You can also see this on the warscrolls where the War Hydra has one stat-block and the Warmachine has separate stat-blocks for the gun and the crew (and it also states how many models the crew consist of usually).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedleh wrote:

Either way, I see absolutely no grounds for complaint.

Geez, the complaint is the army selection led to zero fun. Not that it spoiled anyone's chances of winning the tournament. Everyone has the right to complain about the spoiling of fun.

30 model army count? What a ridiculous army composition. How utterly idiotic and bias can that be? An Ogre model is equivalent to a Skaven model which is equivalent to a Bloodcrusher?

It's at that point alarm bells would be going off for me. I agree you should of called him out on the extra models and either asked him to tone down his list *OR* tone up yours. In the same vein as him, every single one of your models could've been Chaos Lords if you so pleased, due to them being similarly equipped.

It was simply tournament putting zero thought (Or not, hell, maybe he wanted armies of heroes vs heroes) in their army creation process. Take it up with the TO, he is more to blame then the players.

The games were supposed to be a 30 model *limit*, with discussion with opponent to balance out.

This whole thing is an indictment of a) Dwarf guy, as he broke the rules both of the game and of the tournament pack, and b) Matt for not calling him on it.

Neither of these are new phenomena at events of any system.

It's also worth pointing out Matt has been to every WHW AoS event so far and this is the first time a guy has pulled such a complete show of either incompetence or TFG-ery.
(Even accepting the Skarbrand/Nagash combo that got stomped or the guy who didn't realise how nasty a horde of flamers was.)

Those saying it was legal I assume come from a competitive background, and still seem to still be missing the bit in the event rules - discuss before game to adjust armies to provide some rough balance. This was not a competitive tourney where anything legal can be placed down and sod the other guy.

Obviously the OP must take some blame for that, in that he didn't check what was what and pull the other guy up by the sounds, but for a non competitive event that shouldn't be needed, and letting the other guy know without waiting to be asked that you are proxying basic troops for heroes is an absolute must IMO. Dwarf player was a douche bag pure and simple.

If I had gone it would have been with a monster heavy force given that is all I have at the moment. Ignoring the 1 monster limit for the moment (so I couldn't really go as was), I wouldn't have expected to place all of them. I would have expected to say 'ok well you have just some standard chaos stuff and a monster, so what say I place 10 models (3 monsters, 6 krox and the ice wizard)' as a starting point and go from there - do you have a battalion? shall I attack and you defend? What suggestions do you have?

 Bottle wrote:
The way I have always seen it is each separate base is a separate model. So Warmachine counts as 4, War Hydra counts as 1 (despite the two crew standing behind the monster). You can also see this on the warscrolls where the War Hydra has one stat-block and the Warmachine has separate stat-blocks for the gun and the crew (and it also states how many models the crew consist of usually)

That's one way of interpreting the meaning of "model" in this situation (although doesn't the hydra crew have statblocks as well? At least they had in previous editions).

A ridden monster has a separate stat block from it's rider too (although it share wounds with the hero just as war machines and it's crew) . Should they count as two models? They are on the same base but nothing says a cannon and its crew cannot be mounted on the same base. Indeed people have done so long before AoS.

Modelling for advantage it is then. Another obvious problem with the AoS rules that was immediately raised day one.

As mentioned; It doesn't really matter though, as the problem of different people wishing to restrict the power of their lists to different length will remain even if all agree on how many models a cannon should count as. It doesn't really matter if you have 30 or 8 cannons if the opponent brings the always popular hypothetical gang of Bloodthirsters or any army sufficiently powerful to just slaughter those cannons. If you want a balanced game you both have to agree to place models of no more power than what the opposing models can handle.

Uh, no. Ridden monsters only have a single statline.
The description of the model/s is included on their warscrolls.

Warmachines with separate crew have separate stat lines.
So an organ gun and a unit of 3 crew is 4 models.
An ogre ironblaster is a single model.
You can model the organ gun however you like.

You now, this brings me back to an AoS balancing thought I'd had before - what if players switched armies after the game and replayed it? It would take longer, obviously, it's very different from the traditional Warhammer model, and you run into the obvious problem of get your Cheeto-stained hands off my beautiful models, but it fits in very neatly with AoS's 'talk it out with your opponent' attitude, could give the game an actual balancing system, and would definitely cut down on people like Dwarf Boy.

At least, people doing that on purpose. People doing it accidentally - and their opponents - would probably have a lot more fun that way.

 Zywus wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
The way I have always seen it is each separate base is a separate model. So Warmachine counts as 4, War Hydra counts as 1 (despite the two crew standing behind the monster). You can also see this on the warscrolls where the War Hydra has one stat-block and the Warmachine has separate stat-blocks for the gun and the crew (and it also states how many models the crew consist of usually)

That's one way of interpreting the meaning of "model" in this situation (although doesn't the hydra crew have statblocks as well? At least they had in previous editions).

A ridden monster has a separate stat block from it's rider too (although it share wounds with the hero just as war machines and it's crew) . Should they count as two models? They are on the same base but nothing says a cannon and its crew cannot be mounted on the same base. Indeed people have done so long before AoS.

No, no. Read some AoS warscrolls, it usually states exactly how many models a unit is (or can be). The Hydra is a single model it says, all mounted heroes are single models, a unit of Empire Outriders is 5 models and those models are mounted on horses it states.

The warscrolls are usually very clear about how many models are in each unit. I say usually because the Warmachine entries are less clear than I would like (as they don't explicitly say "models" like the others, but it tells you how many crew and how many machines are taken in total).

I stand corrected on how statblocks is written in warscrolls. I assumed it was more similar to how profiles were written in WHFB.

It doesn't really matter as pertains to balance anyway since a wound or model cap doesn't ensure any kind of balance in itself. I assume that the intention of the 30 model cap was simply to ensure players would have time to complete their games in the allotted time.

Balancing of forces in AoS requires both parties to work together in the army selection and IMO that's how you must approach the game if you desire a clash between somewhat equally powerful armies.

I think the real question we should all be asking Matt here is...

Did they pronounce it "Oy-gear" or "Oy-fear"? Or something completely different?

I'm shocked that some people are surprised that someone took advantage of a system that was designed to be taken advantage of. That people are surprised that a system that relies on self-policing and what a person's interpretation of what fun and balance should be caused dissension.

Because after all, who is Dwarf guy to tell you what your opinion of fun should be? Who are you to tell Dwarf guy what his opinion of fun should be? Maybe he had a blast. And in the end whose fault is that? I certainly don't blame him. I applaud him for bringing what we've known all along to center stage. A broken system that can't be trusted outside of close groups of friends/game clubs. Maybe that was his plan all along...

 Pojko wrote:
I'm shocked that some people are surprised that someone took advantage of a system that was designed to be taken advantage of. That people are surprised that a system that relies on self-policing and what a person's interpretation of what fun and balance should be caused dissension.

Because after all, who is Dwarf guy to tell you what your opinion of fun should be? Who are you to tell Dwarf guy what his opinion of fun should be? Maybe he had a blast. And in the end whose fault is that? I certainly don't blame him. I applaud him for bringing what we've known all along to center stage. A broken system that can't be trusted outside of close groups of friends/game clubs. Maybe that was his plan all along...

More people are "shocked" about bringing 38 models to a 30 model event. The event makers get to dictate the opinion of "fun"(???). If he didn't want to bring just 30 models, he shouldn't have shown up to the event.

Rihgu wrote:

 Pojko wrote:
I'm shocked that some people are surprised that someone took advantage of a system that was designed to be taken advantage of. That people are surprised that a system that relies on self-policing and what a person's interpretation of what fun and balance should be caused dissension.

Because after all, who is Dwarf guy to tell you what your opinion of fun should be? Who are you to tell Dwarf guy what his opinion of fun should be? Maybe he had a blast. And in the end whose fault is that? I certainly don't blame him. I applaud him for bringing what we've known all along to center stage. A broken system that can't be trusted outside of close groups of friends/game clubs. Maybe that was his plan all along...

More people are "shocked" about bringing 38 models to a 30 model event. The event makers get to dictate the opinion of "fun"(???). If he didn't want to bring just 30 models, he shouldn't have shown up to the event.

I was referring to the conversation about the 20 Dragon Slayers.

As for the Organ Guns, I can only assume that was a misinterpretation on his part rather than blatantly trying to cheat. I'd assume a warmachine and its crew would count as a single model due to all of the WHFB conditioning. Like others have said, why didn't anyone call him out on this? If it was an honest mistake he could have corrected it. If not, then by all means bash him for being a cheater.

 Pojko wrote:
Like others have said, why didn't anyone call him out on this? If it was an honest mistake he could have corrected it. If not, then by all means bash him for being a cheater.

Like everything you need to be there to assess the situation and decide how to react. It's easy for us all to say it should have been reported and wot not, but how many people would do in the same scenario? How were you feeling at the time and also was it worth the effort for a free event? Did you go just to have a few games of AOS or were you intending to win the event?

Personally, I think I would be likely to say something on the day if it was me, but it would depend on how bothered if it was worth the effort. I've been to similar events at WW and they are fun but the staff and most of the players don't want the hassle caused by the few who take it too far.

I don't think this would put me off the events run at WW (especially if they are free), as the venue is just over an hours drive for me.

If someone was bothered enough to write a passive aggressive post on the internet then they should have been bothered enough to say something. I dont believe that no-one said anything throughout the day, nor do I believe that the EO didn't walk the tables to see what everyone had. Presumably there was a hobby award so the EO would need to see all the armies?

There does seem to be the assumption here that the extra models weren't legal. For all we know people did complain, the EO said that the guys collection was legal. The OP decided to write a forum post insinuating they were illegal because he didnt agree with the EO.

Do we seriously believe that not one person throughout the entire day complained about someone a) having an illegal list, b) apparently not being clear about what his models represented and c) not following the rules for self policing of balance? Any one of those points would be grounds for EO intervention and yet no-one brought it up and the EO didn't even do a cursory check of what people were doing?

If you can't agree on how many models the cannons should count as, just roll a dice. It is after all "the most important rule"(tm)

Having the event organizer make rulings is hard work for them. They cannot be expected to have a whole dozen of gamers running to them bothering them to make these difficult judgments.

 Zywus wrote:
I stand corrected on how statblocks is written in warscrolls. I assumed it was more similar to how profiles were written in WHFB.

It doesn't really matter as pertains to balance anyway since a wound or model cap doesn't ensure any kind of balance in itself. I assume that the intention of the 30 model cap was simply to ensure players would have time to complete their games in the allotted time.

Balancing of forces in AoS requires both parties to work together in the army selection and IMO that's how you must approach the game if you desire a clash between somewhat equally powerful armies.

I think another reason would be to encourage players to bring armies of relatively powerful models. If you ran Lizard Men, for instance, a Skink unit would typically be 30 models by itself. Their concept is to be relatively weedy as individuals but use huge numbers to augment their durability and firepower. So obviously, to match the conditions of this tournament, a Lized Man player would bring a big monster, a Slann or other wizard, and some of the higher power Lizard Man troops like Temple Guards, and leave his beloved Skinks at home.

 Daedleh wrote:
Do we seriously believe that not one person throughout the entire day complained about someone a) having an illegal list, b) apparently not being clear about what his models represented and c) not following the rules for self policing of balance? Any one of those points would be grounds for EO intervention and yet no-one brought it up and the EO didn't even do a cursory check of what people were doing?

I can believe it. Depends on who was there, but there was a chance nobody said anything or if something was said nobody did anything. I know it shouldn't matter but when an event is free, people's expectations change. Also from a EO point of view, it's difficult as you don't want to upset people. It's like organising a party and you have that annoying rude person who upsets some people but doesn't quite go over that imaginary line of too far. That line is different for every body but for a TO is moves as you want everybody (even 'that' person) to have fun.

Anyway, it's by the by and I'm sure Matt has said all he wants to say on it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Zywus wrote:
I stand corrected on how statblocks is written in warscrolls. I assumed it was more similar to how profiles were written in WHFB.

It doesn't really matter as pertains to balance anyway since a wound or model cap doesn't ensure any kind of balance in itself. I assume that the intention of the 30 model cap was simply to ensure players would have time to complete their games in the allotted time.

Balancing of forces in AoS requires both parties to work together in the army selection and IMO that's how you must approach the game if you desire a clash between somewhat equally powerful armies.

I think another reason would be to encourage players to bring armies of relatively powerful models. If you ran Lizard Men, for instance, a Skink unit would typically be 30 models by itself. Their concept is to be relatively weedy as individuals but use huge numbers to augment their durability and firepower. So obviously, to match the conditions of this tournament, a Lized Man player would bring a big monster, a Slann or other wizard, and some of the higher power Lizard Man troops like Temple Guards, and leave his beloved Skinks at home.

I'm being pedantic but there were limitations on Monsters to 0-1 and no Wizards other than your Ice Mage. So they obviosuly wanted some sort of toning down of power. They would have been better served adding in some sort of bonus to the weaker force like the School League Rules do.

Gaz Taylor wrote:

Anyway, it's by the by and I'm sure Matt has said all he wants to say on it.

But for one thing, yes.

I would just add that playing to win at any/all/most costs is utterly pointless in AoS. Any gibbon can put together a killer army that will sweep all before it, even with (or especially with) a model limit. You can always find something nastier than someone else fields.

But what is the point? What does that prove? And how many of the players are going to be having fun?

You do get this in 40k and Fantasy battle, of course. However, with both games, the points system becomes a crutch - we acknowledge that Three Wraithknight Boy is a bit of a dill, but at the end of the day he can always say it is perfectly within the bounds of the points system and we reluctantly condone that.

Remove the points system and you remove the excuse for crummy behaviour. Which is where we are with AoS (and this might be a very difficult thing to get surrounded if you are not an AoS player). Who wins or loses is a matter of supreme irrelevancy in AoS because there are no points. What matters is what happens on the table (the last ditch defence of the temple by the lone Stormcast, holding out until reinforcements arrive, perhaps) and between the players (did I enjoy being in the company of this guy for an hour or two?). It is about nicely painted models getting pushed about the table, rolling dice, and sinking into the Warhammer world(s) for a time. It is about more than just seeing models as individual playing pieces, and it is about something other than trying to be the highest scoring player at an event. The second is irrelevant without points, the first is a huge missed opportunity.

I should point out that this was just one game. The other two were just fine, and there was a great meeting of the minds with the players involved in those. If I were honest, both of those games were against armies that were probably stronger than mine but there is a huge bracket of compatibility between armies in AoS, primarily because it is scenario-led. So, I meet a bunch of Nurgle guys who have Blightkings, a Maggoth Lord and Dragon Ogres, of which perhaps I have a decent answer for just one of them, but we can still have a close fought battle because the scenario was all about getting off the field (incidentally, if the positions had been reversed and he had been the ambushee, I could still have had a decent go at it by targeting his weaker units, because of the scenario rules). No issues, no arguments, and the in the last battle the chap took one look at my force and took one of his units off the table, and that was after I told him I did not mind either way.

The last battle was not really close, but that was more down to my own actions and approach

Some of you have said there was a responsibility on my part to call him out at the time, and yes, that is difficult to argue against. My only argument is that if someone really wants to win that badly, then they are welcome to it. Getting into that kind of debate is not why I go to these events.

There is another event coming in January, and I have a nasty, nasty feeling that someone is going to take along Archaon. Now, Archaon, in himself, might be appropriate - hell, take him, three Varanguard and a Gaunt Summoner. In a 60 model event, that might well be reasonable. What I dread is someone who brings Archaon along and counts him as one model alongside the 59 others he is technically allowed to field.

What would be the point?

Nicely put, Matt. And I'm glad you had fun with the other games!

Maybe 1 Archaon and 59 Familiars wouldn't be too bad :-p

In defence of points, the idea still was to use the system to make a mutually enjoyable game within the rules. Apart from bringing too many models and misusing Ungrim, everything Dwarf Boy did was allowed. He even talked to you before the game to see if you guys could tweak the rules! Was it in the spirit of the game? No, but neither is Revenant/Skyshield Guy, or...actually, I can't remember a Warhammer Fantasy crutch with the same amount of imbalance, except 7th edition Daemons, and that really was the fault of the book since it was basically everything in there :p

It was always recognized as crummy behavior, and the only time it was excusable was when the event went out of its way to set itself up as "bring the cheese". It's just like people predicted; removing points didn't magically make the player base better, and a points system doesn't somehow make it worse. Whatever game system you play, you're going to have That Guy.

Matt, you make some great points in your above post. But to your final question, it seems really likely someone would indeed take Archaon (and in the past, Nagash) to such an event - so what to do about it?

Maybe the event organizers could take some cues from the way AdeptiCon runs the 40k Friendly event, which seems to do really well and avoid these issues. I think that's largely down to how they run it and how well the organizers have prepared and structured the event, including checking lists for general power level / appropriateness for the event.

In this case, if they didn't check (or were not clear on) what constituted 30 models, then yeah, it's probably not supervised enough to avoid this kind of incident.

I would be hesitant to label the opponent "WAAC" "TFG" as mentioned earlier in this thread - it's all too easy to do that when facing an army that doesn't match up with your own, but I could see that happening often under this ruleset, and not with bad intentions. To assign bad intent based on the outcome, particularly to someone just working within the framework provided (but still not eye to eye with their opponent) is a mistake, imo.

Rather, I think the event organizers would need to do a quick list check and say "Hmmm, all heroes? To be fair why not run this as a unit of slayers". Done. But leaving it up to the players to calibrate the power levels of their armies to one another's is definitely going to result in more situations like this...

Matt, would love to hear your reports of some of the non-GW tournaments going on over there, like the ones using clash comp. The GW ones seem a little randomly thrown together.

 RiTides wrote:

I would be hesitant to label the opponent "WAAC" "TFG" as mentioned earlier in this thread

For a 30 model army, he took 20 of the same, identical HERO model (100 wounds, 20 different activations) to a tournament. If that isn't TFG, then what is?

He took a slayer army using the most effective rules possible - I don't think it's necessarily something to indict the player about (or at least, to assign ill-intent). It sounds like he wasn't at the prior WHW events and might not have known the power level of what people were generally bringing (and might not have had a large pool of models to choose from, given what he fielded, to adjust on the fly). The army probably even looked cool (seems decent from the one small pic on the blog).

The problem with expecting strangers to balance each other's armies against each other is just that - what's the balance? How many heroes is too many? Under the format, 1 hero is the same as 1 troop. The only way to make sure that doesn't happen is to have the event organizers check lists, or provide some structure (such as a cap on the number of heroes) so that people know how to gear their armies.

I think it's impossible that all the armies (or even entire collections) that people bring will be balanced without some external mechanic (whether this is the organizers themselves, or an event-specific structure that they implement). It's the downside of the informal mechanic they used here (which was just to talk to your opponent beforehand, likely a stranger at that).

---

Just to give you a quick example from another game - at my store we have an unwritten rule that in casual games of Warmahordes, we take non-top-tier lists. But a nearby store has no such unwritten rule, and taking such a list would result in getting killed every week. So, if I go to that store to play I have to recalibrate my army (or expectations).

At tournaments, obviously the top tier lists (and also players, since they tend to practice with these a lot) tend to do best. But everyone knows that going in, and can just avoid the tourney if they don't want to face that.

To implement a tourney with "informal" comp is more involved, and that's why I mentioned the 40k Friendly at AdeptiCon as an example - by all accounts, they've had smashing success implementing this, but there is a lot of organizer involvement. I think simply leaving it up to the players and trusting them to work it out (with only the minimal guidance of "have a quick chat with your opponent before deployment takes place to roughly balance your forces ensuring you both have a fun game.") won't work. Even if they are used to balancing armies, with different experience levels and not knowing all of the rules available to their opponents, they might misjudge the power level matchup when an event organizer would not (or might simply be unable to match their opponent on the fly, due to lack of models on-hand, etc).

and might not have had a large pool of models to choose from, given what he fielded, to adjust on the fly

He doesn't need more models to adjust, he can remove the ones he has. 30 models was the max, it was not a 'must field 30'. As I said before If I'd taken what I had available; 5 monsters, 4 Monster Cav, 15 Monster Inf, some flyers and a couple of heroes (would have been illegal, but for point of discussion..) then getting some balance may well have resulted in me only fielding 10 or so models out of my current collection.

I don't have an issue with the all hero army, or the giant etc. That really doesn't bother me. However, the event was pretty clear in what type of games it was for and the all hero force might have to be a party of say 5 or 10 guys not 20 depending on what you face.

I accept there is certainly a large variation in why might or might not constitute balanced, and wouldn't expect some perfect game balance wise, just something that falls into the 'good enough' category. But this was not a tourney in the usual competitive sense, and 20 heroes plus artillery is so far beyond any idea of balance given what he was facing that I can't even begin to imagine that he is not TFG.