Results from GW GT Heat 3

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**Marmatag**

Eternal war games are not at all fun, and end of game scoring is really, really terrible.

Numerous armies are flat out invalidated by end of game scoring, and horde armies have an absurd advantage (I play a horde army).

If a horde player doesn't play fast and plays a little slow, they can limit at a game to 3 turns easily. No one will be able to push Green Tide off of end-of-game objectives in 3 turns. You just can't do it. And the way eternal war is set up, it's very easy to split with your opponent, or in the case of green tide, obsec one of theirs away easily.

Just because you saw these armies doing well doesn't mean that it's good for the game to play these kinds of missions.

**Ordana**

All the games I watched (3-4-5) used end of turn scoring, not end of game.

They were not running strait up missions from the rulebook.

**tneva82**

Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?

**Ordana**

tneva82 wrote:
Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?

Are you claiming the Heat 3 was a gunline first turn meta?
Is that why 2x Chaos was on the final table with hordes of plaguebearers and khorne berzerkers? Why Guard is down, Why Eldar is down and why the kings of first turn gunlines, Orks, are 2-3? (that last one was sarcasm, incase someone tries to claim otherwise).

**Marmatag**

Ordana wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?
Are you claiming the Heat 3 was a gunline first turn meta?
Is that why 2x Chaos was on the final table with hordes of plaguebearers and khorne berzerkers? Why Guard is down, Why Eldar is down and why the kings of first turn gunlines, Orks, are 2-3? (that last one was sarcasm, incase someone tries to claim otherwise).

If you go first with Berzerkers + Oblits you will stomp face like it's going out of style. First turn charges, killer shots at 24"... it's an "i go first and therefore win" kind of list.

**ntin**

Are the army lists posted anywhere? I am curious what a few these players brought.

**tneva82**

Ordana wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?
Are you claiming the Heat 3 was a gunline first turn meta?
Is that why 2x Chaos was on the final table with hordes of plaguebearers and khorne berzerkers? Why Guard is down, Why Eldar is down and why the kings of first turn gunlines, Orks, are 2-3? (that last one was sarcasm, incase someone tries to claim otherwise).

In case you missed it the heat didn\t seem to use rulebook missions either! Or since when rulebook scenarios have had mid-game objective scoring rather than end-of-game?

Rulebook scenarios are mess that results in gunlines. They are so bad even GW heat avoided those!

**Arachnofiend**

Maybe they used the Chapter Approved missions? CA Eternal War missions have progressive scoring and are a hell of a lot better than the BRB missions.

**ArmchairArbiter**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Maybe they used the Chapter Approved missions? CA Eternal War missions have progressive scoring and are a hell of a lot better than the BRB missions.

That was my thought. The CA Eternal War missions are not only fun but awesome.

**Audustum**

tneva82 wrote:
Ordana wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?
Are you claiming the Heat 3 was a gunline first turn meta?
Is that why 2x Chaos was on the final table with hordes of plaguebearers and khorne berzerkers? Why Guard is down, Why Eldar is down and why the kings of first turn gunlines, Orks, are 2-3? (that last one was sarcasm, incase someone tries to claim otherwise).

In case you missed it the heat didn\t seem to use rulebook missions either! Or since when rulebook scenarios have had mid-game objective scoring rather than end-of-game?

Rulebook scenarios are mess that results in gunlines. They are so bad even GW heat avoided those!

They used CA.

**Wayniac**

I like the CA missions other than the one that you need to split your army into thirds. But I like how they have different conditions, such that it seems to encourage more balanced forces since you might get the one where characters can score double, for example.

**Spoletta**

CA missions are really good. I prefer them to ITC missions.

**lolman1c**

So what were yhe Ork lists? Also remember, 40k can be random sometimes... maybe the Orks just had Mork on their side and rolled amazingly!

**Spoletta**

Both lists?

**lolman1c**

Spoletta wrote:
Both lists?

Stranger things have happened while playing Orks

**Niiai**

Do anybody know the nid + cult list that came in 3rd?

**godardc**

So, everyone is salty because they don't use the glorious venerated beloved LVO format ? Wow, that's surprising because, for once, this tourney did not favour 1st turn gunline, apparently and helped so called "bad" armies to play correctly.
You complain that eldars are dominating the meta and when they loose you accuse the tourney of being bad ?

It is nice to have different format, showing different results. It brings a bit more diversity into the game.

**Darsath**

godardc wrote:
So, everyone is salty because they don't use the glorious venerated beloved LVO format ? Wow, that's surprising because, for once, this tourney did not favour 1st turn gunline, apparently and helped so called "bad" armies to play correctly.
You complain that eldars are dominating the meta and when they loose you accuse the tourney of being bad ?

It is nice to have different format, showing different results. It brings a bit more diversity into the game.

It's interesting that this format produced better representation of factions in the top brackets. I would like to see it get tested more to see if it is just a fluke or if it can help mitigate some of the problems that competitive 40k has right now.

Also, even with the changes my faction still has no competitiveness. Hopefully the codex will help that.

**Marmatag**

As a Tyranids player I prefer the ITC format to GW missions. Even if Tyranids had an awful showing at the LVO.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darsath wrote:

It's interesting that this format produced better representation of factions in the top brackets.

Except it didn't, you just swap "Orks" for "Eldar" and it's close to the same thing - Imperial and Chaos are still doing great because they can soup. And you clearly see community bias in the "favorite army" and "favorite game" column. The fact that this was part of the scoring, when it has nothing to do with the actual winner, was pretty comical. All in all this scoring was pretty suspect. Although I do like the thought of rewarding sportsmanship, i'm not sure i would have implemented it in this way.

**Darsath**

Marmatag wrote:
As a Tyranids player I prefer the ITC format to GW missions. Even if Tyranids had an awful showing at the LVO.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darsath wrote:

It's interesting that this format produced better representation of factions in the top brackets.
Except it didn't, you just swap "Orks" for "Eldar" and it's close to the same thing - Imperial and Chaos are still doing great because they can soup. And you clearly see community bias in the "favorite army" and "favorite game" column. The fact that this was part of the scoring, when it has nothing to do with the actual winner, was pretty comical. All in all this scoring was pretty suspect. Although I do like the thought of rewarding sportsmanship, i'm not sure i would have implemented it in this way.

This is why I said I would like to see this format tested more. A single event is not enough to ensure that the format is any good. I feel that some factions may be preferred over others with it, and this would just result in a flip in competitiveness of certain factions, resulting in the same amount of diversity of factions being played. I hope I'm wrong, but we can't know without it being used again. Also, any faction that can soup is automatically in a much better position than those that can't. They just have more choices in what they can play, giving them power. This is probably Games Workshop's biggest screw up with 8th edition.

**NurglesR0T**

Marmatag wrote:
Ordana wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Wayniac wrote:
So this brings up a question: GT did not use ITC missions, just the book missions (not sure if rulebook or Chapter Approved) and we saw a HUGE variance between the recent ITC tournaments and this.

So do we really need ITC missions? I get what they are trying to do, but they seem to be encouraging the current ITC meta, rather than trying to encourage more balanced play which IMHO Is what a tournament needs to have. Other than the eternal war mission in chapter approved that requires you to split your army into three parts, I feel the chapter approved missions encourage a more well-rounded army list, while ITC Champions missions encourage building to achieve/deny secondary objectives.

I guess it's a moot point because ITC is the dominant standard in the USA, but it's food for thought. Could we get away without having specialized missions and just using the book missions maybe with very minor tweaks (I like the static objective placement ITC uses)?

RE: Winning list, it looks decent (better than the stuff you saw at LVO) although I'm a bit miffed by it basically being a mixed chaos force with two polar opposite gods and then a daemon primarch thrown in just because with no other Nurgle units to be found. Of course, tournament, so that doesn't matter, and it's infinitely better than that Alaitoc/Ynnari Reaper stuff that was what, 5/8 places at LVO?

Do we want to encourage 1st turn and gunline importance or not? With even more 1-2 turn games to boot. Is that desirable? What makes ITC meta worse than gunline 1st turn meta?
Are you claiming the Heat 3 was a gunline first turn meta?
Is that why 2x Chaos was on the final table with hordes of plaguebearers and khorne berzerkers? Why Guard is down, Why Eldar is down and why the kings of first turn gunlines, Orks, are 2-3? (that last one was sarcasm, incase someone tries to claim otherwise).

If you go first with Berzerkers + Oblits you will stomp face like it's going out of style. First turn charges, killer shots at 24"... it's an "i go first and therefore win" kind of list.

1st turn alpha strikes is a general problem with 8th. It's why so many lists are dependant on infiltrating screens to prevent this. Simple solution would have been to limit deep striking on turn 1 and allow it from turn 2 onwards with a hard limit at end of turn 4 or be slain. At least that way you get a turn of shooting with your army and a chance to counter screens - needs work I know.

**admironheart**

Well some armies just aren't 'gud' in some players minds and others are 'too gud'

So if this event is not supporting their line of thought....then it is wrong for anyone to challenge the 'gud' vs the 'not gud' in their minds.

Give em time and they will eventually see the light....but for now they will cry the loudest til proven otherwise.

**Corrode**

Marmatag wrote:
Except it didn't, you just swap "Orks" for "Eldar" and it's close to the same thing - Imperial and Chaos are still doing great because they can soup. And you clearly see community bias in the "favorite army" and "favorite game" column. The fact that this was part of the scoring, when it has nothing to do with the actual winner, was pretty comical. All in all this scoring was pretty suspect. Although I do like the thought of rewarding sportsmanship, i'm not sure i would have implemented it in this way.

I don't totally agree with the scoring method, but the favourite game/army bits didn't change a single position that mattered. The top guy won 5 games. The next two won 4 games and drew 1. The pack from 4th to 12th won 4 lost 1. At that point there's an arbitrary split by army/sports points, and an even more arbitrary split by the choice and ordering of tiebreakers, but it doesn't matter since once you're out of the podium places all that you really care about is coming top 40 to qualify for the final and no amount of votes will change that.

It's not an ideal implementation but in this case it didn't change anything meaningfully from going on pure gaming results.

**shakul**

These results are great and almost suggest that Gamesworkshop are balancing for their own CA missions and tournament format, rather than missions and a format that is externally controlled... imagine that!

Whilst soup lists need a bit of a look at, some armies will almost require a soup to function - like Custodes and Imperial Knights.

**tneva82**

shakul wrote:
These results are great and almost suggest that Gamesworkshop are balancing for their own CA missions and tournament format, rather than missions and a format that is externally controlled... imagine that!

Whilst soup lists need a bit of a look at, some armies will almost require a soup to function - like Custodes and Imperial Knights.

Well gee of course scenarios alter. Another question is is GW meta somehow better. GW being GW answer is no. And are much less likely to get anywhere close where all factions would have even decent chance.

**shakul**

tneva82 wrote:
shakul wrote:
These results are great and almost suggest that Gamesworkshop are balancing for their own CA missions and tournament format, rather than missions and a format that is externally controlled... imagine that!

Whilst soup lists need a bit of a look at, some armies will almost require a soup to function - like Custodes and Imperial Knights.

Well gee of course scenarios alter. Another question is is GW meta somehow better. GW being GW answer is no. And are much less likely to get anywhere close where all factions would have even decent chance.

You mean a decent chance as in factions without a Codex (Orks) featuring in the top 3 results for the tournament, and even a Tau list making it through to the Finals as one of the top 40. Compared to the LVO results where 5 of the final 8 were all the same list, and almost identical lists being played in the final?

4 of the top 8 from these results are Chaos but having watched the stream the 2 lists in the Chaos vs Chaos were vastly differen (one being the Morty list the other being Plague Bearer Spam with Epidemius). "Better" is a subjective word but if the GW balancing for their own tournaments brings out more variety in that scene then I'd call that "better".

**Wayniac**

The book eternal war missions are pretty crappy. Chapter approved's ones are quite good, again barring the one that tells you to split your force into three parts and randomly determine which starts on the table.

Although having look a little closer at them two of them still use end of game scoring while the other ones use end of turn scoring.

**CassianSol**

Wayniac wrote:
The book eternal war missions are pretty crappy. Chapter approved's ones are quite good, again barring the one that tells you to split your force into three parts and randomly determine which starts on the table.

Although having look a little closer at them two of them still use end of game scoring while the other ones use end of turn scoring.

The thing is, having the variety of possibilities from CA in the mission selection at a tournament means that you are forced to adapt to the situatiuon and accommodate for both situations. That is a good thing. The CA missions are quite excellent.

**Amishprn86**

Tailored missions tailors lists. I always try to remind people about that when talking about tournament lists and just b.c a list is strong in 1 format doesnt mean it is best in another.

Always remember when playing build to fit the format. BRB missions are completely different and many locals still play BRB missions, so when they see LVO/ITC lists that doesnt mean they are good for your local/missions.

**Unit1126PLL**

I am very happy that there are alt-format tournaments that are looking good.

ITC isn't bad and is fun to play (I do it fairly routinely) but it's apparent that GW is also trying to make a good tournament format. Time will tell which is best, as I think we don't have enough data to judge anything for GW, while the data we have for ITC is kinda... un-inspiring.