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Vakruz wrote:
I did come out swinging a bit, yes, but mostly because the majority of the time i post, it makes me nervous to even respond to stuff like this. Trying to voice my issues goes un-noticed and played down which i tend to not worry about. But after seeing what happened to my local play groups multiple times in different cities because of the same group of people who wont even attempt to play the enjoyable for anyone else, because of the same exact reasons which this post originated from, and actively try to run people off, it kind if sucks. And having togusa post and comment on exactly how i feel and for once on this forum i guess i may have gotten carried away a tad

Well you're not alone. I would make an effort to go to more tournaments in the US if they lowered the points. I would even be willing to try the compromise of 1750 over my suggested 1500 to help alleviate the supposed issues with high points cost armies. But so many times it feels like we're just shoved to the side. Someone made a comment about Reece asking for votes? I've never been asked to vote about anything ITC, so I'm finding it dubious and would like to know who he is asking to vote on these issues.

ITC has like a council or something that control what happens, I think Reece is the de facto head (chairman? dictator for life? IDK titles) but puts it to a vote. I assume it's made up of the TOs for the major ITC events, and likely some of the top players have weight even if they don't have actual votes. That's my guess anyways I am not sure how it actually works.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
I have all but given up playing 40k since I really don't enjoy 2000 point games (too much stuff, takes too long, etc.). If I really had my druthers, I would much rather use PL instead of points since I don't think 40k is nearly balanced enough to worry about the extra bookkeeping and most players I know have limited collections that can't spam more wargear just because PL allows it. Even then, I don't want to go much over PL 75-100.

Instead, I have moved to Kill Team which I think has the table size, force scope and streamlined rules I am looking for right now. Sure, I wouldn't mind a few extra data sheets be added to the factions in Kill Team, but at the same time, I am pretty happy it is low enough (and mostly in the same book) that I be easily familiar with whatever my opponent decides to bring.

Ultimately, I kinda want something between regular Warhammer 40k and Kill Team.. Mostly infantry, maybe a couple of transports and/or small heavy/elites (Dreadnought equivalent) and maybe one big vehicle/monster. And by big I mean a like a defiler, land raider, hammerhead or Carinfex.

Yeah, I bet this sounds an awful like I should be playing an older edition. I think I would be all kinds of down playing 3rd, 4th or 5th edition from how they have been described to me. I finally got into 40k at the tail end of 7th so I don't know for sure.

So I have a cool Tyranid list written for 1250 and it is both fun and exciting to play. 1250 is a great point level to play at and you have to make some really tough choices, however the bigger things feel a lot more scary because your opponent will have limited answers to them.


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Wayniac wrote:
ITC has like a council or something that control what happens, I think Reece is the de facto head (chairman? dictator for life? IDK titles) but puts it to a vote.

So basically there is no representation of the community, like many political circles its based on what a small group wants. Why am I not surprised.

 Togusa wrote:
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Wayniac wrote:
ITC has like a council or something that control what happens, I think Reece is the de facto head (chairman? dictator for life? IDK titles) but puts it to a vote.

So basically there is no representation of the community, like many political circles its based on what a small group wants. Why am I not surprised.

I honestly do not know. I'm pretty sure it's not voted on by the community.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
I kinda want something between regular Warhammer 40k and Kill Team.. Mostly infantry, maybe a couple of transports and/or small heavy/elites (Dreadnought equivalent) and maybe one big vehicle/monster. And by big I mean a like a defiler, land raider, hammerhead or Carinfex.

Yeah, I bet this sounds an awful like I should be playing an older edition. I think I would be all kinds of down playing 3rd, 4th or 5th edition

You want to play 5th edition, because the rules are clean and fast for the scale you described.

If you only have "classic" models from 2E, the 3E rulebook is plenty enough.

Wayniac wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
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Wayniac wrote:
ITC has like a council or something that control what happens, I think Reece is the de facto head (chairman? dictator for life? IDK titles) but puts it to a vote.

So basically there is no representation of the community, like many political circles its based on what a small group wants. Why am I not surprised.

I honestly do not know. I'm pretty sure it's not voted on by the community.

I don't know about what you're referencing, but ITC also circulates voting sheets to the people who actually go to their tournaments sometimes asking for feedback. NOVA does too. I remember once ITC doing an online poll in 7th too. So it's not entirely remote and insular like he's getting bent out of shape about (not that their AREN'T reasons, but I don't think how they pick the points limit is one of them).

ITC's line has been, to my knowledge, that 2k is preferred by the large majority in 8th. They used to say the same for 1,850 in 7th, which was their standard then

Sorry for the confusion, I just used PL because I didn't want to calculate how many points my army would be in index xenos. It made a handy shortcut in showing how much more 2,000 points can bring after ca 2018.

 Togusa wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It's not perfect when you play elite armies. 1,500 is going to heavily skew towards favoring cheaper armies that get to keep their toys. Custodes, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights, you just smacked all of them hard.

So yeah, lowering points is absolutely a terrible idea. You're not seeing a BETTER meta, just a DIFFERENT one (that you happen to like more).

That said, I didn't hear any stories of NOVA having any time issues at all. No ITC tournament I've been to since the introduction of chess clocks has had a real problem either. I'm personally on a 10 game streak or so for finishing on time or with time to spare.


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the_scotsman wrote:

Vakruz wrote:
Feels kinda nice to have someone not blast me for my opinion for once lol You made my day, thank you sir

You definitely came out swinging at other people for THEIR theoretical opinions, though, didn't you? Especially when in a thread agreeing with your opinion, with nobody having commented with the opposite opinion...

Here they come Vakruz! Right on time!

Right, because discussing your opinion on the merits (it screws elite armies) is the same as "blasting" your opinion.

I commonly play full primaris at 1500 with zero issues in local tournaments. I think you're over exaggerating it. It's harder, but that's the challenge. Elite armies still have the disadvantage in this edition no matter what points cost the game is set at due to the favor of hordes in 8th, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference.


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 lare2 wrote:
1750 is pretty much the standard now in my local area, following gw's example. Much prefer the lower amount... Although I've concerns about the new pts essentially negating the rationale for dropping to 1750.

I'd be alright with 1750, it's a good compromise between the 1500 and 2K communities.

I hate to be the rain cloud here but Primaris aren't an 'elite' army despite the advertising of GW. Intercessors are 17 PPM with gear after CA, I believe. Custodian Guard (Custodes Troop Unit) are 52 PPM with their cheapest gear. You can get 3 Intercessors for every 1 Custodian Guard. Even a Grey Knight Strike Squad member is 21 PPM with cheapest gear (and only 1 wound!) so it's still more costly than Primaris. Armigers are, obviously, over 150 PPM regardless of loadout. Even Deathwatch Intercessors cost more (2 PPM) because of SIA.

For record, the cheapest possible (and by no means effective) Custodes battalion is like 692 points. The cheapest possible Primaris Battalion is on the order of 437 (and I didn't include HQ point drops in CA for Primaris because I don't have them on hand).

It could be my misunderstanding or my own definitions, but to me the difference between elite and horde is High BS/WS combined with low model count, combined with expensive upgrades = Elite. Basically Guardsmen with Lasguns vs. Marines with stalker bolt guns

The only universal definition I've seen is small model count, which means high points since that's the limiter on models. I can easily make a list of over 50 models for under 1k with Primaris. 50 Custodian Guard is like 2,600 points by comparison (and that's their cheapest way to get that many bodies).

So yeah, through GW's balancing, just about all Space Marines and variants have lost their status as 'elite' armies. GK are barely holding on.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Ultimately, I kinda want something between regular Warhammer 40k and Kill Team.. Mostly infantry, maybe a couple of transports and/or small heavy/elites (Dreadnought equivalent) and maybe one big vehicle/monster. And by big I mean a like a defiler, land raider, hammerhead or Carinfex.

Sounds like you want an 8th edition interpretation of Combat Patrol. That was an old game format that had limited points (like 500 or so) and unit selection (No Russ sized vehicles, no models with loads of wounds etc). It also had special missions that were suited, and played on a smaller board. It was pretty fun, but I don't know if GW did an 8th ed update. Or if it is hidden in a book somewhere in a campaign mission format.

I've actually been trying to work out a 2k list with the new points, and just couldn't nail it. As an experiment, I just tried to make it 1500 and the core idea fits almost exactly at 1487. Basically, a Guard brigade with 6 infantry, sentinel and demolishers. It actually sounds fun.

One key problem with 40k is that as you go up in points, the amount of fire power that can be put out on turn one increases. You get to a point where one unit is definitely going to die turn one, which hurts choices like a single tank commander.

That depends on where you balance it. You can't get 10 Titans in the same points limit you could take 10 Custodian Guard; that doesn't mean Custodes aren't Elite.

The historical breakpoint has been MEQ vs GEQ. Anything MEQ or lower in model count at the same points was elite. Anything GEQ or higher was horde. But then, "Are Marines Elite" is answered by definition with that scale.

That scale could change, but Titans have been around a very long time, and their inclusion didn't automagically make Marines not Elite (although I'd argue they did help make Marines feel not-Elite, but not because of model count).


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Back OT:
9th will happen when points = power level.

Then they'll need to scale Power Level too. So new edition.

Define community?

People active in the Tourney scene knew they got to vote on the tourney size.

I'd be 100% behind 1500 for tournaments. Our local area, after I started a discussion about dropping to 1500, decided instead to run doubles, so 750 per. When I asked why, they said it was more fun.

I just wanted a 1500 tournament, why is that so hard to understand?

The local meta is very competitive, even forming a competitive group. It makes new folks, or narrative players feel totally shouted down.

I prefer 1250 actually. It's a nice size where you're more strapped for choices but the forces are still big enough to be fun.

Some kind of reduction in tournament standard would be nice, I loved the rudder GT, but three hour rounds was brutal. I got there at 9:30am and left at just before 9pm, and then got to do 7 and change hours the next day. Since that happened before all of the points reductions in CA 2018, it will be worse going forward. With stratagems, damage rolls, and a slew of other changes 8th ed takes longer than 7th ed, when you add in formations (which are coming back), I'm sure it will be even slower. The go to solution is play with chess clocks, but is adding another thing to manage and stress about really a better solution than just reducing the points? It's not like there is some gold standard list that 2000 points represents, because army size creep is real and measurable. It's not like 2000 points is even a tradition, it was 1850 in 7th ed and has fluctuated wildly between editions.

 Grimgold wrote:
Some kind of reduction in tournament standard would be nice, I loved the rudder GT, but three hour rounds was brutal. I got there at 9:30am and left at just before 9pm, and then got to do 7 and change hours the next day. Since that happened before all of the points reductions in CA 2018, it will be worse going forward. With stratagems, damage rolls, and a slew of other changes 8th ed takes longer than 7th ed, when you add in formations (which are coming back), I'm sure it will be even slower. The go to solution is play with chess clocks, but is adding another thing to manage and stress about really a better solution than just reducing the points? It's not like there is some gold standard list that 2000 points represents, because army size creep is real and measurable. It's not like 2000 points is even a tradition, it was 1850 in 7th ed and has fluctuated wildly between editions.

How big of a tournament was that? I think the way to address this would be to lobby the TOs to lower the points level, if it is felt to be necessary. If TOs have a significant proportion of their player base asking for changes, I think they may consider doing so. It would require a collective effort though.

I think 1500 points is a great size, that has balance for both elite and horde armies. I disagree that a smaller point size favours horde armies and make elite armies unplayable. As it is hordes can field so many bodies that in some scenarios it is actually impossible for a more elite army to kill enough of them to win the game. At smaller points levels this problem is mitigated.

But the big thing for me is just "fun". I think smaller quicker games are more fun and provide more time for socializing, which I would suggest is the real reason we all play this game. Particularly at tournaments most players can't play a game to completion in 3 hours. Maybe those players could be more focused and move the game along quicker but then that limits the fun social interaction between the players.

sultansean wrote:
I think 1500 points is a great size, that has balance for both elite and horde armies. I disagree that a smaller point size favours horde armies and make elite armies unplayable. As it is hordes can field so many bodies that in some scenarios it is actually impossible for a more elite army to kill enough of them to win the game. At smaller points levels this problem is mitigated.

But the big thing for me is just "fun". I think smaller quicker games are more fun and provide more time for socializing, which I would suggest is the real reason we all play this game. Particularly at tournaments most players can't play a game to completion in 3 hours. Maybe those players could be more focused and move the game along quicker but then that limits the fun social interaction between the players.

Again, NOVA had almost no problem getting everyone to finish within 3 hours at 2k just last September. NOVA had record shattering participation. The community at large no longer seems to have trouble finishing on time in the tournament seen.

I would position the opposite, at least for tournaments. People at tournaments probably want to, you know, play actual matches in the tournament.

And shrinking does not mitigate elite armies having trouble killing hordes. It actually exacerbates it because the elite armies have to get over a 'hump' of minimum HQ/Troop tax before they can get good toys. That hump doesn't change or scale with point levels. It is immutable.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Some kind of reduction in tournament standard would be nice, I loved the rudder GT, but three hour rounds was brutal. I got there at 9:30am and left at just before 9pm, and then got to do 7 and change hours the next day. Since that happened before all of the points reductions in CA 2018, it will be worse going forward. With stratagems, damage rolls, and a slew of other changes 8th ed takes longer than 7th ed, when you add in formations (which are coming back), I'm sure it will be even slower. The go to solution is play with chess clocks, but is adding another thing to manage and stress about really a better solution than just reducing the points? It's not like there is some gold standard list that 2000 points represents, because army size creep is real and measurable. It's not like 2000 points is even a tradition, it was 1850 in 7th ed and has fluctuated wildly between editions.

How big of a tournament was that? I think the way to address this would be to lobby the TOs to lower the points level, if it is felt to be necessary. If TOs have a significant proportion of their player base asking for changes, I think they may consider doing so. It would require a collective effort though.

42 people 5 rounds over 2 days, so big by local tournament standards, but not really in the range of the big five yearly ones. My TOs are amazing, but the problem is that everyone wants to play in the fashion of the LVO which is seen as the gold standard for competitive events, so the rest of the tournaments follow their lead. If FLG said that they were going to drop to 1750 for the LVO, almost every tournament between now and then would also drop. FLGs way of dealing with the issue of how slow 8th ed wasn't to decrease the points but to increase the round length. This works, most games came to a natural conclusion in three hours, but man does that suck for family man like me, I got up, made my kid breakfast, and got home after he went to bed, and the next day I managed to get home just before he went to bed.

To get back to my point, any change in tournament points will have to be a top down affair, and FLG has thus far proven very resistant to moving from 2000 points. It's not like GW is forcing their hand on this issue, If memory serves GW moved to 1750 a while ago. FLG seems to think that 2000 (and 2000 is not a fixed unit of value since there is obvious army size creep) somehow improves the play experience to the point where it merits an extra hour for each round or chess clocks. From the outside looking in it's stark raving insanity, they have a very easy solution that would probably even be good for the meta, or two very problematic work arounds.

Really, the way GW runs their own tournaments should be the standard, as it's clearly the way they intend things to play.

This is probably the wrong place to ask, but what does ITC even stand for?

 vaklor4 wrote:
This is probably the wrong place to ask, but what does ITC even stand for?

I'd say we are all friendly in this thread, but the first two pages would make me a liar. Anyway it's International tournament Circuit, run by FLG, which is Front line gaming, and have a lot of the technical details managed by BCP, which is best coast pairings.

Wayniac wrote:
Really, the way GW runs their own tournaments should be the standard, as it's clearly the way they intend things to play.

GW also "intends" for re-rolls before modifiers and for plasma to explode twice as much at night. Not really setting a high standard there...

just chiming in with a +1 to either 1750 or 1500 points game. I dislike that now you can just bring multiple of every fething thing in your list. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I prefered to have to make choice when bringing list, deciding today what kind of thing i'd like to focus on, and play with that. I also think each unit feel more important and usefull with lower points, and it feels more like ''my dudes'', instead of ''squad #32''.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Really, the way GW runs their own tournaments should be the standard, as it's clearly the way they intend things to play.

GW also "intends" for re-rolls before modifiers and for plasma to explode twice as much at night. Not really setting a high standard there...

I actually had to explain rerolls before modifiers to someone at the tournament I just got back from, he thought that the -1 from my darkshroud was applied before his extermination protocol rerolls. Though I think the order of rerolls vs modifiers was GWs decision, at least if my memory serves from watching a front line gaming video where Reece stated the order, but it's been some time since the video so I might have that backwards. Anyway, rerolls before modifiers make -1 to hit traits much stronger against reroll miss auras, which I'd say is probably a negative effect (depending on whether or not you play Ynnari).

Also neither ITC or GW have the market cornered on good or bad ideas, and the fact that both of them have made questionable decisions isn't grounds to dismiss all of their ideas out of hand. In all fairness 1750 seems to be working for GW, and seems to lead to a more diverse meta.

I'm no tournament expert, or even goer, but the amount of misinformation being batted about is ridiculous. I follow the Frontline Gaming podcast, so I know the right answers for this.

The ITC is the Independent Tournament Circuit run administered by Frontline Gaming https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/ with ranking done by Best Coast Pairings https://www.bestcoastpairings.com.

The ITC mandates no format for games. This includes rules, missions, or points levels. Run your tournament the way you want to. Just register and provide the results and they will be included in the rankings.

Frontline Gaming runs three tournaments, The Bay Area Open, the SoCal Open, and the Las Vegas Open. In those tournaments, they run 2000 points, because that is what the players that go to those tournaments want. They know this because they have done multiple pre and post tournament polls to find out exactly what their customers want.

Also, Reecius is a evil black hat playtester who forces GW to alter the rules exactly the way he wants, primarily to screw over Tau players

the_scotsman wrote:
8th takes longer for you to play than 7th?

That's a very different experience than I've had. Also, many of my armies (particularly horde armies like orks and guard) bring much smaller amounts of models in them than before due to the higher cost of transports.

The bazillion rerolls and all the pile in's etc are pain. 7th ed was dirt easy

 alextroy wrote:
I'm no tournament expert, or even goer, but the amount of misinformation being batted about is ridiculous. I follow the Frontline Gaming podcast, so I know the right answers for this.

The ITC is the Independent Tournament Circuit run administered by Frontline Gaming https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/ with ranking done by Best Coast Pairings https://www.bestcoastpairings.com.

The ITC mandates no format for games. This includes rules, missions, or points levels. Run your tournament the way you want to. Just register and provide the results and they will be included in the rankings.

Frontline Gaming runs three tournaments, The Bay Area Open, the SoCal Open, and the Las Vegas Open. In those tournaments, they run 2000 points, because that is what the players that go to those tournaments want. They know this because they have done multiple pre and post tournament polls to find out exactly what their customers want.

Also, Reecius is a evil black hat playtester who forces GW to alter the rules exactly the way he wants, primarily to screw over Tau players

My bad independent, not international. You say they don't mandate a format, but better than two thirds of the 40k tournaments reporting to BCP use ITC missions/rules, and run at 2000 points. The LVO sets the tone for any ITC tournament, and bills itself as the championship event of 40k, so of course everyone will emulate that. It would be negligent of ITC to pretend that they aren't the de facto source of format decisions for tournaments. As I said any change to points has to be top down, people are emulating the LVO, so the change has to come from the people behind the LVO.

Also, I've never seen the results of their surveys, or even the survey administered, and to quote one of my favorite data scientist, if you torture the data enough it will confess. For instance they could have "I don't care" as an option, and if 60% of people select that, and 20% of the people selected 2000, boom instant majority. 90% of people could have skipped the survey, or they only administered the survey to the top tables, and thus have large selection biases working to obscure the the actual consensus. Or they could have poor choices like 1k or 2k, and everyone select 2k because they think 1k is obviously too small. Then there is the obvious problem that what people think they want and what's good for the game can be two seperate things. A Lot of people dislike the first floor blocks LoS, are they going to hold a vote on that? They just announced that they are overruling the GW big fall FAQ having to do with wobbly models in assault, are they going to hold a vote on that?

Also the problem with claiming secret knowledge from non-public data sets is hitchens razor, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Why should we believe FLG for a second if they are not willing to share the results and methodology. You don't have to be a data scientist to know the majority of straw polls/surveys give bad/incomplete results, effective polling requires forethought, methodological rigor, and a commitment to accept a null result. Their bias towards 2k is pretty clear, they had earmarked 2k as their default points level before the first box of dark imperium was sold to someone outside of GW, did they take a survey then? We are supposed to believe it's just a coincidence that the point value they arbitrarily selected is now the fan favorite point value?

Why dont you talk to your local TO if they are running at 2K and ask them why. Alextroy has already stated that FLG does not enforce nor do they care what points level you run a local tournament.

Personally I am not sure why they would be biased towards 2k other than they like it and the players attending their tournaments like it. If people have been running 2k for a while now, adding an extra unit wont change too much.

Some of the reasons you have given sound more personal preferences.

 Grimgold wrote:

Spoiler:

 alextroy wrote:
I'm no tournament expert, or even goer, but the amount of misinformation being batted about is ridiculous. I follow the Frontline Gaming podcast, so I know the right answers for this.

The ITC is the Independent Tournament Circuit run administered by Frontline Gaming https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/ with ranking done by Best Coast Pairings https://www.bestcoastpairings.com.

The ITC mandates no format for games. This includes rules, missions, or points levels. Run your tournament the way you want to. Just register and provide the results and they will be included in the rankings.

Frontline Gaming runs three tournaments, The Bay Area Open, the SoCal Open, and the Las Vegas Open. In those tournaments, they run 2000 points, because that is what the players that go to those tournaments want. They know this because they have done multiple pre and post tournament polls to find out exactly what their customers want.

Also, Reecius is a evil black hat playtester who forces GW to alter the rules exactly the way he wants, primarily to screw over Tau players

My bad independent, not international. You say they don't mandate a format, but better than two thirds of the 40k tournaments reporting to BCP use ITC missions/rules, and run at 2000 points. The LVO sets the tone for any ITC tournament, and bills itself as the championship event of 40k, so of course everyone will emulate that. It would be negligent of ITC to pretend that they aren't the de facto source of format decisions for tournaments. As I said any change to points has to be top down, people are emulating the LVO, so the change has to come from the people behind the LVO.

Also, I've never seen the results of their surveys, or even the survey administered, and to quote one of my favorite data scientist, if you torture the data enough it will confess. For instance they could have "I don't care" as an option, and if 60% of people select that, and 20% of the people selected 2000, boom instant majority. 90% of people could have skipped the survey, or they only administered the survey to the top tables, and thus have large selection biases working to obscure the the actual consensus. Or they could have poor choices like 1k or 2k, and everyone select 2k because they think 1k is obviously too small. Then there is the obvious problem that what people think they want and what's good for the game can be two seperate things. A Lot of people dislike the first floor blocks LoS, are they going to hold a vote on that? They just announced that they are overruling the GW big fall FAQ having to do with wobbly models in assault, are they going to hold a vote on that?

Also the problem with claiming secret knowledge from non-public data sets is hitchens razor, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Why should we believe FLG for a second if they are not willing to share the results and methodology. You don't have to be a data scientist to know the majority of straw polls/surveys give bad/incomplete results, effective polling requires forethought, methodological rigor, and a commitment to accept a null result. Their bias towards 2k is pretty clear, they had earmarked 2k as their default points level before the first box of dark imperium was sold to someone outside of GW, did they take a survey then? We are supposed to believe it's just a coincidence that the point value they arbitrarily selected is now the fan favorite point value?

For feth's sake. They don't hide the information, they talk about it on their blog and podcast. But since you're determined to make up bs to feed your paranoid narrative, i guess the truth doesn't matter.

Are the surveys some sort of ranked choice system, or first past the post? If the later, I would not put much stock in a question about preferred points levels.