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Other than the completely discontinued armies, are any others generally not allowed in most sanctioned tournaments, like, say, Witch Hunters? I'm thinking about starting a bush-league setup here in Columbia, SC, and I am trying to get a feel for standard practices.

Generally, people do not see 40k as requiring restrictions of any kind at this time, especially not at the more competitive levels of play.

25% real terrain coverage with significant line of sight blockage, and proper missions (which could include simply book missions), are going to be far more impactful than any potential restriction requirements. "Higher" tourneys, if you can call them that, are as a general rule much more focused on significant and proper terrain, and appropriately balanced (non weird whacky) mission presentations.

40k isn't like ccg's where cards get banned from tourney play. Any army with a codex currently available from GW is legal. And don't forget some armies' (DA, BT) codex are significantly changed by the FAQ's.

I agree with the post above. In spite of the whining you often see on online forums, 40k is actually pretty balanced. There are a couple armies that have uphill battles, but there really isn't a super overpowered army out there. You'll sometimes see 'Comp' tournaments where the organizers try to 'balance' things artificially. Myself and many others automatically don't attend Comp events though as they always favor (often accidentally) certain armies and playstyles over others and end up unbalancing things... like limiting tank #s (sorry Which Hunters and IG, you don't get to play) or limiting models in 2+ armor (buhbye Dark Angels).

A lot of the Fantasy tournaments I have seen banned stuff in though (perhaps justified). I don't play Fantasy anymore so I'm not the best authority, but I think it's mainly some magic items and special characters... whatever, Fantasy has been dying for a while anyway.

Actually I'd say people would regularly ban forge world armies, that's the only thing I would say.

Otherwise if it has a codex, then it's fair play.

I was unaware that 40K had "semi-pro" and "pro" players...

Yeah seriously.. Who are these semi-pros? A few hundred dollars of prizes is sorta a joke compared to the thousands or tens of thousands from MTG pro-tour :p

Atleast in my events I allow all current codices.. No reason to restrict anything

I'm semi-pro! :-P I usually win the tourny's I play in, though I might loose the first couple when I move to a new area, got to get used to the local meta and all. But, I don't play in all of them, and I don't travel to hit "major events" any more. It's not like some CCG games that you could win large amounts of money.

Pro by its definition require you to get paid for it.. Id love to see a pro-40k league lol. Maybe get it broadcast on korean gamer TV !!

STAY TUNED FOR TURN 2
"Will Player A move his marine squad towards or away from his opponent?" DUN DUN DUN

Kirasu wrote:Pro by its definition require you to get paid for it.. Id love to see a pro-40k league lol. Maybe get it broadcast on korean gamer TV !!

STAY TUNED FOR TURN 2
"Will Player A move his marine squad towards or away from his opponent?" DUN DUN DUN

Next on The Ocho is the Warhammer 40k Finals!

I doubt 40K would even make it onto the Ocho...

I can imagine the belly jiggling as they replay a deep strike in slo-mo.

You should disallow space wolves.

The general thing to note with regard to all of this is that ... truly ... top tier players will compete just fine against each other REGARDLESS of codex choice, so long as they have their full codices to choose from.

We routinely even go out of our way for NOVA playtest and prep to put things like, for example, AdeptiCon 2011 undefeated winners w/ top tier space wolf lists up against BFS 2010 undefeated winners running triple monolith or Tau deathrain spam ... and the wolves aren't romping or even winning.

The older codices DO struggle more among lower tier players, but, you don't help those people by restricting codices in any capacity even further, and thus it is generally unwise to do so. 40k's heterogeneity in capacity to list build is both its biggest strength and greatest weakness, in that it's never boring and you can always build new lists and permutations, but you can also build BAD lists, and get crushed for it.

When a top notch player with Necron or Tau or any of the older dexes simply CANNOT beat a Wolf or Guard or DE player who is equally top tier ... well, that's when there are problems. Fortunately, that's very much not the case at present, despite what various internet blowhards may or may not say (and in full recognition of the fact that I may - despite not trying at all - sound like a blowhard myself, or even be one!).

Purely $.02, at most, in value.

I may not be pro, but I do have a semi! Hahaha

Whatever bro.

diesel7270 wrote:Other than the completely discontinued armies, are any others generally not allowed in most sanctioned tournaments, like, say, Witch Hunters? I'm thinking about starting a bush-league setup here in Columbia, SC, and I am trying to get a feel for standard practices.

Any army with a current Codex is typically considered valid. Further, most people I've encountered play that Witch Hunter allies are valid regardless of whether you have a print Codex or the PDF Codex, contrary to the recent FAQ. However, nearly all tournaments ban Forge World/Imperial Armor armies and units.

I don't play magic but if a card is banned wouldn't you be out maybe $100 if you bought it as a single? In 40k if you ban an army the person with that army would be out several hundred dollars and countless hours in building and painting.

That, along with the fact that the game is reasonably balanced means banning things just isn't really warranted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I wouldn't call disallowing forge world banning, its not part of the game to being with. It's kind of like saying apocalypse stuff is banned. Nit picky, I know, just thought I'd throw it out there.

targetawg wrote:

Kirasu wrote:Pro by its definition require you to get paid for it.. Id love to see a pro-40k league lol. Maybe get it broadcast on korean gamer TV !!

STAY TUNED FOR TURN 2
"Will Player A move his marine squad towards or away from his opponent?" DUN DUN DUN

Next on The Ocho is the Warhammer 40k Finals!

Funny that you mention it, but Adepticon had the final round streaming live online. Our tournament (The Bay Area Open) will also have live streaming games of the final round.

It is quite a big thing, starting with the NOVA 2010, and proliferating through AdeptiCon, the Bay Area, and continuing w/ NOVA 2011 and more and more.

This doesn't professionalize it at all, but it IS interesting.

The most common "restrictions" that local groups seem to put on 40k is, no or limited Forge World stuff, or no special characters.

Aside from that, anything goes, which is pretty much what everyone else has been saying.

While I miss the days of comp, I think restricting special characters is ridiculous. Many armies need the character to play, for example, Deathwing, or Pedro for a deathwatch army etc.

The reason I liked comp is it made it a game of skill and not a game of lists. My win/loss percentage went down when they started getting rid of comp.

@ OP
Have you been up to H&D since you sent me the PM when you moved into the area awhile back? We have a tournament coming up on the 18th if you are interested. Recently picked up another small crowd of players that hit the store up on Sundays. Maybe you have been playing with them? As far as your statement on allowed armies goes I have been around the SE playing and have not come across a store yet that banned an army with a GW sanctioned codex.

@Sarge/Linden
You play a supremely optimized leaf blower IG list and my wolves are cheese? I will state again that I played them when the book was a pamphlet attachment to the SM book so I excuse myself from most of the SW hate.

Oaka wrote:I can imagine the belly jiggling as they replay a deep strike in slo-mo.

They do that on the HERETV

Kaotik wrote:
@Sarge/Linden
You play a supremely optimized leaf blower IG list and my wolves are cheese? I will state again that I played them when the book was a pamphlet attachment to the SM book so I excuse myself from most of the SW hate.

Glad to see you wandered into this thread. I was worried you wouldn't see this and my threadjack would go no where.

Campaigns or leagues really shouldn't have any banned armies, otherwise we don't get to use a lot of the more entertaining stuff.

Kaotik wrote:

Recently picked up another small crowd of players that hit the store up on Sundays. Maybe you have been playing with them?

I would think so. I'm there nearly every Sunday (for the past several months) with a group of people trying to squeeze inbetween the Magic competitions and any other 40k players who happen to show up. I'm the thin, balding guy with the goatee, if that helps.

Although it does not rise to the level of a 'rule' it's generally frowned upon for players over the age of 16 to play starter armies like Space Marines, Blood Angels or Grey Knights which are clearly intended for younger, less experienced players.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Although it does not rise to the level of a 'rule' it's generally frowned upon for players over the age of 16 to play starter armies like Space Marines, Blood Angels or Grey Knights which are clearly intended for younger, less experienced players.

But not IG eh? I c whut you did thur.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Although it does not rise to the level of a 'rule' it's generally frowned upon for players over the age of 16 to play starter armies like Space Marines, Blood Angels or Grey Knights which are clearly intended for younger, less experienced players.

Was this a joke? I really hope it was.

I'd rather play vanilla marines over flavor marines any day.