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Not Online!!! wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Some fixes to mitigate this might include:

The entire unit has to shoot at the same target unless they have a leader attached and then they can split fire into an additional target. This forces units to specialize and means that mixed weapon units have a cost in target efficiency or require a leader.

Push units more distinctly into roles like units designated as screens - think guardsmen and gants - might get better overwatch and/or a fight-on-death effect, bricks - think terminators - get extreme toughness but make only a few high strength attacks per round, lines - think tactical marines - get bonuses when near objectives... This at least gives units a role and gives a suggestion for what to buff or nerf on units of that type.

You could give units slightly inefficient ways to deal with otherwise hard counters, like krak grenades to tac marines but personally I feel this homogenizes the game even further.

or we finally differ profiles out again into things that require anti armor? we could call it an armor save? And then we could also make a lot of vehicles more vulnerable from the back and sides to facilitate flanking units and screening units naturally?

We could implement something like effects that lower effectiveness of shooting? Pinning?

You could even change the to-wound chart and make it so certain weapons couldn't even begin to scratch other units beyond some sort of threshold.

I dunno. Just throwing stuff out there

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Which circles back to my first point:

you have to make sacrifices

I nominate:
- The tournament scene
- On some blood-soaked Mayan altar
- In a long, drawn-out affair

Boo! Hiss!

The increasing tournament attendance says you're wrong.

Toofast wrote:
The increasing tournament attendance says you're wrong.

Not if you're under the impression that it is the only way to play....

When people say 'tournament play', do they mean 'turning up to tournaments' or 'fielding tournament style lists'?

I mean I've seen plenty folks (with limited time especially) turning up to tourneys with far-less-than optimum builds and really taking part not to compete, but just to catch up with friends and get 3 games in in a day.

Just pondering...

I would think it pretty safe to assert that when people express concerns about 'tournament play', they mean the competitive mindset that typifies tournament play, not the idea of playing a few games in one day and catching up with your friends.

Tournaments also introduce a tighter time restraint than Home or Club Gaming.

In turn, that can discourage certain build approaches such as Horde Infantry, as those can be more time intensive, particularly if you’re keen on careful movement.

We have seen GW tackle this in some ways, such as removing template attacks. Granted it seems minor at first look, but with no templates, the need/desire to properly space your troops just….goes away. The same could be said of Tanks having no facing or turning template etc.

I’m neither here nor their opinion wise on that. But figured it was an interesting enough observation.

Even without tournament play, having games take too long is a problem for casual settings too.

It's a battleground because on the one hand you've the visual and aesthetic side of things in that many people want to see "armies" on the battlefield when they come to a game like 40K. They go to Infinity or Killteam or Warcry for skirmishers; so when they break out the 40K army they want an army on the table.

Then you've got the model variety, people want their models tableside not shelf-side when they are players. This gets "worse" over time as both the game designer adds more models and variety to armies; but also as longer term customers end up with bigger collections and more variety as well.

Then you've the reality of table sizes and time. That 400 model gaunt army looks outstanding and impressive, but will it actually FIT on a table? Will the player have time to actually play it out.

Are there methods to speed it up - well you could start to use movement trays, that speeds things up no end, but also changes how units move going from freeform to formation and that changes how they can interact with things like terrain features as well as what kind of terrain works.
Formation moving infantry blocks need a different kind of terrain setup to skirmish style moving units.

Of course skirmish style can take longer, but can also open up different strategies. However it can also run a risk when people think outside the visual box. When they daisy-chain so that auras can spread all over the map; or so they can hold more terrain and such.

Then you've got newbies. The last thing you want is to stop getting new fresh blood into the game. Do you cut down unit sizes so that the game is cheaper to get into to encourage more; do you keep unit sizes big but then introduce more smaller scale games and hope they take hold enough that they fill the void as new people move up to bigger forces; do you split the game into two parts.


I do notice that GW seems to move in waves - AoS showing it in the extreme almost between 2nd and 3rd edition (although a part of me wonders if this is GW trying to make AoS and Old World into very separate experiences and cutting down big infantry blocks was a move toward that)

True, but outside of a Tournaments necessary time constraints you have more wiggle room.

For instance, if my friend and I know our arranged game is going to be Horde Heavy on both sides, we’ll both know to allow extra time.

Streamlining is often a Good Thing - but Tournaments are still introducing a specific time limit which, in previous editions, the designers never factored in. Hence some builds, even if really good in the game and a solid counter to a given meta, just aren’t practical for strict time constraints.