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whitedragon wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:I'm not sure I like where this line of thought is leading me. Which is namely that its up to the tournament community to police ourselves here...which would largely involve the return of the dreaded "composition" score.

We came up with the INAT FAQ, why couldn't we devise tourney rules?

The FAQ was based on interpretations of actual rules. While subjective in the end, there
was at least a text to work with.

A community composition FAQ would be extremely idiosyncratic.

Maybe a tournament circuit could have a built-in handicap based on a specific
army's performance? So in season 1, Daemons are a higher scoring army. Next
tournament, Daemons get a handicap rating and players who bring those armies
have a penalty applied to their scores.

If you want to be specific, then army TEMPLATES could have positive or negative
handicaps applied to them. Stormtrooper army performs poorly this tournament,
next tournament it gets a +whatever. Twin lashes dominate, so next tournament
they get a -whatever.

If an army doesn't show up, keep the handicap in place until someone decides to
brave the waters again.

/randomoff

Tourney terrain and boards are generally crap. They were in third edition, and they still are. Most either have too little or too much terrain. And, now, most don't have LOS-blocking terrain, which even by the rules, they should.

I think Jervis sometimes gets a pint too many in him and says things that aren't 100% accurate and then get taken out of context.

I don't think this is news. GW has long said that they won't design the game based on tourney-gamers. I think they recognize that there are hardcore tourney gamers, which probably ten years ago, they didn't seem to recognize as a group.

Based on comments from Jervis about how they designed fifth edition - basically, they started playing games how they wanted them played and then wrote the rules - I'm not at all surprised by his comments.

Warmachine has a great tourney appeal. They also have endless errata and FAQ, "The List" of rules questions that haven't been clarified, and their own comp problems (eCaine, Thorn, Squire FTW! Kraye, Thunderhead, Strangeways or A+H - FTW!) in the form of uber-assassin lists. I have no desire to play in a WM tourney because I don't play 4-6 games a week to 'tweak' my list and know what combos to watch for (which generally consists of activating models L, M, N, O, and P in order, and short of rolling a 2 on 2d6, winning - OK, not that bad, some are pretty close). You want to complain about Orks being unbeatable - WM has a worse problem with a handful of competive top-tier warcasters and builds and the rest being the also ran's and never-were's.

Unless a tourney requires everyone to field the exact same army, this debate will always exist.

I'm just waiting for the Ork players to complain about Whirlwind-spam: SM armies hiding Whirlwinds behind LandRaiders (dedicated transports) and using the 'no cover save' ammo. And flank-marching Redeemers in White Scar armies.

I think it's well known that you can't show up at a major tourney with a battleforce army and win. Would Orks with a Warboss on foot, some shoota and slugga boyz on foot, some grotz, some bikes, and a dread be nearly as fierce? Someone fielding a SM company isn't intimidating, but Kantor, 3x Sternguard and some tacs is. There's always 'better' builds in a codex. And part of the meta-game is predicting what you'll face, not just how your army functions. Orks do well in a MEQ-rich environment. They do a lot worse in a OrkEQ environment. Did anyone think Necrons would win Ard Boyz last year? If Kirby had faced three rounds of Mech Tau with as many railguns as possible, would he have?

Redbeard wrote:I talked to Jervis a bit on Saturday, after the gaming of the day was over.

I asked what sort of playtesting did they do, what sort of process was involved (I'm a software developer, and there are many many parallels between game development and software development, so I'd think they could benefit a lot from the sorts of process type things that we go through with our QA cycles), and what was their thought about 'extreme' builds.

He told me, unapologetically, that they don't test extreme builds, that they don't care about tournament gamers when they write the rules because we only account for 5% of the gamers out there, and that they had no interest in developing better rules for tournament play. we tournament players should "understand that [we] exist on the far fringes of the hobby", and that we should expect problems related to this. Quoted/Paraphrased.

The emphasis in their testing was, in Jervis's words, about whether they had fun, and was focused on the sorts of armies that you see in W.D. battle reports. He said that he doesn't believe anyone who says one army always wins or can't win, and said that he believes that the 'unbeatable' build actually only wins about 55-60% of its games, and that the army that can't win actually only loses about 40-45% of its games.

And, I brought up how other game companies (WotC, Eurogames, video-fighting games) have managed to achieve systems that work for both casual players and tournament players, and he replied that they're just not interested. That as a game developer, he wants to write games that show you how to play the game the way that they do, and that their failure is a failure to communicate to us how they play, not actually a failure of the rules. He even said that they don't even look at FAQs when they playtest in the studio, because they all 'just know' how it is suposed to be played.

So, yeah, disenheartened to be sure. It's one thing to note that things don't work well. It's another to be told by the lead developer that, not only do they not believe there is a problem, but that even if there was, they wouldn't want to fix it. They want a game that you play in your basement with a beer or two, not a game that works in a competative environment.

And then, he said that they encourage people to write stuff about what changes they've made to how they play. Which seemed almost like an invitation to the competative community to come up with needed changes... almost. I'm sure GW's legal team would squash it.

I find it hilarious that he would admit this, at an event where the 5% of their market showed up to play in a tournament, that costs $120 to get a ticket for, probably $200+ in hotel/meals, and then another couple hundred in Air fare/gas to get to the thing. This isn't counting the cost of the army itself, which can easily eclipse all the previous things combined.

I maybe attend one tourney a year and that is only if my friends convince me to go with them. The travel and such is not generally worth the amount of fun I get from the experience. I am guessing I would fit the definition of the casual gamer, and yet I have vast collection of minis. Certainly 40k-60k of Dark Angels. Working on Death Korp and steel legion armies, Demon hunters, Snakebite (Biker) orks, Greentide orks expanding my sisters army.


The game is totally not designed for tournament play and that is one of the issues 5th was supposed to address. That and making it easier to run a tournament.

Oh awesome, another I hate GW thread.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:I don't play much 40k anymore, but boy is it nice to read people complaining about Orks being a super-dominant power game army.

10 years in the making baby!

I know how you feel!

You know, either the people that play against the Ork Loota horde aren't paying attention, or they don't mind it. There's a checkbox on the Sportsmanship score for army comp. Check it if the army is what you feel is a well-represented army. Leave it unchecked if you feel it is cheesy or designed just to win tournaments.

5 pts isn't much over the course of a GT, but it can make a big difference in final placings.

stjohn70:

So if someone takes Lootas, I can ding them for not taking a "well-represented army", one that's "designed just to win tournaments". But winning a tournament means doing well on Sportsmanship.

So if someone doesn't take Lootas, should I ding them for taking a "well-representd army", one that's "designed just to win tournaments"?

Noisy_Marine wrote:

Redbeard wrote:
The emphasis in their testing was, in Jervis's words, about whether they had fun, and was focused on the sorts of armies that you see in W.D. battle reports. He said that he doesn't believe anyone who says one army always wins or can't win, and said that he believes that the 'unbeatable' build actually only wins about 55-60% of its games, and that the army that can't win actually only loses about 40-45% of its games.

I don't get this. If you aren't testing the extreme builds then why test? And their reasoning is they don't test this stuff because players shouldn't be playing this way. Well take that anyone using 9 oblits and 2 lash princes. You are all bad puppies.

What I don't get is if this is true, then why did they go to great lengths to make sure the rhino rush was no longer the tactic of choice?

@Nurglitch: it's a subjective field... ding them however you wish.

Maybe I'm just a weird case but I'm a tournament gamer who hates to have to bring a powergaming list to win. I compete in local tournaments atleast every other month (as well as run a number of them), I made it to the semi-finals of both the first fantasy and 40k 'Ard boys tournaments, and was part of the team who placed second in the '08 Boston Massacre doubles tournament. While play I in these tournaments and find the competative nature enjoyable, I find myself time and again fielding a "balanced" list and cringing every time I have to play against one of the classic "power-gaming" lists. The most enjoyable games I play are those which two balanced forces compete because it more truely reflects the skill of the players involved.

Personally I would like to see a return to the days when composition scores were part of standard scoring for RTT's. While the guidelines for scoring this catagory was not always well thought out (oh no the guard player only brought 2 troop choices? CHEESE!!), it did represent a mechanism which rewarded winning with a balanced build and bringging an army which your player would have fun playing against. While GW claims this score falls under the scope of the sportsmanship category, I have always understood it to be a seperate question. A player with a balanced force can still be a jerk, and a player with a cheesy list could still be a nice guy.

While I do not see tournaments all across the nation readopting this concept, I applaud and encourage those who incorporate it. GW is a fool for thinking that they can reencorporate this idea of balanced list play by making "only troops" scoring in standard games. Every army should be encouraged to enter tournaments no matter how cheesy, but people should be rewarded for bringing an army that their opponent will have fun playing against.

Now if only we can fix KP's my Guard might start back on the tourny scene.....

stjohn70 wrote:@Nurglitch: it's a subjective field... ding them however you wish.

Don't for get the Dong. Worse comes to worse you can always beat the other guy over the head with it. Winning is easy when the other guy is nursing a headache.




Truth of the matter is, if you don't like playing against the sort of lists that show up at tourniments, don't go. Better yet, organize your own and put your own self imposed limits on it. Some people like a challenge, they might show up just to test their skills. Others will think your a dill hole and not show up. Either way, you get to play against people with a like mindset. Make new friends, suddenly your Saturday gaming is a hella lot more fun and tons less expensive than a weekend in Chicago.

Another way to curb some of the power-gaming lists is to reduce point totals. It's a lot harder to fit 45 lootas into a 1500 point list vs. 1750/1850/2000. The Force Org Chart doesn't scale (in other words, it's not as limiting and balancing at 2000 points as at 1500 points).

If the game is moving towards horde armies by design, we really will need either lower point levels or longer game times just to the average 200 on 200 model game finished.

Very much agreed. really does sound like something 'in the grim future'...

:S

the answer to the one sided power builds. Missions!!!
an entire game of nightfight or "aggresive vegatation: any models not moving suffer strength three hit during the assault phase."
The other answer is variety of terrian. Yes it is hard to get good terrian on all 60 tables. so just focus on the top 5 to ten tabes and make the terrian different, difficult and challenging. Nothing like a dense city table on #1 to make 45 lootas next to worthless

Moz wrote:If the game is moving towards horde armies by design, we really will need either lower point levels or longer game times just to the average 200 on 200 model game finished.

Or just slow play the orks and only give them 2 shooting phases. They will get so sick of never finishing a game that the list will change ;-)

I think Redbeard wrote an article on how to play large Ork armies in a decent amount of time.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Playing_a_Horde_Quickly

Edit: Added link. Read and learn.

skkipper wrote:The other answer is variety of terrian. Yes it is hard to get good terrian on all 60 tables. so just focus on the top 5 to ten tabes and make the terrian different, difficult and challenging. Nothing like a dense city table on #1 to make 45 lootas next to worthless

Thats a great idea. If you truely are the best you can deal with any terrain.

Somnicide wrote:

Moz wrote:If the game is moving towards horde armies by design, we really will need either lower point levels or longer game times just to the average 200 on 200 model game finished.

Or just slow play the orks and only give them 2 shooting phases. They will get so sick of never finishing a game that the list will change ;-)

Sure, if you want to risk getting yourself thrown out of the tournament for intentional delay of game.

Actually, I was just joking. But, you don't get thrown out for it, your sportmanship gets dinged (it was an actual field on the checklist - for those who didn't play in any GTs this go around.)

I've always felt that there needed to be a points scale for duplicate units.

Example: 1st loota unit is at cost. 2nd loota unit is at cost x 1.5. 3rd Loota unit is at cost x 2. Or something to that effect.

The fact is that the majority of units in the game do not have a linear effect on the game as the number of the unit increases. THis is true for both 40K and Fantasy.

The problem with the scaling costs is that it favors Marines (Or any army that has multiple units that fulfill the same role)

Isn't the problem with every comp scheme that it helps marines? Or at least, hurts/helps one army disproportionally?

Hi all.
As far as I can remember GW made games that were more '3D RPG,' than 'wargames suitable for competative play.'
Far more emphasis on narative and cinematic, than actual military tactics and accurate costing of in game effectivness.

When I started playing GW games back in the late 1980s, I got the impresiuon the rules were just a starting point .Your gaming group could expand and adapt them to suit thier own preferences.

Back then GW had a monthly gaming suppliment, 'White Dwarf', and a collection supplimments in the form of Codexes -Army Books , Chapter Approved, Generals Compendium etc.

Emphasis was on creativity and finding out what you enjoyed the most in a wide and diverse hobby.
There was FAR less emphasis on winning a game of toy soldiers , and far more on playing out fantastic battles in your imagination.

The objective of the game is to win,but the point of playing is to have fun!

However, 40k was picked to be the intro game for GW .And as GW PLC wanted to sell more minatures the unsuitability of GW games for tournament play was 'played down.'

And some totaly deluded gamers think 40k is suitable for ballanced competative play.

And want GW to spend time and money on developing the rule set to be suitable for ballanced competative play,when corperate dont want to have external playtesting or proof reading.
As corperate managment belive the current rule sets are 'adequate,' EG enough people buy them , why bother making them better....

GW sell minatures.
If you buy the latest minatures because of the new uber unit rules, you prove GW corperate are right .And you deserve the lackluster vapid blandathon that corperate have got in store for you by 8 th ed 40k.

BE WARNED!

Its YOUR hobby not GWs.
Enjoy it!

TTFN
Lanrak.

Somnicide wrote:Actually, I was just joking. But, you don't get thrown out for it, your sportmanship gets dinged (it was an actual field on the checklist - for those who didn't play in any GTs this go around.)

I've thrown people out of tournaments for intentionally delaying their games.

I live in Birmingham Alabama where we have one moldy, dusty, abysmal game store, about ten long term players and an ever changing mix of come and go players. It is in the realm of the 'friendly, casual, store' gamer that I have encountered the worst examples of gamer stereotype. Year after year I have witnessed temper fits, an abundance of abusively foul language, intense rules arguments, blatant cheating, the stench of the unbathed, etc.

I started going to GTs as a way to meet and play new people and hopefully have an overall better experience than I was getting at home. I also enjoy tournament play and I like the way competitive vibe plays out at GTs as opposed to our store and the RTTs I have been to. With only two or so exceptions I never see the above mentioned behaviors at the GTs I have attended. Almost all the players I have met in GT land have been reasonable human beings; easy and fun to play (and not smelly).

I have made many friends in GT land. I joined Marc Parker's 40K Wrecking Crew because I enjoyed hanging with the members at GTs and 'cause he invited me to. Get it? My membership in his club grew out of friendship, not some sick fascination with dominating tournaments. You see a lot of smack talk between Toledo and WC on these boards. At Chicago we all went out for dinner Saturday night and had a great time. (There was this 50's style Italian restaurant, a lounge lizard singer who was trying to be a cross between Tom Jones and Elvis, me and Brad singing along and me serenading one of the Toledo guys to the tune of Besame Mucho with Elvis Jones backing me up...anyway...)

You know, the Saturday dinners are quickly becoming my favorite part of the trip.

If you go to a GT alone and/or thinking your going to win or being pissed off at whoever does win, their army build, etc. you probably won't have much fun. If you introduce yourself to me or any of the regular attendees I have met (and you don't care that occasionally I'm a little swishy and/or that they're not), you're welcome at the dinner table...and you might just have a great time.

Oh yeah, 45 Lootas. I go to lots of GTs and I have yet to see 45 Lootas. Neal had 26, two squads of 13. Lootas work well in the current 'lots of terrain but none of it blocks LOS' enviroment but against good players they are not a gamebreaker. At home we use a reasonable amount of large LOS blocking terrain and Lootas are nearly useless. The Ork army as a whole is solid and with a good general is very hard to beat. It is beatable. I just ran two test games with my buddy Jeff playing his Orks against my foot Sisters and played him to a standstill twice. With a little more practice I believe my Sisters will easily hold there own against any Ork build. If I have them painted in time I will put this to the test at Baltimore.

the big problem I see with this isn't that competative lists shouldn't win. if your going to a GT you should bring the best your army has to offer. yes some armies have better adaptations but there shouldn't be a 'dock' in points because they use their codex the way it says they can.

this isn't a problem with the gamers its a problem with gw. untill gamers formally force them to fix something its not going to happen.

how many threads like this on pop up, and how many of them just die after a while because they realize there's nothing they can do? I don't see someone going to a GT and sitting at a table just to protest to GW with a sign that say's "make the game balanced."

GW walks all over their customers but no one cares enough to really, really try stop them.

GW games have always been weak on rules balance, ever since RT era. It's the nature of the beast. To expect something different from them is like buying a Yugo and expecting it to drive like a Ferrari. It's just not what it is.

If you want a balanced, competitively oriented game, there are plenty out there that you can play.

wash-away wrote:

GW walks all over their customers but no one cares enough to really, really try stop them.

Step number one is stop buying GW products and start writing letters.

Acheron wrote:GW games have always been weak on rules balance, ever since RT era. It's the nature of the beast. To expect something different from them is like buying a Yugo and expecting it to drive like a Ferrari. It's just not what it is.

If you want a balanced, competitively oriented game, there are plenty out there that you can play.

This doesn't ring true to me. If GW is promoting their games for tourney play, they need to make the effort to balance them. Or stop promoting tourney play.