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Wayniac wrote:
Yeah the focus on trying to turn Warhammer into a "sport" is one of the worst things I've ever seen

Competitive Arguments, points for originality etc

More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

RazorEdge wrote:
More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

This personally *was* my fear.

But, giving the tournament players a separate set of rules that the rest of us don't have to buy to play matched play at our local club would be a GODSEND.

the mood these days is that most players, even casual ones, will use 'the most balanced' ruleset available to prevent unnecessary whinging. If that set is regular matched play, without all the overbearing crunch of a tournament ruleset, then I think that would be a big win.

Let the tournament players be forced to buy an extra 50 dollar book to play in their tournaments, on top of entry fees, their meta-chasing army, plane/bus tickets, etc. I find it hilarious.

Tournament rules don't seem to have killed most real world sports, magic the gathering nor chess. In fact many games thrive with a tight competitive rules system that's regularly updated and sticks to a single set of core rules which are steadily modified and polished.


If GW took a more sporting and tournament approach to their rules chances are it would have a net GAIN for everyone.

The only time you get issues are:
1) When the updates come so fast people can't properly keep up without huge paper overhead

2) When the rules aren't built around flat balance but about giving 1 force/focus/theme a bias for X period of time and then randomly shifting it every so often. Ergo the whole "buy a new army to compete" angle - which isn't tournament rules its BAD balance.

3) When the marketing, focus and community have a massive fall off outside of the competitive system - ergo that's basically what happened to Warmachine.

4) When alternative modes of play are not promoted enough, not supported. Again what happened basically with Warmachine




Correctly done and with GW promoting other modes of play and with sensible standards and presentation of the rules and release format it can work and everyone would benefit. Tighter rules that offer more even balance within codex and between codex is a net GAIN for all parties save those who feel they can only win with an overpowered army*.

Better competitive balance and a tighter rules system makes it easier to play matched play; to play open; to play narrative. If you've got tight systems to work with things like narrative and open get even EASIER because now you can mess with things and have more idea how they will unfold.



*which if the case is true is a false feeling because if it is true then everyone at the competitive end will field that same army/theme so you're back on a level playing field anyway

Focus on tournaments in non-competive game just means gw uses rules to direct purchases. Hardly gain. Unless you enjoy spending money fooled by gw's marketing department.

drbored wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

This personally *was* my fear.

But, giving the tournament players a separate set of rules that the rest of us don't have to buy to play matched play at our local club would be a GODSEND.

the mood these days is that most players, even casual ones, will use 'the most balanced' ruleset available to prevent unnecessary whinging. If that set is regular matched play, without all the overbearing crunch of a tournament ruleset, then I think that would be a big win.

Let the tournament players be forced to buy an extra 50 dollar book to play in their tournaments, on top of entry fees, their meta-chasing army, plane/bus tickets, etc. I find it hilarious.

Technically, there already ARE a separate set of Tournament rules(Nephilim, Arks of Omens) to "regular" rules. Having a further codified set of "tournament" and "not tournament" rules as two separate rule sets just means it's going to be even harder for "not tournament" players to get games. It's not going to change how communities think the game should be played, it's just going to be another set of product that will linger on store shelves until GW "fixes" the issue.

tneva82 wrote:
Focus on tournaments in non-competive game just means gw uses rules to direct purchases. Hardly gain. Unless you enjoy spending money fooled by gw's marketing department.

That strategy won't work.

This isn't a card game where you open a pack and the card us useable right from that instant. This is a hobby where you have to build and paint (esp at tournament level) to get use out of the model. Yes coloured models and push fit let beginners get to the table in moments, but we all know that the reality is most armies are build and painted much slower.

The bulk of GW's customers are not going to play the fiddle to the competitive army of the month. Most collect one to a few armies at most over time and adding a new one is a long term investment not a short term one.

Time and time again when GW neglects armies they don't see those customers pick up others in vast speed, they tend to see customers shy away to other game systems. Similarly when they update an army it gets a big focus of attention and a lot of increased sales to a healthy standard and those armies that remain viable in the game retain that position of healthy sales.


Heck talk to any tournament player who regularly tries to follow the army meta and collect the BEST at any moment and many of them talk of getting secondhand models; premade armies and of paying others to build and paint for them. They aren't putting money into GW's hands. They aren't a customer GW needs to chance and its not a business pattern that can work for a slower to get into wargame

drbored wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

This personally *was* my fear.

But, giving the tournament players a separate set of rules that the rest of us don't have to buy to play matched play at our local club would be a GODSEND.

the mood these days is that most players, even casual ones, will use 'the most balanced' ruleset available to prevent unnecessary whinging. If that set is regular matched play, without all the overbearing crunch of a tournament ruleset, then I think that would be a big win.

Let the tournament players be forced to buy an extra 50 dollar book to play in their tournaments, on top of entry fees, their meta-chasing army, plane/bus tickets, etc. I find it hilarious.

That wouldn't happen though. What would happen in most cases is everyone would just use the tournament rules for "regular matched play" and non-tournament matched play would cease to exist entirely.

We already see that. Most places treat the GT pack like it IS regular matched play. There's no distinction between the two. Anything in the GT pack is viewed as an "update" to matched play not a specific set just for tournaments.

Having a completely different set of rules for tournaments would just make that the new matched play and "regular" matched play would be treated like open play is today

Wayniac wrote:

drbored wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

This personally *was* my fear.

But, giving the tournament players a separate set of rules that the rest of us don't have to buy to play matched play at our local club would be a GODSEND.

the mood these days is that most players, even casual ones, will use 'the most balanced' ruleset available to prevent unnecessary whinging. If that set is regular matched play, without all the overbearing crunch of a tournament ruleset, then I think that would be a big win.

Let the tournament players be forced to buy an extra 50 dollar book to play in their tournaments, on top of entry fees, their meta-chasing army, plane/bus tickets, etc. I find it hilarious.

That wouldn't happen though. What would happen in most cases is everyone would just use the tournament rules for "regular matched play" and non-tournament matched play would cease to exist entirely.

We already see that. Most places treat the GT pack like it IS regular matched play. There's no distinction between the two. Anything in the GT pack is viewed as an "update" to matched play not a specific set just for tournaments.

Having a completely different set of rules for tournaments would just make that the new matched play and "regular" matched play would be treated like open play is today

Hm. I - and apparently, most of us - appear to have forgotten that the Tempest of War cards exist. Both use the same core rules and the same Codexes, just a slight difference in primary and secondary scoring. Well, and a few other subtle things, like forcing people to use transports as transports, or forcing AIRCRAFT to start in Strategic Reserves.

It's not that anyone forgot, it's that most people don't want to use them. I use them at home with friends, but everyone at stores I go to is permanently in "Tourney Prep" mode.

I haven't forgotten, I personally love Tempest of War and it seems like the "best" way to currently play. But most people at game stores seem to think that the GT pack is a core rules update that needs to be used. Even my very casual store, which has no tournaments and doesn't play tournament-style lists, felt that way about it; they just assumed that you had to use them for games because it was the "newest" set of matched play rules. Most of them thought you had to use the Nephilim CP adjustments whether or not you were using nephilim missions! So while on paper it seems like having a hard delineation between Matched Play and Tournament Play, with more than just missions/secondaries and the like, would alleviate that, I suspect based on past experience that it would just mean that you ONLY see Tournament Play for pickup games and nothing else.

Some clarification for you:

"Separate tournament game" is a misunderstanding. GW isn't making an entire separate game with different core rules, they aren't that stupid. This is just a minor shuffling of "three ways to play" into "four ways to play" to make it clear that tournament 40k is tournament 40k, not something you should be worrying about keeping up with if you're just playing games at your local store.

Tournament 40k (unsure if they're continuing with Grand Tournament 202x or giving it a lore name) takes the current GT books and adds a bit more standardization. The only real changes are that non-codex content (AoRs, etc) is not included, and that suggested standard terrain layouts are included. Not sure if this is specifically standard bundle packs, that's a sales thing, but what I've seen fits the rumors of that we've seen elsewhere. 2000 points only from what I've seen, but it's not like any of the big events were doing anything other than 2000 points as it is.

Matched play becomes the default way to play. Not a lot of changes, mostly just that it won't be updated as frequently. Expect FAQs/errata for the book missions if necessary, additional mission packs will be different matched play modes (tempest of war) rather than an annual replacement. Focus is on balanced pickup games at your local store but with a bit more room for customization than tournament 40k. Missions for 500, 1000-2000, 3000+ point games are included, with 500 point games including a couple of additional restrictions (no more tank spam or 100 boyz) on top of what they have now. GW seems to be serious about supporting smaller games this time.

I think points/dataslates will be for all modes, not just tournaments, but don't quote me on that 100%. Probably a moot point since most people would use them that way anyway.

Narrative play is still there. I didn't get a look at the rules themselves but I've seen at least one reference to it existing. From what I've heard it was getting a bit of a rework so it wasn't in the stuff I saw.

Open play is technically there but stripped down. One mission, "kill the enemy" objectives, that's about it. Open play cards and such seem to have been moved to matched/narrative play. GW doesn't seem to want this to be anything more than a sales tool for GW stores to say "your kid can use this in open play", nobody seems to have any enthusiasm for it. From what I've heard feedback on it has been getting form letter non-responses.

Codex content will be day one FAQed, non-codex 9th edition content will not be continued into 10th. Legends is gone, "why are we supporting rules for stuff we don't sell" seems to be the attitude. I can't confirm it but supposedly someone was told that downloads for the rules are pretty much zero and it's not worth the effort to support so few users. Same thing with WD supplements and such, "why support something customers can't buy"? This is me extrapolating a bit here but if you see a WD supplement don't expect it to be valid for more than a month or two of casual games, GW seems to be treating them as disposable content. And, again, no tournament use for them.

GW corporate is mad about the leaks, but screw them. If they want to raise prices in this economy I'll keep leaking. Don't bother asking for pictures, we're pretty sure they're all watermarked. Expect incomplete or vague information, if anyone who has real access to inside information they aren't leaking anything unless they've confirmed with other people that GW sent the same thing out to multiple potential leakers. I'm 100% sure GW is sending out A/B copies to try to pin down leakers, which may be why you see some minor variation in details.

Edit: to clarify a bit on "non-codex". Forge World units that are currently for sale will be getting an update in some form. They will NOT be legal in the GT format but will be in other modes, at least for now. I haven't seen the rules personally but (mountain of salt here) what I've heard isn't good. If it's correct expect a phase-out similar to legends: one final bland and underwhelming update followed by neglect followed by officially ending rule support and discontinuing the product line once there's nobody left to care.

I would have thought power levels would be popular for casual games? I admit I've not actually got into 9th edition, despite best intentions, but I could certainly see myself always wanting to be using power levels for list building, instead of the old fashioned compiling and agonising over every 5pt option just for a friendly model smash.

I hope these EXTRA SUPER SATLY leaks above are right on the smaller game thing, I'd love to be able to play varied and viable 500pt games

RazorEdge wrote:
More focus on Tournament players would kill the game finally...

the other way around, tournament play was and is what keeps that game going

Yep. Tournament players are easily fooled to buy constantly new models to replace previous OP units with new ones. Perfect whales for GW. Guilliple targets for GW marketing team

as soon as the tournament scene would switch to a different game, or would stay with an edition and not advancing to the next one, 40k won't be the game everyone plays any more
so keeping them happy to prevent them from wandering of is an important part

10th Rumor Leaker wrote:
Some clarification for you:.

does not make a big difference
matched play has been the standard way to play since 2nd Edition, Narrative is nice but nothing that was really used without matched play (without rules for all armies it is nothing that you cannot do on your own or people have done in the past)

most people play tournament rules simply because the tournaments players are what keeps the game going the local communities/clubs
so tournament rules are always the standard for "public" play unless those are really bad, than even the TO ignore them and make their own

from all what we have had since 3rd Edition (or have seen during Warhammer Fantasy), the "different ways to play" are always just 1 way to play for pick-up games and public play in stores/clubs, and "closed" groups do their own thing anyway no matter what GW writes down


this just looks much like GW again copy other companies without understanding why they are doing it in the first place

 RustyNumber wrote:
I would have thought power levels would be popular for casual games? I admit I've not actually got into 9th edition, despite best intentions, but I could certainly see myself always wanting to be using power levels for list building, instead of the old fashioned compiling and agonising over every 5pt option just for a friendly model smash.

I hope these EXTRA SUPER SATLY leaks above are right on the smaller game thing, I'd love to be able to play varied and viable 500pt games

With how Kill Team supports pretty customized squads that don't necessarily translate into games of 40k GW would indeed do well to revisit Combat Patrol and offer a well thought out framework for small points games. It's better for people who like smaller games, it's better for beginners who don't have to worry about accumulating a larger collection to start out, and I dare say it's even good for GW's bottom line as small collections have a way of not staying small. GW should know this well enough, since that was the whole idea of getting people hooked with Start Collecting sets. If this is something 10th ed is actually going to provide, that's only a good thing.

On power level popularity, if AoS has proven anything it's that the pool of players who don't care much about a manufacturer-provided framework is a small minority among GW's potential customers. I should very much hope that having two mutually exclusive mechanics that aim to do the same thing while one is strictly inferior to the other should see players flock to the superior one. The only two reasons I can think of for GW to hold on to power levels are that the designers are in love with their creation no matter what anyone says*, or that my faith in people is grossly misplaced.


* The way things are going with wargear costs now they might just drop power levels and go with points, but take points far down the direction of power levels as a sort of compromise where they keep the functionality of their favored system but try to keep the better marketability of points.

 kodos wrote:
as soon as the tournament scene would switch to a different game, or would stay with an edition and not advancing to the next one, 40k won't be the game everyone plays any more
so keeping them happy to prevent them from wandering of is an important part

Maybe.
I think the problem is - and this applies to a lot of games - is that between "tournament players" and "casuals who maybe play once every 6 months to never" you've got a sector I'm going to call "Good old Boyz".

That is to say the people who show up in stores all over the world for games every weekend, every other weekend etc. Maybe they go to a tournament or two a year - but they are not really "tournament players".
These are people who fill out the lower ranks in League and Dota (or Starcraft, etc). They are the people doing mid-tier raiding content in MMOs etc.
If the LVO etc stopped happening but these people were still showing up in the stores every week 40k would carry on. The day they stop however the game is dead (sorry Warmachine). With that said, the reasons why no one was showing up for 40k tournaments would likely weigh on why people were not longer showing up in stores to play.

Legends is gone, "why are we supporting rules for stuff we don't sell" seems to be the attitude. I can't confirm it but supposedly someone was told that downloads for the rules are pretty much zero and it's not worth the effort to support so few users. Same thing with WD supplements and such, "why support something customers can't buy"? This is me extrapolating a bit here but if you see a WD supplement don't expect it to be valid for more than a month or two of casual games, GW seems to be treating them as disposable content. And, again, no tournament use for them.

Now this I'm curious about, does that mean that they just won't have rules for it AT ALL? So it's completely gone? I had felt they would be putting Firstborn into "Legends" but if Legends is going away, then that brings it into question.

. Forge World units that are currently for sale will be getting an update in some form. They will NOT be legal in the GT format but will be in other modes, at least for now.

Also this. They won't allow Forgeworld in GT games?? At all??

"Separate tournament game" is a misunderstanding. GW isn't making an entire separate game with different core rules, they aren't that stupid. This is just a minor shuffling of "three ways to play" into "four ways to play" to make it clear that tournament 40k is tournament 40k, not something you should be worrying about keeping up with if you're just playing games at your local store.

They technically already have that though with the GT packs, and people still treat the GT pack as being the same thing as Matched Play. I don't see how this would change that, you'd just see every pickup game default to using tournament play, so non-tournament matched play may as well be Open Play. Even my super casual local store, where we don't do competitive play at all, thought the GT packs were updates to the core rules and had to be used for games.

I don't believe for one minute that tournament play keeps anything alive. if anything it's just the loudest minority because it has people like FLG and big tournaments giving feedback, and a lot of content "creators" are also tournament players so have an audience. It just appears like it's the most prolific.

I'm all for improving the quality of 500pt Combat Patrol games. That's the original intended game scale for 40K after all, a couple of units and a few vehicles. Leave the larger scale games to Apoc, or better yet, upcoming Epic. Much more fun to collect a few Combat Patrols from various factions than just amassing a large single army IMO.

Not keen on seeing FW units get legended; Tarantula weapon batteries are a Space Marines staple unit. At least include them in 10th edition SM Codex FFS

Tournament play getting its own way to play feels right; In fact, shoulda been the case sooner. I'll still be into Open Play (even if that means that 80% of my Open Play games dtart with briefs such as "plays like a general Matched Play mission")

 tauist wrote:
I'm all for improving the quality of 500pt Combat Patrol games. That's the original intended game scale for 40K after all, a couple of units and a few vehicles. Leave the larger scale games to Apoc, or better yet, upcoming Epic.

Not keen on seeing FW units get legended; Tarantula weapon batteries are a Space Marines staple unit. At least include them in 10th edition SM Codex FFS

I'd love a plastic Tarantula kit.

They're a staple Imperium unit.

If they come out, they should be in basically everything but Sisters.

 Kanluwen wrote:
They're a staple Imperium unit.

If they come out, they should be in basically everything but Sisters.

Amen

I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

Cool, then we give them to Guard and AdMech.

Is the Tarantula a thing in the HH SM army list?

 Dysartes wrote:
Is the Tarantula a thing in the HH SM army list?

Legended, unfortunately. There's a feeling they will be phased out eventually, which makes me a sad panda. Always liked the bit of fluff about SM Scouts deploying in stealth, setting up concealed tarantulas in key positions just before a battle. Sounds to me exactly what a faction being heavily outnumbered would try to do. That half Drop Pod, half Bunker model is a redundant substitute, we already have Deathstorm Drop Pods, they dont fulfill the exact same role IMHO

 tauist wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Is the Tarantula a thing in the HH SM army list?

Legended, unfortunately. There's a feeling they will be phased out eventually, which makes me a sad panda. Always liked the bit of fluff about SM Scouts deploying in stealth, setting up concealed tarantulas in key positions just before a battle. Sounds to me exactly what a faction being heavily outnumbered would try to do. That half Drop Pod, half Bunker model is a redundant substitute, we already have Deathstorm Drop Pods, they dont fulfill the exact same role IMHO

They are in the Solar Auxilia army list in the Liber Imperium, interestingly. I guess they figured SA do Tarantulas, and Astartes do Deathstorm drop pods?

It's a weird complaint to be honest, as when I think "static defenses"?

I don't think Marines.

I do.