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I am a TO for 40K , so this is not an unabashed anti GW rant. Formations are awful , I`ve seen first hand how players without any knowledge of tactics , lists , target priority etc. can show up and win with a net list. GW doesn't even play test individual units, never mind how they work in concert with each other. I hope GW does AOS 40K with war scrolls and no points. That way the gaming community can come up with their own point system , free rules , free war scrolls. I`m not complaining -- less money on rule books means more money for minis. Look at the good work Dakka members are doing here in regard to points and a few rules tweaks. I can`t wait to try out a streamlined rule system with the points system from guys here combined with the war scrolls.

40K has become less and less about tactics and more and more about running the most broken combinations to beak the game. A 10 year old could show up with a net list formation and do well. Mind you this is coming for a guy with thousands of dollars invested in it and truly loves the fluff and minis.

Horrible game mechanics:
1: Summoning
2: 2 up rerollable
3: Allies is an excuse for abuse never mind CTA --- whatever my army is missing let`s take Tau
4: Physic phase takes too long and is too OP

So many others...... Come on GW -- AOS 40K!!

First thing you have to understand is 40k is not a good tournament game. Your trying to pound the square peg in the round hole. Never was meant to be played in tournaments and never will be. It is a good game with a group of friends who think alike.

"This is not a rant"

-----> proceed to rant.


Yeah, the net-decks... I mean net-lists are crazy for that. As a TO though, you have the option of just saying "no formations". It's your tournament - run it how you want! I agree with you that formations are not good for casual games, but for tournaments I think formations are just another layer of the OP-cake, and if you took them away, then something else becomes equally as broken.

My tournaments are waaaay toned down to encourage the average guy to come out and play. Our guys that come out are not WAAC in any way. We have a great mix. Our events are more of a gathering to get in 3 games with different people make new friends and have fun. Most of the WAAC guys won`t come to our events. Unfortunately with 40K as is the guys from my own club won`t even play anymore for a weekly gaming. I`m talking guys playing since 2nd with tons of money invested. I

 Chute82 wrote:
First thing you have to understand is 40k is not a good tournament game. Your trying to pound the square peg in the round hole. Never was meant to be played in tournaments and never will be. It is a good game with a group of friends who think alike.

4th and 5th edition 40k would disagree with you there...

Not an anti GW rant , if it was I wouldn`t mention the positive . Being my affinity for the fluff and minis.

Even 4th and 5th were only "tournament good" compared to editions that came before and after. It's never really been intended in that application, however.

I honestly have a lot more fun doing things like campaigns and coming up with some kind of back story than tournament play. people seem to get to serious about the game when there is a prize.

Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

I still think the game would be a thousand times more tourney-friendly if formations were banned, and maybe have allies -have- to take an allied detachment. No CAD's or special detachments without being the primary army, unless like assassins etc they can't fill an allied detachment foc.

would it be perfect? No. There's a few more things that need to be fixed like having summoning require the caster to upkeep the unit with the same amount of warp dice used to summon them every round, getting rid of toe-in-cover benefits for mc/gc's, maybe reign in the scatbikes a bit etc. but I think it would be a real breath of fresh air to the tourney scene. I'm pretty tired of going through 2 day events seeing nothing but eldar CAD's, necron decurions, and a few of the new "all the free points you can handle" formations. Im even playing one of them and I think it's BS.

Just keep reminding yourself:
Game Workshop exists to sell over-priced miniatures, nothing more.

Once you accept that the company does not exist to create Rules designed for Tournaments, or any coherent Rules for the game what-so-ever, it becomes a lot easier to accept their flaws. As it is your tournament, there is nothing preventing you from putting anything you believe is needed to 'balance' the game into play. Just post a complete list of Rule changes and other 'fixes' somewhere where your players will see them, so they can make an informed decision if they wish to take part in your tournament and abide by them.

Niv I couldn`t agree with your more.

 Psienesis wrote:
Even 4th and 5th were only "tournament good" compared to editions that came before and after. It's never really been intended in that application, however.

But GW itself organised tournaments at one point...

As a game I cannot find fault with it right now.

So many solid releases to date since 7th dropped. I remember my armies languishing in the 4th-5th-6th edition torpor of old models, old books, old everything.

As a game for balanced, competitive play, ok you got me there, but as mentioned there's a lot you have control over as a TO.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Even 4th and 5th were only "tournament good" compared to editions that came before and after. It's never really been intended in that application, however.

But GW itself organised tournaments at one point...

And went on record saying it was a mistake, as were "equal points, straight-up non-scenario battle-reports" in the White Dwarf.

Jervis Johnson in the 90s or so wrote:So, something clearly needs to be done to teach players that tournament style play has its place, but it is a place well down in the pecking order of what constitutes a really good game.

Aren't you a TO? House rule that shizzle! Seriously, with the ITC, NOVA, and BAO formats openly available, there's no excuse not to either use one of them or make your own house rules.

While there are some good ideas in Age of Sigmar, the ruleset is not one of them. Just ask the people who used to play Fantasy in their board section.

You say you don't like formations, but argue in favor of throwing out points and army construction altogether. Formations are a fundamental part of the game now, and not all formations are created equal. Sure, there are some specific formations that could arguably be banned (Canoptek Harvest, War Conclave, Demi-Company) but for the most part formations have given people a reason to take units that were previously considered sub-optimal.

Here's some fixes for those broken mechanics:
1. Put a limit on how many units can be summoned each turn. Also, specify FMC's start on the ground.
2. Change 2+ re-rollable to 2+/4+.
3. Ban CtA allies, put limits on how many allies one can take.
4. Put a cap on the number of warp charges that can be generated per turn. My vote is 10-12.

You said you were a TO; in tournament play, the rules are at your disposal. If you want a more tournament-friendly ruleset, just make one. GW certainly won't.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
First thing you have to understand is 40k is not a good tournament game. Your trying to pound the square peg in the round hole. Never was meant to be played in tournaments and never will be. It is a good game with a group of friends who think alike.

4th and 5th edition 40k would disagree with you there...

And considering that the tournament scene is absolutely exploding right now...

formations are not the major problem. take them away and crap would still ensue.

And what about armies like harlequins? take away formations and you will need to create a FOC for them.

We're actually boycotting a local TO for that exact reason. He insists on requiring the old FOC, and to harlequin players he says 'screw you'. So, with so many alternative events popping up left and right thanks to the ITC, we'll just go elsewhere.

Wonderwolf wrote:

Jervis Johnson in the 90s or so wrote:So, something clearly needs to be done to teach players that tournament style play has its place, but it is a place well down in the pecking order of what constitutes a really good game.

I rather suspect that people who enjoy tournament-style play would disagree...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkLink wrote:
We're actually boycotting a local TO for that exact reason. He insists on requiring the old FOC, and to harlequin players he says 'screw you'. So, with so many alternative events popping up left and right thanks to the ITC, we'll just go elsewhere.

This is the danger faced by TOs who take it on themselves to alter the rules. However much people may decry the current state of the rules, there is a chunk of the player base who will steadfastly resist any change imposed on it by anything other than the game's own publisher. Any attempt to tweak the game to make it better is met with the insistence that this modified game 'isn't really Warhammer 40K anymore...'

This, despite the fact that the idea that the rules are ultimately all negotiable is one of the central tenets of the game.


It helps, of course, if a TO has a fairly constant crowd who attend their events, as this then means that discussion is possible to establish what most of those players want, and what changes they'll find acceptable.

Jervis Johnson wrote:Stop liking things that I dont like or you cant play with my games!

Edit: At next post: It wouldn't say its a Lets bash GW thread and more a why is GW so hell bent on never balancing there game.

The answer seems to be strong personality at the top deciding that how they play is more important than how everyone else plays, profits be damned.

Yet another "Let's bash GW" thread.
In4b the close

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Hrm, it's apparent the dissatisfaction is at an all time high. There's always rumblings, but never quite at the pace we've been seeing. In my own experience, there's fewer people playing now than in 6th and far less than at the height of 5th (our last tournament at my local got 10 people, when we used to routinely pull in 20+ in 2010), and that's having played in multiple different metro areas for years. GW's inflation-adjusted revenue trending downward for the last 11 years (down almost 50% from its peak), at least the last time I saw financials, is a rather clear indication that there's fewer people playing GW stuff in general, particularly when coupled with vastly increased prices.

Simply hand-waving it away as all small minorities of angry internet nerds would seem to have little evidence, particularly when GW has also just been forced to totally reboot another system to keep it alive.

But if Jervis Johnson said something 30 years ago, it must be true and taken as gospel!

 Blacksails wrote:
But if Jervis Johnson said something 30 years ago, it must be true and taken as gospel!

So then the Lord Jervis, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into upper management and sat down at the right hand of Kirby.

There's been no indication of a change in philosophy since Jervis wrote that, so, yeah, actually, it should be taken as truth.

 Psienesis wrote:
There's been no indication of a change in philosophy since Jervis wrote that, so, yeah, actually, it should be taken as truth.

Except for all the editions that tightened up the rules to be more tournament friendly and all the official GW run tournaments.

I haven't played in a single 40k event but what is so bad about "tournament mentality"? Having a clear ruleset that allows games being completed within a reasonable time frame seems good for everyone. If anything the whole "you can just house rule it" makes everything worse. GW has no incentive to fix anything cause' "the golden rule". I'm no professional game designer and I'm not being payed to fix a broken product. It's like gw wants me to be a flashgit.

The thing is, to a certain extent Jervis isn't wrong. 40K was designed to be a fun little game played with friends over a beer. And that's the sort of game that he wanted to write, and that he wanted to promote.

And that's fine... right up until it isn't.

Because at the end of the day, 40K is a commercial product, and needs to adapt to what the customers actually want if it is going to remain successful. GW acknowledged this by introducing tournament support, although they tried keeping things lighter and fluffier by introducing 'soft' scores into the mix. 'Ard Boys was an acknowledgement that this light and fluffy approach wasn't for everybody... and for a time, GW were offering a product that, while not perfect, at least seemed to be trying to cater to everybody.


And then sometime during 5th edition, they appear to have decided that this was all a mistake, and that they needed to wind the clock back to when 40K was just a fun game for playing with your friends.

Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you have market research showing that this is what the majority of customers want... and a much riskier thing to do if you do no market research and are just guessing about what those customers want.

And I think we're seeing what happens when that risk doesn't pay off...