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Results here: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/10/12/itc-2015-season-3rd-quarter-update-poll-results/



Not a ton to vote on this quarter as we’ve had the Summer of Sigmar for most of the past quarter. Going off of the rules submission questionnaire, we got a lot of feedback but covering a very broad spectrum of topics, but there were not many topics that came up frequently. The only persistent issues brought up were those below.

Thank you as always for voting and making the ITC what it is!

Any chance you review cta allies before lvo?

I just voted for this, and what is the point of the last question, as far as I can tell it doesn't effect the big stars ( which I think are at an acceptable level with the current itc changes).

Anyways looking forward to lvo. With bfs this weekend itc season officially starts on the east cost this monday!!! Looking forward to jumping back into the format.

Once again no flying MC and gargantuan "toe in cover" question. Sad days. :(

The FAQ heavily impacts the game.

Great, ITC has already forced me to shelve two of my previous tournament lists with their "rulings" and if the Space Marine "ruling" gets voted in that will be a 3rd list I have to shelve....after getting to use it in 1 event.

I would love to see daemons get reigned in some.

@Krootman

It was the most commonly brought up issue among ITC participants this go around. However, the only way to implement it without creating a new rule for the other books was to apply it only to Marines.

@Niv-Mizzet

No one brought it up in our questionnaire. If you'd like to see a rule addressed, bring it to our attention through the channels we provide. If no one mentions it, we don't address it.

I completely agree on a personal level though, that GCs should not get the toe in cover save.

@Gardeth

Great, our "mission" to ruin your personal "experience" with "40k" is succeeding! Muahahaha!!

I kid, of course. This issue was the most commonly brought up, probably because folks don't like playing against the Super Friends stars in the game. Instead of directing your displeasure at the ITC for doing what the majority of their attendees want, perhaps consider the fact that an army build may not be very fun for most folks to play against. You may disagree of course, which is your prerogative, but please remember we don't pick topics at random but based off of player feedback.

It sucks when your list gets invalidated (my Necron list got invalidated with the last poll, I get it) but compromise is what the ITC is all about. We play the style of game the majority of attendees want to play. Sometimes that means we get things our way, sometimes we don't.

@Dozer

In what way?

I voted based off what I encountered at NOVA and wouldnt want to see at an ITC event. I cant make it to your next LVO because the Navy has my soul at that time, but I definitely hope to make it eventually and to other ITC events as well.

That is a great question !

1) Summoned daemons should not count as objective secured.

2) Limit the number of FMC they can field such as how you have proposed limiting the Stormsurge for Tau.

3) Staff of Tomorrow should not work when Fateweaver is off the table.

These are just three things that immediately come to mind off the top of my head. Maybe providing forms for daemon players to fill out in front of their opponents when rolling for psychic powers, gifts and rewards would help too.

I hope you will take the next part of what I have to say as constructive criticism - I do not like the following rule mods in the ITC faq...

1) Nerf to Invisibility

I remember this year at LVO knowing that there would be Lynxes. Invisibility has its place in the game with ranged D (even with nerfs). It is not only for deathstars.

2) Limiting the number of psychic powers a psyker can cast per turn to their mastery level - this is a super nerf to things like seer council and librarius conclave.

2) Re roll save is reduced to 4+/4++. This basically shuts down Ravenwing which is the best thing to come along for Dark Angel players in almost a decade. We know it is the intention of the development team because of the special rule for Ravenwing.

Now you want to nerf super friends... Reecius there are lots of armies that people say are unfun - that is not necessarily a good basis and you will never make everybody help in this regard. The inclusion of SHW and GC greatly reigns in super friends - just watch the new Long War batrep pitting super friends versus an IK army and you will see.

Im curious why you'd request to limit the number of FMC's Daemons have. (I dont see the correlation between an FMC and a potential squadron of GMC)

Mostly for the same reason why Reecius has suggested nerfing super friends.

Ah, reads clearer now with an obstinate tone than with a productive one.

Flying circus in one of the most unfun armies to play against IMO - most armies do not have a lot of skyfire... sure this could change with the soon to release new Tau codex. It is hard to counter for most armies and typically the FMCs will always get two saves when you are able to wound them. So if we are making decisions bases upon what is unfun to play this is something to consider.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
That is a great question !

1) Summoned daemons should not count as objective secured.

2) Limit the number of FMC they can field such as how you have proposed limiting the Stormsurge for Tau.

3) Staff of Tomorrow should not work when Fateweaver is off the table.

These are just three things that immediately come to mind off the top of my head. Maybe providing forms for daemon players to fill out in front of their opponents when rolling for psychic powers, gifts and rewards would help too.

I hope you will take the next part of what I have to say as constructive criticism - I do not like the following rule mods in the ITC faq...

1) Nerf to Invisibility

I remember this year at LVO knowing that there would be Lynxes. Invisibility has its place in the game with ranged D (even with nerfs). It is not only for deathstars.

2) Limiting the number of psychic powers a psyker can cast per turn to their mastery level - this is a super nerf to things like seer council and librarius conclave.

2) Re roll save is reduced to 4+/4++. This basically shuts down Ravenwing which is the best thing to come along for Dark Angel players in almost a decade. We know it is the intention of the development team because of the special rule for Ravenwing.

Now you want to nerf super friends... Reecius there are lots of armies that people say are unfun - that is not necessarily a good basis and you will never make everybody help in this regard. The inclusion of SHW and GC greatly reigns in super friends - just watch the new Long War batrep pitting super friends versus an IK army and you will see.

Part I

1) Never were ObSec. in the ITC.

2) I don't like arbitrary nerfs. Next thing you know, there's going to be a limit on how many characters can join a unit, how many centurions you can run in a unit, how many flyrants you can take or how many black knights you can take just because these units aren't fun to play against. I don't suggest they go down that road.

3) This request is reasonable.

Part II

1) Allowing full Invisibility just encourages the deathstars and LoW's even more. It is deathstars being potentially hit by d-weapons that keeps them in check. Unrestrict it and we will go back to Deathstar40K and Escalation40K, as evidenced at NOVA and the more recent No Mercy GT (well, NOVA didn't allow LoW's, but you get the picture).

2) Again, unrestricting psychic limitations serve mainly to encourage deathstars. Allowing a deathstar to be able to cast multiple Invisibilities or up to 5 Shrieks only serve to make them more popular. Again, I believe the ITC is trying to move away from the crazy deathstar armies. People are already complaining about them now. Wait til they play against unrestricted deathstars and I guarantee you the ITC will lose a large number of their player-base.

3) I believe you mean 2+/4+ and not 4+/4+. Well, a 2+/4+ is still really, really good. 2+/2+ is just plain broken. Period. That mechanism shouldn't even be in the game. It's bad enough that even 1 unit can have it, but with Ravenwing, you're talking about potentially the entire army with re-rollable 2+'s!

I would like to see an expanded number of poll questions, but I understand that this is merely an update and not an overhaul. Looking forward to additional polls in the future.

I voted to allow experimental rules from Forge World in the game. In the grand sense of things, most of these are not ridiculously overpowered, just somewhat undercosted in a few cases.

Gargantuan creatures should stay a 0-1 limit for armies. Even in the case of the Stormsurge, as I can see multiples of that thing putting out obscene levels of firepower and being incredibly obnoxious in CC.

Super Friends and Battle Brothers shenanigans needs to be toned down. Forcing all loyalist MEQ armies to play by the same rules sounds like a good way to do this.

Super Friends and Battle Brothers shenanigans needs to be toned down. Forcing all loyalist MEQ armies to play by the same rules sounds like a good way to do this.

Actually my biggest issue with the superfriends Battle brothers Vote is that it "Only" hurts the Space marine Codex and its Chapter tactics special rules.. not the other way around. DA/BA/SW and to a lesser extent GK still retain there special rules.

RAW!!!!

That is all.

ITC never did anything to curtail death stars like beastar. Like jy2 said this seems very arbitrary to the casual on observer.

Black Blow Fly is the new Blackmoor.

It won't be that easy. A lot of people are upset.

Well than spend your time planning your anything goes convention instead of harassing everyone on any ITC thread that come up. I suppose if you just have the one drum you have to beat it pretty loudly.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
RAW!!!!

That is all.

Pure RAW is poison to the industry. Now there is a minority who enjoy it, but the life blood of the industry - the more casual players - won't (or they just play it wrong/with houserules). The rules are just as important as the models. If GW were to make bad or ugly models, you can bet their business is going to go down. Don't think it is any different with bad, unbalanced rules. I'd bet you that if it wasn't for the efforts of Frontline and the ITC, the competitive gaming scene would be dying in most of the US. But because of their "house-rules" and promotional efforts, there is actually a mini-renaissance in the competitive gaming scene.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
ITC never did anything to curtail death stars like beastar. Like jy2 said this seems very arbitrary to the casual on observer.

I was not aware that there was still such a thing as the beaststar.

ITC is willing to make modifications to certain rulesets if the complaint is loud enough. However, in my opinion, I don't think any one army is bad enough to warrant nerfing. Rather, I believe it is some of the game mechanics that need fixing and coincidentally enough, the really broken armies are the ones that abuse the heck out of these game mechanics the most. In short, I am for changing the broken game mechanics because it affects every army that tries to abuse it equally. What I do not stand for is nerfs that specifically target a particular army because that there is anti-favoritism. Why are my very strong units targeted and not yours? You're opening up a can of worms by doing so.

 jy2 wrote:
However, in my opinion, I don't think any one army is bad enough to warrant nerfing.

Funny, I remember you coming to the opposite conclusion in your Tyranid thread's guide to Eldar.

In all seriousness, these changes do affect Eldar heavily, but only in the sense that Eldar have access to all of the most broken mechanics in the game. Eldar are limited by the nerfs to Invisibility, 2+ re-rollable, psychic Mastery Levels, Ranged D and assault D, and stomps and limits to GCs.

Don't get me wrong, these are necessary to keep Eldar from dominating literally every event and the restrictions should stay. But there's plenty more that can be done to tone down some of the other obnoxious mechanics out there, like Super Friends and allies shenanigans.

 jy2 wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
RAW!!!!

That is all.

Pure RAW is poison to the industry. Now there is a minority who enjoy it, but the life blood of the industry - the more casual players - won't (or they just play it wrong/with houserules). The rules are just as important as the models. If GW were to make bad or ugly models, you can bet their business is going to go down. Don't think it is any different with bad, unbalanced rules. I'd bet you that if it wasn't for the efforts of Frontline and the ITC, the competitive gaming scene would be dying in most of the US. But because of their "house-rules" and promotional efforts, there is actually a mini-renaissance in the competitive gaming scene.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
ITC never did anything to curtail death stars like beastar. Like jy2 said this seems very arbitrary to the casual on observer.

I was not aware that there was still such a thing as the beaststar.

ITC is willing to make modifications to certain rulesets if the complaint is loud enough. However, in my opinion, I don't think any one army is bad enough to warrant nerfing. Rather, I believe it is some of the game mechanics that need fixing and coincidentally enough, the really broken armies are the ones that abuse the heck out of these game mechanics the most. In short, I am for changing the broken game mechanics because it affects every army that tries to abuse it equally. What I do not stand for is nerfs that specifically target a particular army because that there is anti-favoritism. Why are my very strong units targeted and not yours? You're opening up a can of worms by doing so.

Hey Jy I should have added a sarcasm emoticon, or orkmoticon. You don't know me that well, I don't advocate pure RAW. I would like some things played closer to RAW but I'm not crazy enough to think the pure game can be played competitively.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
However, in my opinion, I don't think any one army is bad enough to warrant nerfing.

Funny, I remember you coming to the opposite conclusion in your Tyranid thread's guide to Eldar.

In all seriousness, these changes do affect Eldar heavily, but only in the sense that Eldar have access to all of the most broken mechanics in the game. Eldar are limited by the nerfs to Invisibility, 2+ re-rollable, psychic Mastery Levels, Ranged D and assault D, and stomps and limits to GCs.

Don't get me wrong, these are necessary to keep Eldar from dominating literally every event and the restrictions should stay. But there's plenty more that can be done to tone down some of the other obnoxious mechanics out there, like Super Friends and allies shenanigans.

Eldar is strong because they can abuse the heck out of the core mechanics. They are the only army that can spam the D. They also abuse the heck out of re-rollable saves (Fortune + Conceal or Protect) and Invisibility (more psychic dice, casting powers on 3+ with re-rolls). The "nerfs" to their armies aren't actually targeted directly at them, but rather at the mechanics they abuse. However, despite even the nerfs to these basic mechanics, the Eldar are still thriving in tournament play and are still super-strong. They are good enough that they don't need to rely on the crutch of broken mechanics to dominate.

These "modified" rules changes also help to curtail other deathstars. They don't unfairly target Eldar (well, maybe they do in the sense that Eldar is the army that abuses them the most). Rather, they target all armies and all deathstars. Those types of rules changes I can live with. What I don't like is a rules change like this - scatterbikes are too good so let's limit them to 1 scatter laser per 3 bikes (this actually almost happened but thank goodness it got voted down in an ITC poll!).

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Hey Jy I should have added a sarcasm emoticon, or orkmoticon. You don't know me that well, I don't advocate pure RAW. I would like some things played closer to RAW but I'm not crazy enough to think the pure game can be played competitively.

Cool. No prob.

@reeces
So I'm still trying to figure out what lists the sm change effects.
I mean it doesn't take away wolf star hit and run, and it wont take away fnp from anyone. I guess if you build around scars for hit and run it will take that away...but because gks are not included you could run cent star with gk/ ws and still get hit and run.

Its not a big deal either way, I'm just confused :/

Seriously tho you can't keep dodging my question about cta allies!!!! WE WILL BE HEARD!!!!!!

I would like to share this article I found online for the discussion:

http://www.spikeybits.com/2015/10/are-we-even-playing-40k-at-tournaments-anymore.html

(warning: long post by someone bored at work)

Personally, I voted for the RAW reading as closely as possible for question 1 and 3, and for 2, as a fan of model diversity, I’d like to see more forgeworld units brought into the game. This one specifically has the chance to open more lists that help counter some of the power builds.

Should we strive for pure 40K though? I do not think so. It seems logical to assume that the more power builds there are, the more checks and balances on other power builds will exist. What this doesn’t take into consideration is that some codexes (and therefore players) are a bit out of luck if their chosen army does not meet that standard. Going to a purer 40k does little to nothing to strengthen weak armies, and it seems to more drastically favor the strongest armies. How does a non-nerfed D help Orks? How does it help Sisters? How does it help DE? At least Sisters and DE can ally in stronger armies, but Orks are a bit out of luck there.
Sure, non-nerfed invisibility gives chaos marines more pop, but then it is a wash against superfriends, seer council, and everyone else who already uses invisibility. As pointed out the article linked by Dozerblades, flyrant spam is weak against invisible stars, so un-nerfed invisbility just pushes tyranids down the totem pole without giving them much back, save for maybe the Harridan, but then Grav still hurts a Harridan, and a Harridan will have to land to deal with an invisible star which means its 200 extra points in cost for being a FGMC is negated. I’d wager on a wolfstar taking out a Harridan in CC.

Yep, ITC is not pure 40k, and the Frontline team does make changes that they feel benefits the largest number of would be players, but I think the fact that the ITC allows voting shows more of the community policing itself than an organizer saying: “This is how it will be done by implementing my design philosophy”. Rather than simply state: “Instead of FAQing and changing the game every month or quarter, how about we play the game as it was designed and police the events by using the hobby scores that actually matter?” , ITC at least allows player input so players are actually participating in events that they had a hand in crafting, and to me, that sounds like a better way to approach this. Even if an organizer is changing nothing, allowing unbound, apoc formations, or what have you, what about the blatant rule gaps? Do you just default to the Jervis 4+ whenever it comes up?
I greatly enjoy this game, but a reasoned analysis of the rules shows some holes that do need addressing, and while others are certainly free to think and play differently, I do not find that the roll-off is an elegant mechanic for addressing these problems. This also does not address that if we use pure 40k, we need mysterious objectives and maelstrom cards, and while I’m certainly not against either, it does slow the game down and from a tournament perspective, this makes the logistics of a large (or even smaller RTT) tournament more of a headache for all involved.

And hobby scores are great in theory, but if the purpose of it is to actually allow non-power builds a chance to score higher or even place in a competitive event, then I do not think it is all that effective. Most of the top players that I see either paint quite well or hire talented painters. A super-friends list that is well-painted/converted will negate the advantage that a pure harlequin army that is also well-painted/converted possesses. If by hobby scores we mean composition scores where a tournament rewards non-competitive builds, then how is this closer to pure 40k? Who decides what is too competitive? My Baronial Court is fluffy, and Battle-Company is fluffy, but would these be considered too competitive?

What about sportsmanship? It is an incredibly subjective mechanic, and when you give a player the opportunity to directly impact another player’s score, you open the whole thing to abuse. Even without abuse, if everyone scores everyone else a 4 (or 6 or whatever), then it is a wash to begin with and these scores add little. Not to mention, most top-end players I have met or played against are generally nice enough folk, so they are going to get their soft scores and still will be beat most other players. Again, it is a bit of a wash.

It is admirable goal to take 40k and turn it into a streamlined, competitive system that also allows for a wide range of army diversity, but playing 40k “the way it was designed” does not do that. Pure 40k rewards newer books that have access to specific and poorly designed mechanics like invisibility, numerous allies, and ranged D. It is a flawed rule system, but it is a fun system, and for me, ITC makes it more fun. NOVA and other formats have wonderful perks as well, but I do not see “pure 40k” as being a positive play experience in any kind of competitive setting. Beers and pizza with my boys? Sure. Driving 6 hours to play 6 random people? Not so much.

Anyway, boredom at works leads to long posts I guess. Just my dos centavos, and I’m sure they’re worth less than that to most.

Well said, lemurking.