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Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






How do?

Topic came up following GW posting a significant increase in sales during lockdown. When discussing, it was mentioned that now is the time for them to plan ahead for when lockdowns are done (vaccines make that a when, rather than an if). I suggested promoting organised play would be one way to get things rolling again.

And then putting together a support pack of tournaments of any size (or indeed, different packs for different sizes) came to mind.

Not being experienced in organised play, figured it might make for an interesting topic.

Contents that spring to mind are a set mission pack (allowing for smaller venues to work together in a heats format), and even cardboard scenery to ensure some board consistency.

Wondered what you folk might suggest.

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

For reference, GW's 2019 Grand Tournament pack. I can't find one updated for the current edition.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Including two or three 'fixed' army lists for players to use in tournaments for a reasonable assumption of balance would be good.
   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

Nurglitch wrote:
Including two or three 'fixed' army lists for players to use in tournaments for a reasonable assumption of balance would be good.


Restrictions are fine, but telling players what list to play? Nope. List building is a big part of the game. Its one thing to see similar lists during a tourney, but to keep seeing exactly the same? No way.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I love list-building so much I built it into my Titanomachina game, but where the armies themselves are badly balanced internally, with a few must-have units and so much dross, all the competitive lists end up looking the same anyways. More to the point, there's no reason why a fixed-list format can't co-exist with an open or freestyle format, just as events run Narrative Play campaigns alongside competitive tournaments.
   
Made in us
Elite Tyranid Warrior






50/50 paint and battle points, death clock, no silly guide for terrain type/setup. Bizarre missions that you don't know about beforehand. Wysiwyg and no proxies. Allow everything and stop pretending the game is a good measure of skill. Also strict and clear requirements for what counts as painted and based. Break a rule then immediately lose the game no exceptions.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






Hm, a very good question. TBH I found the one in the most recent General's Handbook to be pretty good, so I think 'that but for 40k' would make a good number of people satisfied. I think a major direction I would like to see moving forward (particularly for 40k where the player base is larger) is packs for different types of tournaments. It would be cool to see a 'rigid' sort that really clamps down with structure (as much as it can, at least); armies get one detachment (and by extension, one codex), terrain rules mandate a certain amount of coverage and LoS blocking, secondary objectives are fixed by scenario. The sort of thing that would be oppressive to include in casual matched gaming but acts to both curb excess and shake up established meta for an event.

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I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






For terrain coverage in smaller “mates and invitees” types affair, I think they could do worth than include some basic, printed cardboard buildings.

They might not look like much, but it would be one day of helping ensure consistency, and generally desirable density of terrain, which strikes me as a hurdle that needs to be crossed.

They’re also relatively cheap to produce, certainly pennies compared to pounds.

After all, the more we play, the sooner we might grow bored of a given list or army and buy more...

   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

I've played in three 9th Ed local tournaments (we are on pause right now). Our TO used the Chapter Approved 2020 Grand Tournament Mission Pack with the recommended table sizes. I thought it worked just fine. We did not use the 10 points for being painted.

As for terrain, the Main Rule Book has helpful suggestions on what a "balanced" table looks like.

We have roughly five tournaments a year, with each having a theme. There is a Club Champs that is meant to have "hard" but also well-painted lists. We have a Secret Santa that is meant to be more laid-back and beginner-friendly. That tourney restricts Lords of War and FW. We have a Great Crusade where you have to have a named character as your warlord. Our tourneys do not feed into ITC scoring. During 8th we used home-brew missions much of the time for the tourneys. Shook things up, but it also slowed things down during set-up and I can't say that balance always benefited. I find that soft-scoring can lead to some shenanigans. I was a TO for our FOW/TY games and I noted a trend that led me to remove soft-scores but have a separate "category" for best-painted and best-sportsman. Best-sportsman with a small tourney turns into who was matched against their friends and who wasn't. Your mileage may vary.

All that to say, I don't think a TO can go wrong using the CA 2020 GT Mission Pack and use the MRB as a guide for terrain. Five pieces of Obscuring Terrain per table is a good start.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

MIssion packs are fie to use.

Though the Imp in me suggests that a GW Tourney pack would look like this:

"WG Tournament rule:..."

'Only rules labelled "GW Tournament rule" may be used'.


Anyhow, I would really like separate divisions for painted and non painted armies. With a bias toward painted.

   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






Every tournament I've been to requires everything to be painted, I always assumed that was the norm (for bigger events, at least). Just now I realize I have nothing outside personal experience to base that on.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Painting requirements are pretty standard in any tournament I've been to as well. What isn't standard is how TOs deal with people who don't comply with the standard. Usually they don't end up enforcing anything, probably to avoid any conflict. That's why, on balance, I prefer a system that rewards painting with tournament points similar to how the GT pack does it: a flat score for achieving a really easy standard.

Ideally, I'd have non-painted models/armies removed from the tournament but that doesn't seem to happen very often.
   
Made in us
Never Forget Isstvan!






The only thing GW can do to support tournaments is increase Prize Support. All the good tournaments are completely run by us regular joes that have enough time and resources to devout to putting one together.

They could for instance, make a few single print sculpts as prize's, or even offer people trip packages to fly out and visit their headquarters.


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Made in gb
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine




Eastern Fringe

Nurglitch wrote:
Including two or three 'fixed' army lists for players to use in tournaments for a reasonable assumption of balance would be good.


I think this might be the single worst suggestion I have ever seen on this site. For anything. Wow.

The first rule of unarmed combat is: don’t be unarmed. 
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Hollow wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:
Including two or three 'fixed' army lists for players to use in tournaments for a reasonable assumption of balance would be good.


I think this might be the single worst suggestion I have ever seen on this site. For anything. Wow.

I'm sorry you feel that way.
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





 Hollow wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:
Including two or three 'fixed' army lists for players to use in tournaments for a reasonable assumption of balance would be good.


I think this might be the single worst suggestion I have ever seen on this site. For anything. Wow.


Well if you want balance that's about only way. The moment you use points is the moment you forego any pretence of balance since balance isn't goal of points anyway nor can they ever do it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/13 06:10:08


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







The problem with "two or three" fixed army lists is pretty obvious. Either:

- You're expecting all of the players to actually field one of those two or three lists. Which is unrealistic when such a big deal is made about building customized forces.

- You're expecting those lists to be some sort of benchmark for what players are supposed to build to.

You may as well suggest the old school "play one game, swap armies, and play again" tournament rounds, and expect people to lend out their armies during those rounds.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





@solkan:

I think the notion was 2-3 lists per faction, but yes, I've noticed that the 'customized forces' thing seems to be the biggest objection, which is kind of weird to me considering how tournaments tend to feature, shall we say, 'similar' builds.
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Nurglitch wrote:
@solkan:

I think the notion was 2-3 lists per faction, but yes, I've noticed that the 'customized forces' thing seems to be the biggest objection, which is kind of weird to me considering how tournaments tend to feature, shall we say, 'similar' builds.



The problem with Tournaments is that there is no set thing. We talk about them as if they are a singular item, but in reality they range from the big international rare events down to the local hobby shop just doing an event which is mostly just the local gamers and not much else. Both extremes are tournaments, yet what you get at each end is going to be quite different and there's a myriad between them. Plus with the big ones we often focus in on the winning tables, whilst forgetting that often there are many who turn up with wild lists and such who are there just to have fun and might not be part of the meta and might not rank well to get noticed etc....



Also I'd note that there's a difference between there being a meta people choose to follow and being mandated to build certain lists only.
Especially when this is a hobby that has a huge part of hobby time as part of the attraction. Yes the top players might well use comission services and secondhand models to fast build armies to stick with the current meta, that is their choice in the matter. It would be entirely different if they could only use specific lists. If anything if GW tried it people would get VERY hostile toward it as they'd see it as just GW trying to boost sales on models that don't sell well and such (oh look the Imperial list has 3 of that tank no one likes the stats on). To say nothing of the fact that GW have always had a casual air to balance so having them pre-write lists wouldn't solve any imbalance issues.





Personally I think the only area that pre-defined aspects could be good on would be terrain and table setup. That at least might encourage events to use denser terrain features and if the packs were made more accessible to small events then that would trickle down to the home tables too (eventually). Many a time we heard of people lamenting the power or ranged armies only to find that part of the issue is there's almost no blocking terrain on the board - the ranged army thus has full impunity to fire without barriers. Warcry I think made some great moves on this front with their pre-designed boards as part of the game. Even though its totally optional it encourages two good things

1) Fast setup and diverse terrain for gamers
2) Sales for GW terrain packs .

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

Two or three fixed army lists is a terrbile idea.

I like the concept of having fixed lists though, but there should be 30ish of them, not just a couple. One for each player at least, randomly selected, and switched every game.

In practise it's utopia as the TOs would need a huge amount of updated and painted miniatures, plus all the books, to lend to the players, which is unreasonable.

Letting strangers play with people's own armies is also unreasonable.

 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





@Overread: Yes, but in this case we're talking specifically about GW Tournament support packs right, not DIY or homebrew formats?
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Nurglitch wrote:
@Overread: Yes, but in this case we're talking specifically about GW Tournament support packs right, not DIY or homebrew formats?



Aye but my point is that even those packs will support events of varying sizes and influence. From big events to smaller ones.

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Yes, and so why not have different packs for different sizes and flavours of tournament? As mentioned, GW has multiple formats for 40k. Multiple formats for events with likewise various formats for event support packs seems like the way to go. For competitive events providing army lists, or a short list of army lists, seems like a great idea from the standpoint of preventing cheating, putting everyone on a level playing field, and making the judging of soft-scores easier; it makes it about player skill rather who managed to bring the winning list (and likewise by taking list-building out of the equation means we can forget about lists and concentrate on skills and games).

As for GW putting in new units that everyone has to buy, we kinda already have that with the meta, so...?
   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

Nurglitch wrote:
Yes, and so why not have different packs for different sizes and flavours of tournament? As mentioned, GW has multiple formats for 40k. Multiple formats for events with likewise various formats for event support packs seems like the way to go. For competitive events providing army lists, or a short list of army lists, seems like a great idea from the standpoint of preventing cheating, putting everyone on a level playing field, and making the judging of soft-scores easier; it makes it about player skill rather who managed to bring the winning list (and likewise by taking list-building out of the equation means we can forget about lists and concentrate on skills and games).

As for GW putting in new units that everyone has to buy, we kinda already have that with the meta, so...?


Fixed lists just goes against a huge part of the 40K hobby - list building is part of the fun. What cheating are you trying to stop? How many tourneys do you go to?

Tourneys putting in restrictions to mix things up? Sure. We do so locally for certain events. Just as long as you recognize that by doing so you are tilting the table (even when you don't think you are).

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I used to go to all the local 40k tourneys in the Halifax area organized by Roll the Initiative gaming up until about the summer of 2019, before the end of 8th edition. But hey, you have a very good point: I no longer play so it's not something I should discuss anymore. Please feel free to ignore my posts.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/04/15 19:02:17


 
   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

Nurglitch wrote:
I used to go to all the local 40k tourneys in the Halifax area organized by Roll the Initiative gaming up until about the summer of 2019, before the end of 8th edition. But hey, you have a very good point: I no longer play so it's not something I should discuss anymore. Please feel free to ignore my posts.


Was simply wondering if you were talking about specific instances of cheating/list behaviour or if this was hypothetical musing. Apologies.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
 
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