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From my viewpoint as a non-competition, UK based player, the comp, theme and paint scores in the US are complicated, hard work for players and judges, and often introduce other problems like a metagame about optimising comp vs power, or collusion/threats between players (especially sports.)

A number of very detailed comp scoring schemes have been posted on Dakka. In every case, someone breaks them very quickly and demonstrates how one army or another is unfairly penalised or benefitted.

I don’t really understand what theme is, to be honest.

That goes back to the players not wanting to vote someone "down" for whateve reason. Because you know them, or you just don't want to be that person, etc.

Or because you'll get voted down out of spite by your opponent.

I'm also not sure about the WC hating. There are several members in Colorado and I always have good games when playing against them. I have met a few others that I didn't like as much, but you can't knock a whole group for 1 or two people.

I don't know who they are really, but I've seen them accused of modeling for an advantage, pressuring opponents into giving them good scores and threatening to wreck theirs if they don't, outright cheating, etc.

The most controversial case is the 'Ard Boyz winner who apparently forgot how to play daemons in the last match, and purposely used smaller bases on units that scatter.

I don't think they really encourage this kind of thing, so yeah, it's stupid to label the entire club based on a few members. Especially considering the size of it, if there are really members all across the nation then it's kinda hard to root out the bad ones, if there are any.

And to be honest I really do not think that a nob biker list is themed or fluffy at all. Don't get me wrong it was a VERY nicely painted army, everything was converted and it looked good on the table. But it in no way shape or form fits into the fluff for orks. That's my personal viewpoint not anyone elses.

...uh, why? Are you one of those people who think the only "fluffy" or themed Ork list is a list that's full of boyz and a warboss/mekboy (which also happens to be one of the "powerlists" at tournaments)?

I want to know why exactly you think an all biker army isn't fluffy, especially when you consider that there's a named character in the codex that allows you to specifically field an entire army of them. Just for gaks and giggles I'd like someone to also explain why all bikes/speeders Marine armies are "fluffy" and all bikers/coptas Ork armies aren't.

Kilkrazy wrote:I don’t really understand what theme is, to be honest.

What theme is, or what it's supposed to be?

Theme is supposed to interpret how well a given army list "fits" into the structure of the 40k universe, as presented by GW. You instantly run into problems, of course, because a) it's a FREAKIN' HUGE universe; b) the rules don't follow the fluff (Space Marines would be a hell of a lot more expensive, and nigh-invulnerable); and c) it's a moving target (Khorne and Slaanesh hate each other!/Khorne and Slaanesh get together for tea and scones).

That said, there are at least some gross constants, which make sense to apply in a team-style setting, as far as which armies would work together.

Largely, theme is ACTUALLY judged by someone looking at the army, and subjectively deciding whether that army "makes sense" on the tabletop, based on what they know of the fluff.

Sidstyler wrote:

And to be honest I really do not think that a nob biker list is themed or fluffy at all. Don't get me wrong it was a VERY nicely painted army, everything was converted and it looked good on the table. But it in no way shape or form fits into the fluff for orks. That's my personal viewpoint not anyone elses.

...uh, why? Are you one of those people who think the only "fluffy" or themed Ork list is a list that's full of boyz and a warboss/mekboy (which also happens to be one of the "powerlists" at tournaments)?

I want to know why exactly you think an all biker army isn't fluffy, especially when you consider that there's a named character in the codex that allows you to specifically field an entire army of them. Just for gaks and giggles I'd like someone to also explain why all bikes/speeders Marine armies are "fluffy" and all bikers/coptas Ork armies aren't.

My subjective interpretation of the fluff: ork all-biker armies are fine. Ork all-Nob biker armies are a bit less so, as dem Nobs done forgot to bring all o' der boyz, and wut gud izit to be da Nob, iffin you don't got sum boyz to bring to da crumpin?

Janthkin wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I don’t really understand what theme is, to be honest.

What theme is, or what it's supposed to be?

Theme is supposed to interpret how well a given army list "fits" into the structure of the 40k universe, as presented by GW. You instantly run into problems, of course, because a) it's a FREAKIN' HUGE universe; b) the rules don't follow the fluff (Space Marines would be a hell of a lot more expensive, and nigh-invulnerable); and c) it's a moving target (Khorne and Slaanesh hate each other!/Khorne and Slaanesh get together for tea and scones).

That said, there are at least some gross constants, which make sense to apply in a team-style setting, as far as which armies would work together.

Largely, theme is ACTUALLY judged by someone looking at the army, and subjectively deciding whether that army "makes sense" on the tabletop, based on what they know of the fluff.

It's a bit of a surprise that it's possible to create a legal list out of a current codex and it not automatically fit into the 40K universe.

Janthkin wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:

And to be honest I really do not think that a nob biker list is themed or fluffy at all. Don't get me wrong it was a VERY nicely painted army, everything was converted and it looked good on the table. But it in no way shape or form fits into the fluff for orks. That's my personal viewpoint not anyone elses.

...uh, why? Are you one of those people who think the only "fluffy" or themed Ork list is a list that's full of boyz and a warboss/mekboy (which also happens to be one of the "powerlists" at tournaments)?

I want to know why exactly you think an all biker army isn't fluffy, especially when you consider that there's a named character in the codex that allows you to specifically field an entire army of them. Just for gaks and giggles I'd like someone to also explain why all bikes/speeders Marine armies are "fluffy" and all bikers/coptas Ork armies aren't.

My subjective interpretation of the fluff: ork all-biker armies are fine. Ork all-Nob biker armies are a bit less so, as dem Nobs done forgot to bring all o' der boyz, and wut gud izit to be da Nob, iffin you don't got sum boyz to bring to da crumpin?

Well then it would seem to be another case of GW ignoring their own fluff, since entire squads of nobs apparently don't make sense. You shouldn't be able to take them at all then if they aren't leading boyz mobs.

And like any list you can always think of a way to justify it. Like it was said, if Khorne, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch can all work together in the same damn army then two biker bosses can lead two squads of biker nobs.

JD21290 wrote:tell me about it frazz.
this is what i have been trying to say all along, but the second i say that kenny may have done something to deserve it, the idea is dismissed.

im sure something must have been done to cause such drastic actions to be taken.

JD do you know Kenny? If you have anything factual to add great, but please do all of us a favor and zip your lip if you have nothing to add but innuendo and speculation.

G

Bunker wrote:

JD21290 wrote:you mean something along the lines of the starting of it all?

I'm not sure what I mean, to be honest.

What doesn't make sense to me is that there seems like a rather large jump from the "I don't like this particular army because I believe it is overpowered" line of thinking to "I'm going to do everything I can to make this player's tournament as difficult as possible". Something must have happened to go from one to the other. It might have even been the fact that the WC have a reputation amongst the community, who knows. But it didn't go from one to the other without there being a step in the middle.

I also, as stated above by other posters, don't understand why the player in question didn't just request his entry back and bow out of the tournament. If it is bad enough to post about and try to muster a public lynching of the TO, was it not bad enough to just bow out in the first place? I understand the mentality of "Well eff you, if you're going to try and stack the deck against me I'm going to win your tournament just to throw it back in your face" because that is exactly what I would have done, but there has to be a certain point where you call it a day in the interest of not making the tournament all about you.

All I'm saying is that there is something missing to this story, on both sides. Something had to have set the TO off, and it wasn't just army selection/player reputation.

Great job Bunker. I see that speculation is all you have to offer. Very helpful.

G

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

LMAO, that's great. Never saw that one before.

Sidstyler wrote:

Janthkin wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:

And to be honest I really do not think that a nob biker list is themed or fluffy at all. Don't get me wrong it was a VERY nicely painted army, everything was converted and it looked good on the table. But it in no way shape or form fits into the fluff for orks. That's my personal viewpoint not anyone elses.

...uh, why? Are you one of those people who think the only "fluffy" or themed Ork list is a list that's full of boyz and a warboss/mekboy (which also happens to be one of the "powerlists" at tournaments)?

I want to know why exactly you think an all biker army isn't fluffy, especially when you consider that there's a named character in the codex that allows you to specifically field an entire army of them. Just for gaks and giggles I'd like someone to also explain why all bikes/speeders Marine armies are "fluffy" and all bikers/coptas Ork armies aren't.

My subjective interpretation of the fluff: ork all-biker armies are fine. Ork all-Nob biker armies are a bit less so, as dem Nobs done forgot to bring all o' der boyz, and wut gud izit to be da Nob, iffin you don't got sum boyz to bring to da crumpin?

Well then it would seem to be another case of GW ignoring their own fluff, since entire squads of nobs apparently don't make sense. You shouldn't be able to take them at all then if they aren't leading boyz mobs.

And like any list you can always think of a way to justify it. Like it was said, if Khorne, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch can all work together in the same damn army then two biker bosses can lead two squads of biker nobs.

Yup, pretty much. Which is why "theme" isn't really any better than "comp."

I used to run a Lustwing-pattern army, composed solely of Emperor's Children Terminators and Daemonettes. Had to jump through a ton of hoops to do it (Chaos Lord + Chosen retinue, Chaos Lt. + Chosen Retinue, plus the 1 allowed squad of Elite chosen). Thematically, it was great: 6 squads of 6 models each, in what was obviously a teleport raiding configuration. Still didn't stop people from complaining.

Wyche cult can shred the old EC teleport army.

G

Not knowing someone personally in no way disbars a person from making inferences about reasons for their behaviour.

Sidstyler wrote:
...uh, why? Are you one of those people who think the only "fluffy" or themed Ork list is a list that's full of boyz and a warboss/mekboy (which also happens to be one of the "powerlists" at tournaments)?

I want to know why exactly you think an all biker army isn't fluffy, especially when you consider that there's a named character in the codex that allows you to specifically field an entire army of them. Just for gaks and giggles I'd like someone to also explain why all bikes/speeders Marine armies are "fluffy" and all bikers/coptas Ork armies aren't.

Okay here is why exactly:
I have no issues with an all biker army. I have an issue with 2 warbosses. The biggest baddest meanest ork is in charge, there shouldn't be two of them. So from a pure theme standpoint I don't think your standard sized games should have 2 warbosses, at higher points when you can simulate two different bands of orks, sure go for it but not at the scale we are playing. I could take having something like wazdakka, and then maybe another warboss with his unit of boyz on bikes. Since wazdakka is "bigger", but not two generic warbosses.

Or even say take the army I played against, 2 warbosses on bikes, 2 bike nob squads as troops, 1 unit of shoota boyz, 1 unit of gretchin. If he had really been sticking to a theme then he should have put in deff kopta's or a squad of bikes or something. I don't see how putting those 2 infantry TROOPS choices is fluffy. Maybe if he had modelled all of the grots as mechanics and all of the boyz as mechanics and done a huge mech bay or something.

I have the same opinion on Dual lash daemon princes, 2 canoness in sisters list, etc. I don't think they are fluffy. Take one dp with lash and a sorcerer with lash and I have no issues from a theme perspective. Take one canoness and one palatine.

Again, this is my personal viewpoint and I'm not respresenting anybody else here. I'm by no means a push over with the lists I build but I usually won't go that extra step. I'll admit to taking 2 great unclean ones to the baltimore gt , and I expected to get docked comp points for doing it, because I felt that the list I was bringing was a little on the cheesy side.

I noticed the overall winner had a loss so this might show your event puts more emphasis on theme and composition. If you were to show the breakdown that might be helful.

G

Oh, so you mostly take issue with the two bosses? Yeah, that isn't really too fluffy.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Wyche cult can shred the old EC teleport army.

A LOT of things shredded the Lustwing, unless all of the reserves & scattering rolls went just perfectly. But it was a lot of fun to play.

What annoyed people was that it played differently from everything else (at the time). People weren't used to playing against armies which started completely off the board, and didn't know how to maneuver to account for that much concentrated death falling from above. And because it was "different," it was obviously badly themed/constructed solely to abuse the rules/etc.

If the two warbosses are twins that would explain why they both ride big hogs.

G

I get what you're saying.

But what if two equally powerful warbosses are competing to gain control of a Waaagh, and this battle is the place they are going to settle their rivalry according to who can kill the most enemies. Neither of them brought any boyz because this is crunch time and they need their very best fighters to ensure victory.

Bingo! List rationalised.

I don't know why GW didn't make it like the Tau list in which you can't take two Ethereals, or two Shas'Os, but you must take at least one unit of Fire Warriors.

I love the concept of trading soft scores for battle points. Let's introduce handicaps into the game while we are at it.


From now on if someone has an idea about why simple good old fashioned competitive play is wrong I'd like a 500 word background story about it.

Yo Brian this year at Adepticon I am bringing my fly girl to roll my dice. She is there for the soft scores.

G

PS (Khorne ponies rock!)

Bunker wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
I know there is fairly wide-spread anti-WC feeling.

This is not a matter of giving special favour to the WC. The same would apply to any group whose members joined Dakka.

This I'm calling BS on, or at least partial-BS. The way some of your mods jumped on anyone posting in the WC cheating thread and your quickness to lock it even though there was confirmation from multiple sources that one of them did in fact cheat, coupled with how you allowed them to come here and gloat about it afterwards definitely shows a bias in their favor.

I'm in general agreement with Bunker.

When did Dakka become the WC forum for the WC can post their personal business?

Why shouldn't the WC keep their off-topic business on their personal site?

Why should the WC be allowed to come here to virtually tar-and-feather a non-Dakkite TO?

IOW, if Dakka generally doesn't allow people to talk trash about current members (Rule 1: Politeness), and we don't allow people to talk trash about ex-members (e.g. Ste- Beetlejuice), why the exception for the WC?

Kilkrazy wrote:I get what you're saying.

But what if two equally powerful warbosses are competing to gain control of a Waaagh, and this battle is the place they are going to settle their rivalry according to who can kill the most enemies. Neither of them brought any boyz because this is crunch time and they need their very best fighters to ensure victory.

Bingo! List rationalised.

I don't know why GW didn't make it like the Tau list in which you can't take two Ethereals, or two Shas'Os, but you must take at least one unit of Fire Warriors.

Okay. I like the example. But in that previous list there was one squad of shoota boys and one squad of grots. I've seen nob biker lists with snikrot, or with 2 units of grots, what have you. If someone had done up a thematic base and had the two huge nob biker squads pummleing into each other and that was it. Especially showing you the two of them battling it out. I would give you theme points for it. But this was thought out, you modelled a base for it, you didn't squeeze in extra troop scoring units to do it.

Whateva, they will hate you for her flyness.


Here is an example story to illustrate why other people should change the way they think and behave in a fashion someone else approves of.


There were 2 Warbosses, Warboss Slamshpolk and Warboss Gerjamblax. Warboss #1 looks at #2 and is like that is ridiculous. He realizes it is an intruder into the network. So he changes into a Smith class agent and turns the only remaining Warbo 2 into a Smith class agent. Now there are no Warbosses at all, they are extinct(how tragic). This is ok since it is fluffy. Then they kill Neo. Then that cool asian program kills all the smiths. : )

THE END

The moral of my story is there should be no HQs at all besides...

Generic HQ Person
Stats - all pretty generic.
Special Rules - those could turn out to be "cheesey", so no thank you.

You must take two of these in 500 point games.

I really am having some problems following that line of logic... there is nothing logical about it in my opinion.

Do you have something against Kenny?

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Bunker wrote:

JD21290 wrote:you mean something along the lines of the starting of it all?

I'm not sure what I mean, to be honest.

What doesn't make sense to me is that there seems like a rather large jump from the "I don't like this particular army because I believe it is overpowered" line of thinking to "I'm going to do everything I can to make this player's tournament as difficult as possible". Something must have happened to go from one to the other. It might have even been the fact that the WC have a reputation amongst the community, who knows. But it didn't go from one to the other without there being a step in the middle.

I also, as stated above by other posters, don't understand why the player in question didn't just request his entry back and bow out of the tournament. If it is bad enough to post about and try to muster a public lynching of the TO, was it not bad enough to just bow out in the first place? I understand the mentality of "Well eff you, if you're going to try and stack the deck against me I'm going to win your tournament just to throw it back in your face" because that is exactly what I would have done, but there has to be a certain point where you call it a day in the interest of not making the tournament all about you.

All I'm saying is that there is something missing to this story, on both sides. Something had to have set the TO off, and it wasn't just army selection/player reputation.

Great job Bunker. I see that speculation is all you have to offer. Very helpful.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:

JD21290 wrote:tell me about it frazz.
this is what i have been trying to say all along, but the second i say that kenny may have done something to deserve it, the idea is dismissed.

im sure something must have been done to cause such drastic actions to be taken.

JD do you know Kenny? If you have anything factual to add great, but please do all of us a favor and zip your lip if you have nothing to add but innuendo and speculation.

G

Yes.. this is exactly what I was waiting for. You guys run this as a script or what?

Inquiring minds want to know the rest of the story. You coming over to this thread and posting this is exactly the standard of why we are getting skeptical about this WC thing.

All we have at this point is your side of the story and some of the details.

WHERE is the TFG TO that is the subject of this conversation, and why exactly is it that you run gimp lists, get called on it, and then post that your being treated unfairly?

All you guys did was to have one of your buddies run an entirly biased list and then got some heat over it. We all know it is a gimp list, heck its as gimp as the dual demon prince whip one.


Its a fluff list in the same scheme as taking the Nidzilla list. You maxed out the troops on a loophole, and then try to justify a win on that merit alone.

The double sided question in addition to this is- DO you think that using maxed out loophole lists is a good way to play in tournament play? WHY should it be an issue if someone calls the list fluff if it truly maxes out a troop choice and then you get some heat about it?

This is basicly the point of the contention.

Of course, your already well known tactic of coming in with the other posters from the same organization doesn't help your argument, we already saw that coming.
What I don't seriously get is that they thought they were honestly playing in a tourney with a list that is a well known loophole, and then you have an issue with someone giving you static about it?

Then green blow fly comes over and starts in with the interference?

Just because you can do something doesn't make it cool.

Hey I hope you are feeling better now that you got that off yer chest.

G

Warmaster wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I get what you're saying.

But what if two equally powerful warbosses are competing to gain control of a Waaagh, and this battle is the place they are going to settle their rivalry according to who can kill the most enemies. Neither of them brought any boyz because this is crunch time and they need their very best fighters to ensure victory.

Bingo! List rationalised.

I don't know why GW didn't make it like the Tau list in which you can't take two Ethereals, or two Shas'Os, but you must take at least one unit of Fire Warriors.

Okay. I like the example. But in that previous list there was one squad of shoota boys and one squad of grots. I've seen nob biker lists with snikrot, or with 2 units of grots, what have you. If someone had done up a thematic base and had the two huge nob biker squads pummleing into each other and that was it. Especially showing you the two of them battling it out. I would give you theme points for it. But this was thought out, you modelled a base for it, you didn't squeeze in extra troop scoring units to do it.

I don't have the Orks codex so I don't know much about their list or what was in the competition list or anything. I just wanted to show how players can rationalise things.

Bunker wrote:
The way some of your mods jumped on anyone posting in the WC cheating thread and your quickness to lock it even though there was confirmation from multiple sources that one of them did in fact cheat, coupled with how you allowed them to come here and gloat about it afterwards definitely shows a bias in their favor.

Come here and gloat about what?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm in general agreement with Bunker.

When did Dakka become the WC forum for the WC can post their personal business?

Why shouldn't the WC keep their off-topic business on their personal site?

Isn't the behaviour of people at tournaments the business of the wargame community generally? It was when the complaints were against WC members because of Ard Boyz.

Us mods have been accused of bias for shutting down that discussion despite the fact that pages and pages of stuff was written. Now we are at fault for not shutting down this other discussion?

Why should the WC be allowed to come here to virtually tar-and-feather a non-Dakkite TO?

IOW, if Dakka generally doesn't allow people to talk trash about current members (Rule 1: Politeness), and we don't allow people to talk trash about ex-members (e.g. Ste- Beetlejuice), why the exception for the WC?

You have missed the point that I warned people about running a witch-hunt against the TO, and shut down the thread because it continued.

The topic was re-opened in a much more civilised way and more facts emerged which cast a completely different light on the matter, as a result of which the persecution of the TO ceased.