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Running a tournament every other weekend, you are hardcore man! Is Comikaze going to be a two day tournament or will it be just one day like Celesticon? I might be able to come up for Celesticon since it is only one day I can bring the fam and check out the Bay Area for a few days. Also, Comikaze and Duelcon will be 1500 by the current plan while Celesticon is 1750 correct?

I prefer random Warlord and Psyker abilities, but I see the reasoning on the changes. I only worry that parts of 6th that are subtle balancing factors may be eliminated in the name of getting rid of randomness.

Wait, so I can use corsair units but not the corsair list? How does that work? I'm not familiar with all of the IA books, but isn't the badab stuff the same or do they specifically say you can take them in chaos space marine lists?

Also, the farseer in the IA11 book modifies your Force org chart. We can play that as-is?

@Bladewalker

Yeha, we have 3 events in 5 weeks! It's going to be draining, but fun.

Celesticon is going to be a 2K event (single FOC) and only 2 games with 3 hours per round. We're calling it the Lazy Boys Tournament!

It's gong to be super laid back, bring your toys and have a good time kind of thing. The 1750 event on the site is a different tournament, they have a lot of stuff going on.

Comikaze and Duel Con are 2 day events.

Hope to see you there!

@Dok

That's right, no army lists but yes, you can use the units. The book describes how they are used in an Eldar list.

And yes, if the character modifies the FOC that is fine. Lots of the Baddab war books do that as well.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

The Farseer rules in IA11 are written in a way that they are pretty clearly only used when your opponent is cool with it and when the mission doesn't use a specific force org chart, so its the kind of thing that a tournament could allow or disallow at their discretion (by simply stating that the tournament uses the standard force org chart in all cases).

But it doesn't seem like a 175 point Farseer that unlocks an extra Heavy Support slot and drops Troops down to a max of 4 would break the game. It would be good in Big Guns Never Tire though to have 12 Warwalkers, though!

I'm not trying to break the game. I'm just trying to figure out what's cool and what's not cool. We're in a whole new world now!


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Although... taking 4 war walker squads and 3 hornet squads makes for a lot of dakka...

Yeah, but remember that the Farseer himself is pretty putz (no guide to make the War Walkers scary), has no RoW, you can't take another Farseer if you take him, you only get 2 Elites with him, and it's a 1500pt tournament which means not as much of the craziness.

I don't see it as game breaking at all.

But yeah Dok, that would be fine.

Check out some of the Baddab war characters, they are super cool!

So given the high likelihood that future codexes will have either a special Warlord table for that codex and/or particular Warlord traits for specific models (probably special characters, I'd imagine), does that need to change the thinking at all on Warlord traits in tournaments?

Specifically:

1) It would seem at that point you can't just not include Warlord traits as characters will be pointed in their codex under the presumption of being able to use their Warlord traits.

2) If you do allow some kind of Warlord re-roll, or the ability to pick from multiple tables off of a single roll, would that not effectively reduce the edge that a character who comes with a fixed trait gets? So if you're paying like 275 points for a new-school Abaddon and he comes with awesome Warlord trait X, would that not be part of his cost (that his Warlord trait is fixed)? And if so, by allowing other Warlords to increase their chance of getting a better trait does this not unfairly penalize the new-school Abaddon as he's 'paying' for that fixed ability that every other Warlord is now getting for free (well, at least a better chance at getting a trait they want).


So with that in mind, maybe it is necessary to leave Warlord traits as purely random?

Why add all of this complexity?

Why not just play as close to 6th edition as you can?

I agree with Yak and Blackmoor here. This edition does seams random but I also think that is a big part of this edition thats suposed to be that way. I think it will absolutly seperate the good generals, when in war does everything go your way? You guys should at least run something small with all the rules and actually see how it unfolds.

Blackmoor wrote:Why add all of this complexity?

Why not just play as close to 6th edition as you can instead of playing Reesehammer?

If you disagree with some of Reece's thoughts then by all means you should express your concern (that's the whole point of this thread, after all).

But to sink to the level of calling his ideas 'Reesehammer' is not cool IMHO. I know you don't mean any malice behind it, but this is the same kind of crap that people typically sling in order to defame the hard work that people put into running events when they disagree with it by implying it is somehow lesser than the 'pure' game of 40k, despite the fact that the 40k rules have always said that players should see the basic rules as simply a starting point to be modeled as the players see fit.

It also tends to imply that Reece is trying to change the rules into something more of 'his own', which discounts the fact that he runs tons of events purely to help support the community. He doesn't stand to benefit at all by running his events in his own way as he doesn't play in them, so his only priority is to try to make an event that will appeal to as many players as possible.

Typically, players have frowned upon having completely random elements in their tournament games that can have major impact on the outcome of the game. For example, in previous editions if we were having a tournament and the custom mission created by the tournament introduced Warlord Traits, Mysterious Objectives and Mysterious Terrain, then players would scream bloody hell that the missions were so random that they were helping to decide the winners of games instead of player skill.

So Reece is clearly trying to gauge player opinion and create a format where people won't walk away feeling like they got robbed simply by one or two dice rolls. However, if the majority of players suddenly feel that because 6th edition IS so random that they WANT this kind of randomness even in their tournament games, then by all means express this opinion to him and I'm sure if enough people say it, he'll listen.

But please leave that 'Reecehammer' crap out of this, because while you may not have any ill will behind it, the other people that see what you write and then start slinging it around as a real insult will be trying to defame him.

Grimgob wrote:I agree with Yak and Blackmoor here. This edition does seams random but I also think that is a big part of this edition thats suposed to be that way. I think it will absolutly seperate the good generals, when in war does everything go your way? You guys should at least run something small with all the rules and actually see how it unfolds.

You should have come to the first 6th ed tournament at GE, it went really well. The only thing we didn't use was Mysterious Terrain.

I have been saying the same thing for a long time on this thread and others. We should play 6th edition, not an odd concoction of house rules and 5th ed remainders. I like a lot of what Reece has put together and his events are always awesome but moving too far away from the book will be too debilitating to the tournament scene imo. All psychic powers and Warlord Traits should be random, end of story. The edition, and it would seem the editions codices, are being designed around these random elements. So let them stand, the game was designed a certain so we should play it that way. Making too many sweeping changes before seeing what the true 6th ed codices bring, at minimum waiting to see the first one, could cause a lot of confusion and back pedaling.

More often than not in my own game experiences and in all the battle reports I have been watching the random elements actually make the game more competitive. I understand you can get a really bunk combo of Warlord traits or Psychic powers but without those random elements most players can see how a battle will go after deployment is rolled just by looking at the lists. I like to feel like I have a chance even in a huge list mismatch, random elements can be a saving grace in that situation. I also think that there has been as much random removed from the game as there has been added if that makes any sense... to remove the random parts that are part of the core game will quickly turn it into a math-hammer exercise that both players can see the inevitable end of before they even start to play the game... imho.

I think the best approach is to use the core rules and keep things outside of that scope (eg the missions, ect) simple until people get the basics down. This is obviously going to be an ongoing process. If I can make Kamakaze, I will, as I want to see where you are going with this as we are taking our cues from you lately.

And yeah, Blackmoor, calling it Reesehammer is a bit unfair. Right now he is running the largest number of successful events on the west coast and he has to come up with something that works in the time allotted. I think its fair to say that he is doing a ton of testing, as it is his livelyhood.

Phazael wrote:I think the best approach is to use the core rules and keep things outside of that scope (eg the missions, ect) simple until people get the basics down. This is obviously going to be an ongoing process. If I can make Kamakaze, I will, as I want to see where you are going with this as we are taking our cues from you lately.

And yeah, Blackmoor, calling it Reesehammer is a bit unfair. Right now he is running the largest number of successful events on the west coast and he has to come up with something that works in the time allotted. I think its fair to say that he is doing a ton of testing, as it is his livelyhood.

Quite true. He has to fill these events up in an environment where players are currently leery of spending a lot of money traveling to an event using rules they don't know quite yet. Our first RT drew in more players than the previous 3 combined, but it was a local 3 round that is cheap to go to. Reece is dealing with an entirely different beast but I still think sticking as close to core mechanics as possible will be best.

All said Reece is a good friend and I will probably make it to Komikazi and Duelcon but this is an open discussion on stuff I as a tournament goer would like to participate in. I'm just saying have one of your local RTTs just streight book and see's how it goes as an experiment then reevaluate.

IMO tournament organizers should change the rules as little as possible to stay true to the core rulebook and not make wholesale changes.

I like Reese a lot and he is doing a good job by trying to build excitement for the West Coast tournament scene. I was having some fun by calling it Reesehammer, but I also did it to illustrate just how radical the changes to the core rules he is proposing are.

I understand that there are some rules that need tweaking for tournament play (Fortress of Redemption, terrain placement, objective placement, closed lists, etc) but a TO should not be making changes that are not in the rulebook, or supported by the rules to fundamentally change the game.

For example:

Changes to the rules just for a perceived imbalanceYou do not need to change things that do not need to be changed (see Warlord traits and psycher powers).

Randomness
There is always randomness to 40k, but you were just unaware of it. It is random when you play Chaos Demons and you end up getting pair up against a Mech Dark Eldar player and get randomly screwed. It is random with you take Kroot and there are no forests on the table, It is random when you take a tech marine and there are no ruins to bolster. It is random when you take a lot of melta guns and you go up against an ork horde. In 5th edition you were often put at a disadvantage due to the random nature of 40k and you just dealt with it the best you could. In assaults most of the time you charged into terrain anyways, so you had a random roll for the charge distance. It was something that we have always done so we took it for granted because it was just the way the game was played. Now they want to change the charge range to 2d6 and everyone is up in arms because their charges might fail. As far as random terrain and objectives goes, my theory is that if you have a well balanced list that is build with 6th edition in mind, you should be able to deal with all of the “randomness”. Only if you have a poorly built list, or are still stuck in 5th edition is when you will have a lot of trouble.

Missions
Yakface wrote my thoughts on the removal of KPs. Deathstars are not as powerful already as MSU armies and they nerfed them in 6th edition when they can now only hold one objective. Also why does a psybolt razorback only worth 1 KP, and a chimera 2?

Forgeworld
I can write a long piece on why you should not have forgeworld in a 40k tournament, but I will sum it up this way: With the new edition they had the chance to include it into the game but they didn’t. That tells me all I need to know. When (and if) GW embraces it for their games I will be on board, but until then they have no business being in a game of Warhammer 40k.

Blackmoor wrote:IMO tournament organizers should change the rules as little as possible to stay true to the core rulebook and not make wholesale changes.

I like Reese a lot and he is doing a good job by trying to build excitement for the West Coast tournament scene. I was having some fun by calling it Reesehammer, but I also did it to illustrate just how radical the changes to the core rules he is proposing are.

I understand that there are some rules that need tweaking for tournament play (Fortress of Redemption, terrain placement, objective placement, closed lists, etc) but a TO should not be making changes that are not in the rulebook, or supported by the rules to fundamentally change the game.

For example:

Changes to the rules just for a perceived imbalanceYou do not need to change things that do not need to be changed (see Warlord traits and psycher powers).

Randomness
There is always randomness to 40k, but you were just unaware of it. It is random when you play Chaos Demons and you end up getting pair up against a Mech Dark Eldar player and get randomly screwed. It is random with you take Kroot and there are no forests on the table, It is random when you take a tech marine and there are no ruins to bolster. It is random when you take a lot of melta guns and you go up against an ork horde. In 5th edition you were often put at a disadvantage due to the random nature of 40k and you just dealt with it the best you could. In assaults most of the time you charged into terrain anyways, so you had a random roll for the charge distance. It was something that we have always done so we took it for granted because it was just the way the game was played. Now they want to change the charge range to 2d6 and everyone is up in arms because their charges might fail. As far as random terrain and objectives goes, my theory is that if you have a well balanced list that is build with 6th edition in mind, you should be able to deal with all of the “randomness”. Only if you have a poorly built list, or are still stuck in 5th edition is when you will have a lot of trouble.

Missions
Yakface wrote my thoughts on the removal of KPs. Deathstars are not as powerful already as MSU armies and they nerfed them in 6th edition when they can now only hold one objective. Also why does a psybolt razorback only worth 1 KP, and a chimera 2?

Forgeworld
I can write a long piece on why you should not have forgeworld in a 40k tournament, but I will sum it up this way: With the new edition they had the chance to include it into the game but they didn’t. That tells me all I need to know. When (and if) GW embraces it for their games I will be on board, but until them they have no business being in a game of Warhammer 40k.

I agree with pretty much all of that. The only caveat I will add is that I am not as opposed to FW as Blackmoor. I would prefer not every tournament allow FW but if some do I am cool with that and would still attend.

Blackmoor wrote:Forgeworld
I can write a long piece on why you should not have forgeworld in a 40k tournament, but I will sum it up this way: With the new edition they had the chance to include it into the game but they didn’t. That tells me all I need to know. When (and if) GW embraces it for their games I will be on board, but until them they have no business being in a game of Warhammer 40k.

I would sincerely appreciate it if you would put your thoughts about Forgeworld inclusion at tournaments into a post on your blog.

@Blackmoor

I know you and we're friends in real life so I understand your sense of humor and don't take offense at all, but like Yak said, it would be really easy to misconstrue that as an attack by people who don't know you. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that kind of thing going forward.

And again, as Yak pointed out, we do not have an agenda here. We don't even play in our events, we are strictly trying to make a tournament format that is as fun as possible for as many people as possible.

That's it.

If you guys have legitimate questions and concerns, we are all ears. We've demonstrated over and again our willingness to alter our system to meet player requests. We are not married to our ideas and we know the best system is a flexible one that can change with perspective and experience.

But, like I said, WE HAD TO START SOMEWHERE. This is only the second draft of these rules, and I know they will change as we go. I plan on taking a lot of notes at the Golden Throne and speaking to MVBRandt at length after NOVA to get their feedback. If any of the ideas we're proposing here don't work, we'll change them. Simple as that.

What we're doing here is a first step. We tried to stick as closely as possible to both the format we know works well (the BAO format) and 6th edition.

And honestly, what are these radical changes to the core mechanics? We didn't touch the core mechanics (although I would love nothing more than to take a machete to Wound Allocation, Random Charge Lengths and LoS!).

And saying we're unaware of the randomness in 40K previously is more than a little condescending, Allan. We are more than aware of the random elements in the game, but they have been increased dramatically with this edition.

Let's sum up the actual changes we're proposing:

1.) Warlord Traits, slight change to ensure you don't get a dud ability while their opponent gets a game winning trait. This makes the games more enjoyable in our experience.

2.) Dropping Random Terrain. Fantasy did it, too, and I doubt many tournaments will use it. It is an optional rule in the BRB, too, so really, not a core change.

3.) Slightly altering Random Objectives to again, try and make it more FUN and FAIR for both players.

4.) Slightly Altering psychic powers to ensure players don't literally don't roll a power they can't use. Really only applies to Broodlords. Tiny change to make the game more enjoyable, in our opinions.

5.) Altered missions. This is the only major departure from the book, but again, almost every major tournament in the country uses their own missions. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Our missions are an amalgamation of the new book missions that closely follows the pattern we set with the BAO altered to fit 6th ed. People really liked those missions a lot, so we took that experience and applied it. It allows multiple paths to victory and avoids a lot of the terrible mismatches that can otherwise occur.

The book missions are largely good, but they favor MSU in a huge way, and the Relic is a joke in a competitive setting (every time we've played it, the game is over by turn 2-3). And the KP argument has been run through a million times, so I won't rehash it.

6.) Forgeworld. FW is fine for competitive play. People knee-jerk against it because of a fear of the unknown. We've play tested this stuff and it is almost universally underwhelming. We have also played with and against it in a LOT of tournaments. We have real world experience with it as opposed to a lot of the theorizing opponents to FW throw out there. Again, we just want to make the events more fun and open the doors to a wider, more enjoyable game.


And again, as I always tell people, it is a lot easier to be a critic than to get out and do what we do. No matter what decision we make, someone will not like it. We accept that we aren't going to please everyone, but we do try to please as many people as possible. If you believe you can do it better, then by all means; proceed. Pony up the thousands of dollars, and hundreds of hours it takes to pull these events off. It would be nice to be able to actually go to some events instead of running them all.

@Thread

Again, the feedback is wanted and appreciated. We're scrambling to get everything lined up for the events we've got lined up in the near future and we want to be sure to do a good job. As a lot of you guys are the people coming to our events, we appreciate and hear what you have to say and I assure you, we take it all into consideration.

Reecius wrote:@Blackmoor

I know you and we're friends in real life so I understand your sense of humor and don't take offense at all, but like Yak said, it would be really easy to misconstrue that as an attack by people who don't know you. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that kind of thing going forward.

I owe you an apology, and I am sorry that I put it out there. It was a pejorative and it came off a bit too harsh.

I think the addition of forgeworld fills a lot of holes in armies that wouldn't stand a chance against some of the more overpowered stuff that has come out in 6th. The only thing that seems like it may be a bit over the top is the Caestus assault ram, but I haven't seen that in a game so I can't say for sure.

Dok wrote:I think the addition of forgeworld fills a lot of holes in armies that wouldn't stand a chance against some of the more overpowered stuff that has come out in 6th. The only thing that seems like it may be a bit over the top is the Caestus assault ram, but I haven't seen that in a game so I can't say for sure.

I thought that is what allies are for.

Blackmoor wrote:

Dok wrote:I think the addition of forgeworld fills a lot of holes in armies that wouldn't stand a chance against some of the more overpowered stuff that has come out in 6th. The only thing that seems like it may be a bit over the top is the Caestus assault ram, but I haven't seen that in a game so I can't say for sure.

I thought that is what allies are for.

FW does offer some non-IG "Skyfire" units.

Dok wrote:I think the addition of forgeworld fills a lot of holes in armies that wouldn't stand a chance against some of the more overpowered stuff that has come out in 6th. The only thing that seems like it may be a bit over the top is the Caestus assault ram, but I haven't seen that in a game so I can't say for sure.

I haven't found anything in sixth to be overpowered to the extent that armies can't compete. Unless of of course you're playing with out allies or with chosen Warlord Traits and Chosen Psychic powers. In that case there are some really OP things, but in those cases you aren't really playing 6th so...

With the exception of modifying how Warlord Traits and Psychic powers are working Reece I am very happy with your tournament set up. Using specifically designed tournament missions was going to be a must anyways and it was in 4th and 5th to a certain extent as well. I get bored of the book missions after a while and using specially designed tournament missions is a nice way to break the monotony.

Blackmoor wrote:I thought that is what allies are for.

Everyone taking IG allies seems like a much more boring solution. Except for Tyranids. No Hydras or vendettas for them.


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OverwatchCNC wrote:
I haven't found anything in sixth to be overpowered to the extent that armies can't compete.

You might want to qualify that with "while playing a new codex."

Dok wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:I thought that is what allies are for.

Everyone taking IG allies seems like a much more boring solution. Except for Tyranids. No Hydras or vendettas for them.


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OverwatchCNC wrote:
I haven't found anything in sixth to be overpowered to the extent that armies can't compete.

You might want to qualify that with "while playing a new codex."

? I've played with GK, CSM, and SW so far in 6th.

I've lost to Tau, Orks, Eldar w/ DE, and Orks w/Tau

Blackmoor wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Blackmoor

I know you and we're friends in real life so I understand your sense of humor and don't take offense at all, but like Yak said, it would be really easy to misconstrue that as an attack by people who don't know you. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that kind of thing going forward.

I owe you an apology, and I am sorry that I put it out there. It was a pejorative and it came off a bit too harsh.

Forgiven and forgotten. No worries, I know you didn't mean anything by it, but the internet makes it easy to assume the worst.

We really do value your input though, buddy, so please feel free to give it. It would just be preferable if it were not in a way that made me look like a dick! hahah

@Dok

Yeah, the only things we're thinking about limiting is the Hades Breaching Drill (that thing should be triple the points).

The Caestus is REALLY good, but not OP, IMO. Here's why.

If you load it up with 10 terminators that is a minimum 675 point investment, it won't be on the board until turn 2 at best, and the unit inside won't be charging until turn 3 at best.

That gives you plenty of time to react to it, and as Deathstars go, this is a good one but no where near being the best.

It is really good, no doubt, but in our test games it usually gets smoked the turn it comes in.


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@Janthkin

Yeah, that is one of the main reasons we think FW will be great. It opens the game of Flyers and AA to every army.

@OverwatchCNC

Thanks! As we play these out more and more outside of our Team, we'll have a better and better idea of what the best format is.

I am sure we will revise it several more times.

The drill is not that ridiculous, especially now in 6th. Its a 150-200 point investment, counting the unit it comes with. You can't assault the turn you arrive and the opponent gets one turn to plug the hole by killing a ludicrously fragile vehicle. You pay 50pts for a really crappy drop pod that comes in with a Mawloc effect in a meta where spamming vehicles is less effective.

I agree the Cestus is not out of hand, even if you lack AA weapons in your list. At least not for what it costs.

The Achilles got tanked by the new hull point system, though Orks and Nids are still royally boned by it. It can at least be glanced to death in HtH if nothing else.

The Deathwind and Lucious Pods are the problems, in my mind. The Deathwind is designed for Apoc, where lighting up a dozen units with one 80pt models is not a big deal. The Lucious goes against a major design philosophy of 6th, namely not being able to assault out of reserves, and just flat out rapes certain armies. Three of them is basically an auto-win against Tau or many Eldar builds. Being autocharged by a siege dred with no means of response is not fun for anyone.

Rest of the forgeworld stuff is acceptable, but I don't see it closing the gap for weaker armies. How could it? Most of it is designed for the stronger and more popular armies in the game, especially Guard.

I disagree about the Lucius.

I have against it several times and I was always underwhelmed by it.

If you have 3 of them, there's a 50% chance one of the Dreads will immobilize itself coming in.

And it is about a 200pt investment to assault turn 1. Now, with over watch as well, if you deploy appropriately, they really aren't going to do that much.

But, opinions on this stuff varies, just as it does with anything.

Reecius wrote:I disagree about the Lucius.

I have against it several times and I was always underwhelmed by it.

If you have 3 of them, there's a 50% chance one of the Dreads will immobilize itself coming in.

And it is about a 200pt investment to assault turn 1. Now, with over watch as well, if you deploy appropriately, they really aren't going to do that much.

But, opinions on this stuff varies, just as it does with anything.

But their threat range is also significantly larger, given the new Disembark rules and the random charge ranges.