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I had posted my thoughts a little over a year ago on a tournament where 2 choices from each codex were banned, with underwhelming support. I ended up running a tournament where battle points were minimum and army points were high, so the guy who ended up winning the tournament actually lost his first game but won due to having a well painted army with a well written background. The local tournament scene since sixth edition was dropped on us has been quite pitiful, to say the least. The last tournament we ran had two Necron airforces dueling it out on the head table in the last round, and it's not something we want to see occur with high frequency. Until anti-air is properly introduced for every army (and our poor Tau player who doesn't even have flyers yet), how would you feel about a no-flyer tournament?

Sounds OK to me.

I'd think a 'no Allies' tournament would also sound good too.

I think a better group to poll would be your local players.

What 1000 people on daka think doesn't stack up against what a dozen people actually playing in a tournament will think.

I doubt it would be recieved to well, some changes that might help would be to play only objective missions, which makes cron air somewhat less reliable, and have terrain that has Quad Guns on the table. Also allowing Forge World (if possible) would help considerably, as Tau have fliers, they are FW. This isn't a perfect solution, as it hurts armies that only splash a couple fliers and FW may be a problem (it probably isn't sold where you play), but FW could also be a solution by giving all armies some form of anti-air.

I think its too extreme and it seems childish to just outright ban something arbitrarily because of one army list.

If you are going to do something, perhaps put in a requirement that no army may have more then 30% of its total points in Flyers.

Flyers added a dimension that was sorely missing from the game and arbitrarily banning them doesn't make you look good.


If you do this, its no longer Warhammer. Its "HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

 Grey Templar wrote:
"HowIthinkthegameshouldbeplayedhammer"

I don't think that's a convincing reason. There are people that say the same thing about tournaments that don't use book missions and such.

A tournament/event will live or die by it's ability to draw players. If a quick survery indicates the idea will fly (pun intended), go for it. But if you do it unilaterally and no one shows up, then you've got your answer.

 mikhaila wrote:
I think a better group to poll would be your local players.

What 1000 people on daka think doesn't stack up against what a dozen people actually playing in a tournament will think.

This. If you looked at tourney lists in my area, you'd never know that places like Dakka existed.

Always better to feel out your local crowd for local things then a bunch of folks scattered across the interwebs.

My personal opinion though, I wouldn't shed a tear over it. My main army doesn't have its own flyer yet, and I don't use allies, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in those regards.

That's kind of the idea, I'm not expecting anyone here to actually show up to the tournament. I was just wondering how people feel about the idea. I do like the idea of no allies, as well, possibly no fortifications as another addition. It could be considered a 40K 5.5 edition tournament, to give everyone a chance to keep playing without having to completely redesign their army lists due to the new changes (I know I am busy modelling and painting an Aegis Defense Line only because my codex doesn't have anti-air!).

I don't agree with Grey Templar's post. Only the new armies actually have fliers, and very few of them actually have defense against it. 30% of an army list when the army list can't actually take flyers doesn't really solve anything. I was just looking for a stop-gap type of tournament until the playing fields are level for every army, because right now they are not. Having a flyer transport as a troops choice for only one army is downright criminal right now.

I woildn't mind it at all, especially since the two closest things I have to flyers would be hive tyrants and daemon princes...

How about a tournament with "no terminators allowed"


How about a tournament with "no daemons allowed"


I assume you are the master of all things balance and will be tailoring the missions to punish those armies that already don't have flyers? How far ahead have you thought? Gee, let's just take away units from different factions for no real reason.

You really outta check w/ your prospective attendees, and not the internets. Many tournament players are not nearly as super worried about flyers ... and flyer-intensive armies haven't been helter-skelter crushing events. That said, many tourney players aren't necessarily YOUR tourney players, and that's really all that matters.

40k is designed to be variable and fun, to be played at the levels and in the styles intended by any given player, within the very wide framework of the rules. If your locals hate flyers and/or simply want to shake things up with an anti-flyer tourney, go for it. If they don't, go for it anyway but don't expect as much of a turn-out

From a "wide" national level, flyers aren't really an issue. Arguments about where balance actually is and whether it's fair or if you have a right to alter the game for your particular event ... well it is, and you have that right, it's your event

Yeah, that's really the main point, I suppose. Our local area is slowly crawling into sixth edition, so that may be why we're so surprised and slow to react to the new rules. I remember my big 'WTF' moment was when I assaulted an enemy flyer thinking I would hit it on 6's or something, only to be told otherwise. That kind of destroyed my CC army from fifth edition. Our last tournament was filled with local players, and we had to all witness the disaster that was the final game from two out-of-towners. The game didn't even make it to four turns, so it ended up being a bunch of Necrons that never deployed as they were all in flyers.

BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

 ph34r wrote:
How about a tournament with "no terminators allowed"


How about a tournament with "no daemons allowed"


I assume you are the master of all things balance and will be tailoring the missions to punish those armies that already don't have flyers? How far ahead have you thought? Gee, let's just take away units from different factions for no real reason.

You know, if there was no such thing as an armor save until 6th edition, and suddenly we have these units with a 2+ save... I could see arguing that maybe terminators shouldn't be allowed until there are more than a handful of codices that have AP2. Of course, 2+ saves and plasma guns have been around since at least 4th edition so it's pretty silly to suggest that they should be banned in a more or less standard game.

Banning fliers is certainly one way to balance out some of the armies, so is adding IA: Aeronautica. Or just deal with a slightly awkward situation while we wait for more fliers and AA options to come into the game. It doesn't seem like everyone and their mom is playing flier spam so things are probably more or less okay. But, hell, if you really want balance play something other than 40k.

What I think would be more interesting is an arbitrary "no more than 2 fliers" rule. It would let people run their cool new Dakkajet/Helldrake/Razorwing, yet prevent Necron or IG Airforce from dominating.

 Oaka wrote:
BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

"stop deciding things you can't deal with are imbalanced; stop further imbalancing the game"

 ph34r wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
BTW, ph34r, don't be a dick, I'm looking for constructive criticism.

"stop deciding things you can't deal with are imbalanced; stop further imbalancing the game"

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning...

Wow... sounds like that whaaambulance is arriving...

Sounds ok to me but the amount of butthurt WAAC lamers would be ridiculious.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
What I think would be more interesting is an arbitrary "no more than 2 fliers" rule. It would let people run their cool new Dakkajet/Helldrake/Razorwing, yet prevent Necron or IG Airforce from dominating.

I think the OP's idea is terrible.

This is a better one, if for whatever reason you feel you MUST limit flyers.

It may be cool. You'd eliminate the WAAC powergamers and you may have a more calm setting.

However, none of us (well, most of us maybe) don't know your group, and therefore there may be issues.

You'd eliminate WAAC players? Such a strong statement, and wrong, imo.

The most powerful lists atm are also all-foot lists. See Tony Kopach's Nova-winning list.

Deleting one type of list does nothing to balance the game, imo.

Ok, calm down!

As he stated in the OP, there were 2 Aircron lists at the top table. So flyers may be how his local metagame works. Getting rid of flyers may mean many of the WAAC players in his area may not take part in the tourney.

Id say it would be better if you set a restriction that only allows so many flyers. Cutting them out completely not only leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but also some people have pumped out several hundred dollars to have flyers in their armies, not to mention Im sure some of the players have some really nicely painted/converted flyers. But I also see the problems with some armies, namely IG and Necrons, since they can take SO MANY flyers

So restriction? Yes. Complete cut out? No

So your stopping people who painted for thier models and painted them to use them?

I don't think that will go down well. at all. Alot of players will probably leave and find a new gaming club or will be angry.

Well there very much IS a problem currently with the 2 armies that can field 9 or more fliers in a single sub 2k point game. How can you handle that without taking a gak load of ADL with the quadguns? And what do you do when facing other armies that DONT have a bunch of fliers? Well all those ADL will be fairly useless otherwise. So youd HAVE to build your list to specifically take out fliers, which leaves you open to an easy loss against other armies.

SO really the only way to fix it, would be to limit or get rid of flyers, and Im sorry, but if I bought,built and painted some flyers, I damn sure would want to at least have SOME in a tourny, then none

Why not just add your own anti air options that can be captured and controlled in the game?

Or a scenario where all fliers are grounded (in game immobilised) until x happens?

Don't ban stuff - that's just stupid. Instead find a fun and engaging work around.

 KingCracker wrote:
Id say it would be better if you set a restriction that only allows so many flyers. Cutting them out completely not only leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but also some people have pumped out several hundred dollars to have flyers in their armies, not to mention Im sure some of the players have some really nicely painted/converted flyers. But I also see the problems with some armies, namely IG and Necrons, since they can take SO MANY flyers

So restriction? Yes. Complete cut out? No

Agreed that a restriction (i.e. Comp) is much more reasonable than an outright ban.

ExNoc- You seem to be assuming that the two Necron Air Cav players who got to the top table at his local tourney are WAAC. I think that's a silly assumption. Just because someone takes a powerful list and does well with it certainly does not mean they are WAAC. Hence my responding to you as I did- people should not toss that label around without knowing all the facts (in fact, they shouldn't toss it around at all... I have only encountered a Very few players who I would mentally characterize in such a manner, and certainly not on the internet).

Also, OP, regarding this:

Oaka wrote:I ended up running a tournament where battle points were minimum and army points were high, so the guy who ended up winning the tournament actually lost his first game but won due to having a well painted army with a well written background.

It's clear you're looking for a more comped / heavy on soft scores environment, which is totally fine. However, I don't necessarily think that sentence is something to be proud of. Still, I don't think there's anything wrong with comp for a local tourney if your players want it, but banning flyers outright seems to target 2 players in particular.

If it works for you to alienate them and have your tourney with "everyone else" that's one thing. But a good compromise is simply to set a comp limit on the number of flyers that can be taken.

Or maybe use custom scenarios for the tournament, 1 or 2 of which put flyers at a disadvantage. Like the quadrant missions used at NOVA Open and Battle for Salvation.

Honestly I am against banning. But I firmly believe in strict company scores. No one likes to play d bag lists.

The problem there is that one person's "d bag list" is frequently another person's "competitive but reasonable" list.

While I've been a long time supporter of composition scoring and restrictions, they need to be used carefully, and if I judge other players as being bad people because they have different tastes in list-building than I do, that just makes ME a dick.