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The biggest issue I have with data slates are the fact they ARE digital. An unscrupulous player could take an obscure unit, tweek it a bit (+1 WS, +1 wound, add Eternal Warrior) and suddenly the Barrons brother, Count Sissyfix, is a CC god.
And unless you have EVERY data slate yourself, you have no choice but to accept your opponents I-Thing readout that says fielding Chapter Master Chuck Norris (75 points cost) does in fact give you an auto-win with full points in any game he is fielded.

The same can be done with a codex. I know it's been done with AB.

dkellyj wrote:The biggest issue I have with data slates are the fact they ARE digital. An unscrupulous player could take an obscure unit, tweek it a bit (+1 WS, +1 wound, add Eternal Warrior) and suddenly the Barrons brother, Count Sissyfix, is a CC god.
And unless you have EVERY data slate yourself, you have no choice but to accept your opponents I-Thing readout that says fielding Chapter Master Chuck Norris (75 points cost) does in fact give you an auto-win with full points in any game he is fielded.

Dozer Blades wrote:The same can be done with a codex. I know it's been done with AB.

Both are examples of blatant cheating. Might as well not play the game due to the possibility of loaded dice. If you play someone that cheats at that level, you have to want to play that person again as I never would.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RiTides wrote:

 Byte wrote:
Is it 40K anymore when core rules and approved options aren't allowed? Its like 1999+1.

Allowing units / characters but not formations from data slates would be another, most likely.

National AND local tourneys are becoming shells of the approved rule set and available options, hence 39K+1.

If the concern is OP combos or as mentioned earlier thread why aren't Eldar/Taudar/Deldar being tamed/limited? Clearly they bring to the table an overwhelming advantage. No? True balance would be everybody showing up with the same army and list and letting the dice, terrain, and generalship handle the rest. Unrealistic and will never happen.

Anyone else think it'd be kind of nice of 40k adopted something similar to the rules set of WHFB where you're limited in the points value you can spend in any given slot? I think that'd go a long way toward balancing the game. Someone wants to kit out 3 riptides? Great! That'd be fair and fun to fight against in a 3000 point game. I wouldn't mind playing against three riptides with that many points regardless of the army I had.

Why is it that when anyone advocates for Formations, Stronghold, Escalation someone has to say we want D-Weapons?

What is wrong with allowing

everything, except D-weapons.

There it is. Three words in the tourney packet. Done.

Why does the Tyranid formations languish in the same penalty box as the Revanent? They are completely different, yet the anti formation crowd always brings the Revenant up if we are going to allow formations.

As for myself I just want to play two bastions with an attached ADL. I want to put Iron Warriors inside and have fun. That's all I want, but my bastions languish under the same iron chains as D-Weapons.

So if Tyranid formations are allowed then how about the Tau formation?

 Sidstyler wrote:
So if Tyranid formations are allowed then how about the Tau formation?

Yes the Tau formation is fine. What is it 700pts? 800pts? Playtest what happens to it when it runs up against the Beaststar especially with the big LOS blocking terrain in the center that tourneys like.

I'm not attacking you here, but I feel the fear of the Tau formation is on paper and not in reality.

Is the Tau formation really that bad? If yes then ban that one.

 SRSFACE wrote:
Anyone else think it'd be kind of nice of 40k adopted something similar to the rules set of WHFB where you're limited in the points value you can spend in any given slot? I think that'd go a long way toward balancing the game. Someone wants to kit out 3 riptides? Great! That'd be fair and fun to fight against in a 3000 point game. I wouldn't mind playing against three riptides with that many points regardless of the army I had.

40K used to do this a long time ago. I, for one, would love to see it return to that, percentage-based list building.

 puma713 wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:
Anyone else think it'd be kind of nice of 40k adopted something similar to the rules set of WHFB where you're limited in the points value you can spend in any given slot? I think that'd go a long way toward balancing the game. Someone wants to kit out 3 riptides? Great! That'd be fair and fun to fight against in a 3000 point game. I wouldn't mind playing against three riptides with that many points regardless of the army I had.

40K used to do this a long time ago. I, for one, would love to see it return to that, percentage-based list building.

You mentioned in a earlier post that you support the position of not changing core rules of the game, but this goes far beyond small changes designed for balance. Not every army has the same power or utility across each FoC, and some of the core units of a codex are found in positions where some armies may spend very little and others more or vice versa. Coming up with an arbitrary cap on % cost would wind up limiting armies more than they already are now.

citadel wrote:

 puma713 wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:
Anyone else think it'd be kind of nice of 40k adopted something similar to the rules set of WHFB where you're limited in the points value you can spend in any given slot? I think that'd go a long way toward balancing the game. Someone wants to kit out 3 riptides? Great! That'd be fair and fun to fight against in a 3000 point game. I wouldn't mind playing against three riptides with that many points regardless of the army I had.

40K used to do this a long time ago. I, for one, would love to see it return to that, percentage-based list building.

You mentioned in a earlier post that you support the position of not changing core rules of the game, but this goes far beyond small changes designed for balance. Not every army has the same power or utility across each FoC, and some of the core units of a codex are found in positions where some armies may spend very little and others more or vice versa. Coming up with an arbitrary cap on % cost would wind up limiting armies more than they already are now.

I agree. It would take a fundamental changing of how codices are structured to make the percentage-based list building work.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I think armies should be limited to more than what they are now instead of playing with the mockery of the FOC there is already.

Breng77 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
It takes time to change too, fellas. People need a period to acclimate to new rules, especially when it is big changes like GW has launched at us, lately.

Tournaments are a different way to play too, as other's have noted.

GW is trying to push sales, hardcore, right now. We want a balanced game that is fun and fair to play. When you assume people coming to the event will bring the most powerful combos they have available to them, and some of those combos are insanely over powering, you have to think twice about letting them in. It is very easy to ruin the tournament experience for people if the insanity goes too far and then you risk everything you've built in your tournament.

You really can't blame TOs for being conservative. They risk a LOT. Being a player and wanting to use some cool combo is a far different perspective.

The problem is we already have things that are powerful combo's...

And they are single dex, or joined together as allies. They are called Eldar and Tau.

Or Daemonstars, though that isn't as far up as those two.

It's weird hearing "Ban this and that" But not the things that are so actively overpowered that the meta revolves around them.

So instead we should add things that make Tau and Eldar more powerful? This is the part I never get. The game is already broken, so why break it even more? IMO adding formations and super heavies, narrows the meta, invalidates a ton of lists, and makes a lot of games a win loss at the list building phase, so much so that games end on turn 2 one way or the other. I'm fine with character data slates, but formations are poorly implemented, and some are stupidly broken. As for super heavies..ld weapons should not existing standard 40k, they negate the usefulness of too many units.. No weapon should deny all saves and cause instant death, and be able to do so for multiple models at once....d was a mechanic designed to speed up apoc games....nothing more.

Well lets see.

There's only a few things that people agree are bad right?

Ban the Tau Formation, ban ranged D weapons, and generally ban the things that are horrifically bad.

Do you really think things like the Tyranid Formations are going to cause OP?

You cut the fat, not throw the whole cow out when dealing with issue.s

Thimn wrote:

 Reecius wrote:


While tournaments are healthy, and growing, I see more and more people moving to other games. GW needs to pull a rabbit out of their hat because we're watching the same people coming to our events every year, but playing not GW games. 40K is going strong and I am not worried that it will vanish or anything like that, but it most certainly not the dominant game that it was by a mile. We as TOs are very sensitive to that and don't want to further the changes by opening the door to more insanity.

Any way for us to see how many Warmachine players attended LVO this year? My group is leaning towards a break from 40k to play Warmachine and I was wondering what the adoption rate of more people attending the tournaments is. We will be hitting Adepticon for 40k but afterwards we plan to dabble with WarmaHordes.

I love 40k but for a balanced tournament setting, its bonkers right now. So this may be a case of the grass is always greener but we feel its time to explore different options while the dust settles on the 40k tournament scene. I really don't envy you big event organizers as you are going to get flak from all sides which ever way the dice fall.

You're not alone, dude! Warmahordes is a great game and in the masters invitational, top 16 players in the country? Every major faction represented in the top 10. That is game balance. Not saying 40K is bad at all, it is still my favorite game, but Warmahordes is a true tournament game.

We had just about 80 Warmahordes players at the LVO year 1, which means we can expect well over 100 next year, probably around 120 or so. The game is blowing up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Thread

We have about 1/3 of the 40K Championships results in so far and the results are very interesting! I will share with the thread the data once I compile it.

TOs are free to include whatever house rules they wish in THEIR EVENTS. EVEN GW does this. There is no global unified system for running 40k tournaments (and I thank various netherworld unspeakables for this).

If you don't like it, simply DO NOT ATTEND them.
By attending, you have accepted the conditions under which the tournament is run.

Don't just bitch and whine about it on the internets - VOTE with your feet and just don't go to them.

If they want people who use the dataslates to turn up, they'll amend their events to include them.

If they specifically don't want certain players who abuse them to turn up, they're using the driftnet approach. Sure it will net those players, but a few others as well. Such is life.

They will either amend their House Rules or they won't.
They might even drop the idea of ever running another 40k event. I know I am thinking of this.

 chromedog wrote:
TOs are free to include whatever house rules they wish in THEIR EVENTS. EVEN GW does this. There is no global unified system for running 40k tournaments (and I thank various netherworld unspeakables for this).

If you don't like it, simply DO NOT ATTEND them.
By attending, you have accepted the conditions under which the tournament is run.

Don't just bitch and whine about it on the internets - VOTE with your feet and just don't go to them.

If they want people who use the dataslates to turn up, they'll amend their events to include them.

If they specifically don't want certain players who abuse them to turn up, they're using the driftnet approach. Sure it will net those players, but a few others as well. Such is life.

They will either amend their House Rules or they won't.
They might even drop the idea of ever running another 40k event. I know I am thinking of this.

Nobody is contesting the fact that TOs are free to run events how they want. Nobody is bitching and whining. As the thread is titled, it is a respectful request to stop banning dataslates entirely. The OP is simply asking TOs to reconsider the dataslate ban, and look, Reecius has polled the LVO attendants to see what their thoughts are. I don't see why you have to be so indignant.

I haven't read the majority of the thread but I'll chime in.

I would prefer that new unit data slates be permitted (i.e. Cypher, Belakor).

I'm against formations being allowed from data slates.

 chromedog wrote:
TOs are free to include whatever house rules they wish in THEIR EVENTS. EVEN GW does this. There is no global unified system for running 40k tournaments (and I thank various netherworld unspeakables for this).

If you don't like it, simply DO NOT ATTEND them.
By attending, you have accepted the conditions under which the tournament is run.

Don't just bitch and whine about it on the internets - VOTE with your feet and just don't go to them.

If they want people who use the dataslates to turn up, they'll amend their events to include them.

If they specifically don't want certain players who abuse them to turn up, they're using the driftnet approach. Sure it will net those players, but a few others as well. Such is life.

They will either amend their House Rules or they won't.
They might even drop the idea of ever running another 40k event. I know I am thinking of this.

The OP was diplomatic in the way he communicated his proposal for consideration. You, to much caffeine I suspect. If you don't like what he was asking the TO's to consider, don't read it. If you don't like sunlight, don't go out in it. etc. Really dude?

 chromedog wrote:
TOs are free to include whatever house rules they wish in THEIR EVENTS. EVEN GW does this. There is no global unified system for running 40k tournaments (and I thank various netherworld unspeakables for this).

If you don't like it, simply DO NOT ATTEND them.
By attending, you have accepted the conditions under which the tournament is run.

Don't just bitch and whine about it on the internets - VOTE with your feet and just don't go to them.

If they want people who use the dataslates to turn up, they'll amend their events to include them.

If they specifically don't want certain players who abuse them to turn up, they're using the driftnet approach. Sure it will net those players, but a few others as well. Such is life.

They will either amend their House Rules or they won't.
They might even drop the idea of ever running another 40k event. I know I am thinking of this.

The problem is that there aren't enough players at most of these events that feel *that* strongly to either attend or not attend in most cases, even if they really care many people still go anyway because otherwise they don't have an alternative event, and the few that don't go aren't there to make their voices known.

For instance, I don't go to events in my area that don't allow FW stuff (because I prefer to play my DKoK Assault Brigade of late), but that has had zero impact on FW inclusion at any of the local events, whether they allow or disallow it. I've been fortunate enough that I've had alternatives up until recently, but that wasn't always the case and once again seems to be retro-sliding back and me showing up or not showing up isn't going to change anything.

It just means I don't get to play.

DarthDiggler wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
So if Tyranid formations are allowed then how about the Tau formation?

Yes the Tau formation is fine. What is it 700pts? 800pts? Playtest what happens to it when it runs up against the Beaststar especially with the big LOS blocking terrain in the center that tourneys like.

I'm not attacking you here, but I feel the fear of the Tau formation is on paper and not in reality.

The issue is that it pays zero points for a number of high utility special rules and takes no FoC slots so you can still load up on yet more big guns than you'd normally be able to do so. It's literally a "buy this preconfigured box, get X free special rules, and don't worry about that pesky FoC".

Vaktathi,

I'm sorry, I thought your last comment described the Farsight codex when it allies to Tau. You know it ignores the FOC and gets rules for free from the chip it's not supposed to have.

I suppose you can say the Tau Formation has to pay a tax for its special rules. 9 broadsides and a Riptide isn't cheap. You don't get the free rules if you take 8 broadsides do you.

Seriously it's not as bad as it looks on paper. It's like taking 4 Heldrakes. It looks strong on paper, but not in game.

I hope that TOs will allow the use of newer units to keep the tournament system closely matching the actual game.

Hulksmash wrote:I would prefer that new unit data slates be permitted (i.e. Cypher, Belakor).

I'm against formations being allowed from data slates.

Agreed that's a great compromise. The formations add nothing to the game in a positive way, imo, but new units certainly do.

 RiTides wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I would prefer that new unit data slates be permitted (i.e. Cypher, Belakor).

I'm against formations being allowed from data slates.

Agreed that's a great compromise. The formations add nothing to the game in a positive way, imo, but new units certainly do.

The Tyranid ones seem okay.

The SM flyers is okay, and allows for ones with bad to no flyers (DA, SW) to take them without a full SM alliance.

The Cypher one is pretty...yeah it involves chosen, but still they can take it if they want.

The only one that anyone considers an issue is the Tau Formation. So why the blanket ban when there's ONE specific formation people dislike? Currently the issue I don't understand.

 Byte wrote:
I agree with you 100%. Is it 40K anymore when core rules and approved options aren't allowed?

Isn't this the game where the guys who wrote it tell you right in the front of the book that players should feel free to alter the rules to suit themselves?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
So why the blanket ban when there's ONE specific formation people dislike?

For the same reasons that people want to ban all FW rules because they heard about some guy who won a game once with a FW unit: instinctive "BAN THIS NOW" reaction to anything that changes the game, combined with a bizarre assumption that GW publishes different categories of rules and some of them aren't "real 40k".

 insaniak wrote:

 Byte wrote:
I agree with you 100%. Is it 40K anymore when core rules and approved options aren't allowed?

Isn't this the game where the guys who wrote it tell you right in the front of the book that players should feel free to alter the rules to suit themselves?

So lets continue to limit supplemental rules and ignore the clearly overpowered unbalanced Eldar codex.

 Byte wrote:
So lets continue to limit supplemental rules and ignore the clearly overpowered unbalanced Eldar codex.

Excellent, glad we're agreed.



Seriously, though, I would echo the suggestion that the bigger problem with the slates and supplements isn't so much how unbalanced they are, but simple availability. Keeping track of them all is a pain, and that will only get worse as time goes by. I can well understand TO's just not wanting the headache of keeping up with it all.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I would prefer that new unit data slates be permitted (i.e. Cypher, Belakor).

I'm against formations being allowed from data slates.

Agreed that's a great compromise. The formations add nothing to the game in a positive way, imo, but new units certainly do.

The Tyranid ones seem okay.

The SM flyers is okay, and allows for ones with bad to no flyers (DA, SW) to take them without a full SM alliance.

The Cypher one is pretty...yeah it involves chosen, but still they can take it if they want.

The only one that anyone considers an issue is the Tau Formation. So why the blanket ban when there's ONE specific formation people dislike? Currently the issue I don't understand.

See insaniak's post above.

I'd much prefer allowing FW to most data slates, actually- FW actually adds units, formations are mostly just a money grab by GW. The complication of formations is not worth their inclusion... they add nothing in terms of units, and giving a unit tank Hunter or the like for free just because it's in a formation is downright silly.

 RiTides wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I would prefer that new unit data slates be permitted (i.e. Cypher, Belakor).

I'm against formations being allowed from data slates.

Agreed that's a great compromise. The formations add nothing to the game in a positive way, imo, but new units certainly do.

The Tyranid ones seem okay.

The SM flyers is okay, and allows for ones with bad to no flyers (DA, SW) to take them without a full SM alliance.

The Cypher one is pretty...yeah it involves chosen, but still they can take it if they want.

The only one that anyone considers an issue is the Tau Formation. So why the blanket ban when there's ONE specific formation people dislike? Currently the issue I don't understand.

See insaniak's post above.

I'd much prefer allowing FW to most data slates, actually- FW actually adds units, formations are mostly just a money grab by GW. The complication of formations is not worth their inclusion... they add nothing in terms of units, and giving a unit tank Hunter or the like for free just because it's in a formation is downright silly.

I have never been a huge fan of FW but I have to agree. At least with FW the rules are in a set number of books not a bunch of electronic dataslates. This is coming from an iPad user who owns all the 6th ed codices except Dark Angels in their iBook form and even the Necron and GK 5th ed codices. If they keep putting out dataslates at the rate they are we will have far too many all over the place for my liking.

 RiTides wrote:


I'd much prefer allowing FW to most data slates, actually- FW actually adds units, formations are mostly just a money grab by GW. The complication of formations is not worth their inclusion... they add nothing in terms of units, and giving a unit tank Hunter or the like for free just because it's in a formation is downright silly.

When you think about it, it is not that far removed from an 'item mall' in a popular mmorpg. "Oh, you're going to purchase 9 broadsides and a riptide?" Here you go, have some USRs."

In the end, there will be no agreement. Just many gamers with many ideas about what they want TO's all over to be running. It doesn't really matter. Very few people will be running all over the country. What you really care about is what the local TO's are going to be running. The local TO also may not care one bit what gamers all over (who won't be attending his tournament) have to say about his format. He'll care more about his local group.

So while it's fun to discuss things here, and share ideas, the very best thing local players can do is work with the local TO's and communicate with them. Then attend the tournaments you want to play in, and skip the ones you don't.

There will never be one format that fits all.