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 mikhaila wrote:
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.

Of course there's is absolutely no sane retort to your post, but consider the following... This is a local TO and the direction of the "local meta". Hence the birth of my branding of 39K+1.

-Warlord powers rolled out of the main rulebook will use one dice. This result can be used on any of the three tables. This roll cannot be switched to use into a codex specific chart.

-Any models using any FW/IA rules MUST contact a T.O. for approval before Thursday February 6th. Any participants that bring unapproved rules will answer to the discretion of the T.O. the day of the tournament.

-All forces must use their most recent codex, including WD replacements.



1.) Supplemental Codecies will no longer be able to ally to their base codex. Also codecies cannot ally with themselves, even if rules allow them to do so.



2.) Dataslates/Inquisitorial Supplement will take an ally slot. Taking units from many, many different books and ignoring the force organization chart is too much. This change will make dataslates an interesting addition to the game, without allowing for truly bizzare armies. As an added bonus of explanations, we feel that the codex and allies works well and we encourage people to use allies, but being able to use so many different things at once is mind blowing and hard to list check. So in order to prevent this, we enacted the first two rules.



3.) No Escalation or Stronghold Assault units. Fortifications from main rulebook are still allowed.



4.) Tabling an opponent will not give an auto-full point win in objective based missions. The game is meant to be fun and complete wiping an opponent does not follow our idea of good sportsmanship. If you do manage to wipe an opponent, kudos but you must still adhere to mission objectives. Mission are meant for a reason and we don’t want people ignoring them. If you can’t grab the objectives needed, then you did not complete your mission. If you table your opponent with turns left, the game will continue as normal for the player left to try to finish missions.



5.) The Grimoire of True Names will only affect the natural Daemon Invulnerable Save. It will not affect invulnerable saves provided by wargear, psychic powers, fortifications, etc. While we did not want to single ANY codex, we feel that the Grimoire unbalances the game too much in favor of a single army. Instead of banning it, we feel that only affecting Daemons units natural invulnerable saves was a good, fair and fluffy compromise.



6.) Any given unit may only be affected by one blessing and one malediction at a time. This is to prevent units from being completely bogged down by effects that would render them as less than pity grots.

Chess anybody? The rules are pretty established.

That all sounds pretty fair to me...I would have no problem whatsoever playing under those rules.

Here's a better (IMO) idea: limit the FOC rather than the source. The new FOC:

* One primary detachment. 1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast, 0-3 heavy.

* 0-1 single fortification of 150 points or less (IOW, no fortress of redemption or "units" of fortifications, and no massive fortifications).

* 0-1 of the following choices:
- A single lord of war.
- Upgrade your fortification choice to include any fortification, including massive fortifications and "units" of fortifications.
- A single allied detachment, including C:I and any other "special" allies.
- A single formation.

Within those limits in place the source of the rules is irrelevant. Take freely from codices/FW/supplements/dataslates/whatever, as long as you obey the FOC slot requirements. This approach settles the "is this a legal book" question, limits the total number of different rule sources a single army can contain, and brings the game back closer to a state where each army has its core identity.

It was clear that the release of the tyranid codex left a lot of players disappointed due to its poor internal balance, lack of FOC expansion, and the obvious disadvantage of an inability to ally with another army that compensates its deficiencies. However, they will have a total of 3 dataslates with an estimated 15 formations within just a couple months of the codex's release. It's hard to say that the special attention the nids are getting with slates is by chance, and not because GW is trying to plug holes with codex limitations... Therefore, denying the use of slates in this situation would be to plainly force nid players to just be gimped in tournaments simply because the way GW chose to balance their dex..

With that said, I'm certain arguments could be made for other slates providing additional rules/characters to armies in an attempt to fill gaps to make said army more viable.. Obviously the Tau formation is an outlier to this argument... Statisticians usually ignore outliers and not consider them part of the dataset, I think TOs can do the same.

As for the arguments pointing to the difference between digital vs. print.. srsly? Do you not notice all the book stores in your community closing shop because of the lack of people buying print? To say something is less legitimate because of the medium it is chosen to be released on doesn't make any sense at all.. For reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/technology/20amazon.html

 insaniak wrote:
That all sounds pretty fair to me...I would have no problem whatsoever playing under those rules.

And yet it targets only Daemons, rather then Wave Serpants, Riptides, Buffmanders..

Gotta love that bias.

Personally, I'm all for banning 6th ed 40k from tournaments.

Gets rid of all associated issues.

Allies seems to be what's most wrong with the game atm. As a biased Tyranid player I'm all for the ban on Allies. Unfortunately people have jumped all over their crutches and I don't think there's any going back.

Just ban D-weapons, the Tau data slate and Hammer and Anvil deployments (another unnecessary crutch for ranged armies).

As a tyranid player as well (starting) I disagree... I don't begrudge others their allies just because I can't have them. And I don't think the tyranid dataslates add anything worthwhile, at least so far. We'll see once they're all released...

Banning allies, or even just removing Battle Brothers would go a long way for someone like me.

 chromedog wrote:
Personally, I'm all for banning 6th ed 40k from tournaments.

Gets rid of all associated issues.

Wow. Talk about a useless post. Almost as useless as my post commenting on how useless your post is, but seriously, why comment in a thread about 40k tounaments if your only response is just to be a dick? We're trying to come up with creative ways to solve a community issue. If this is your attitude when hosting events, touns, whatever, then stop hosting them.

slaede wrote:
To the best of my understanding, dataslates have been banned largely because of the Tau formation. I haven't seen anyone complaining about the Astartes Stormwing or the three new Tyranid formations. I have no particular gripe with the Tau formation myself, but I see the shennanigans involved with messing with the traditional force org chart, and I feel this is reasonably addressed by letting folks take only a single allied detachment, which a formation would count towards.

My question to TO's is why is everything that comes out in digital format being banned simply because people don't like one of them? Adepticon, Broadside Bash and many other large tourneys have followed LVO's lead in banning every dataslate across the board. Are Be'lakor and Cypher so egregiously overpowered that they merit banning? Are they so much worse than toolbox Commanders letting blobs of Riptides ignore all the rules of the game, or Jetseer Councils flying around indestructibly?

Currently, Eldar are the top of the meta, having taken half the spots in the LVO finals, and owning the very highest win percentage on TOF. Banning Be'lakor and Cypher deprive Chaos Space Marines (considered a very poor army by most) of two very useful and interesting tools to help them compete with the big boys and shake up the meta.

Thus, I humbly request all TO's consider not lumping all dataslates together, and go about reigning in force org shennanigans a bit differently. Thank you.

An interesting post to say the least. I think that most current players both casual and competitive will agree that there is little balance within the game. GW has more or less stated that they have no interest in balancing the game and that it is meant to be srtictly casual, this notion is backed by the lack of competitive support that GW offers compared to a decade ago. So here is my two cents for what it is worth.

1. Should anything within the game be banned? My reaction to this is no, it is not the responsibility of GW to provide units and/or rules that are balanced from army to army. Each TO has an obligation to offer his/her players a format that considers the inbalance of the presnet armies and creates a set of missions or scoring that offsets the inherent imbalance that exists. The missions found within the BRB are again not intended to be balaanced, so why use them? Now this does require TO's to take on more personal responsibility in creating a balancing element and I will be the first to say that is isn't easy, but it is critical to successfully balance a competitive event because GW will not.

2. Referring to what "meta" is currently good vs bad is a tricky subject. There are many, many variables that exist within the game when it comes down to what works and what doesn't much less the fact the game relies on dice rolls. Tournaments are only as good as the TO that sponsor them. If a TO is using imbalanced missions or objectives how can one really know what army is best? I am always skeptical of "netlists" and RT tourament rankings. Lists do vary from area to area and mission/objective styles vary greatly as well. For instance, the OP refers to Eldar being at the top of the current "meta", yet out of 5 matches in my area I have lost to one player and he brought a hydrid Eldar/Tau force. I was playing a drop Salamander list, so what does that tell you? Not much really and that is my point, as a community we have conflated the concept of what is good and bad in the context of a imbalanced game. The "Official" FAQ aren't helping the situation either. First off, they aren't authored by GW's Codex writers or anyone else within the organization, they are written by various gaming groups from various areas in the world. So that being the case how can anyone expect the FAQ rulings to be anything but clarifications that aid the personal armies of those that are asked to make the rulings? I am sure that there are some FAQ contributers that do try and be impartial but it is awful hard to expect someone to be so when they have a personal bias.

In a nut shell, everything that I am hearing from players and TO's alike concerning competitive play comes down to balance. If the competitive community wishes to continue playing competitively they will need to arrive to the understanding that some work will be neccessary to find tha balance that is missing. TO's cannot rely upon using BRB missions and/or banning certain units that are hard to control. It only ends up culling the number of playable armies to a handful which eliminates a dynamic tournament environment (if playing isn't fun then why would anyone do it?). There is no one solution to the problem, it will take a concentrated effort from many TO's using many various tools and techniques. But if things remain status quo then the hobby itself will grow for better or worse.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
That all sounds pretty fair to me...I would have no problem whatsoever playing under those rules.

And yet it targets only Daemons, rather then Wave Serpants, Riptides, Buffmanders..

Gotta love that bias.

It does seem to be very much that way not dealing with the issues with those units

citadel wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
Personally, I'm all for banning 6th ed 40k from tournaments.

Gets rid of all associated issues.

Wow. Talk about a useless post. Almost as useless as my post commenting on how useless your post is, but seriously, why comment in a thread about 40k tounaments if your only response is just to be a dick? We're trying to come up with creative ways to solve a community issue. If this is your attitude when hosting events, touns, whatever, then stop hosting them.

You missed the point entirely. Sure, it's an absurd point...except that i know groups that play 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition 40k still.

I took his post to be an extreme example of what's in this thread, and he made it to show the absurdity in others. Most peoples arguments boil down to "this is how I think the game should be played, why won't TO's run the game this way?"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Byte wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
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.

Of course there's is absolutely no sane retort to your post, but consider the following... This is a local TO and the direction of the "local meta". Hence the birth of my branding of 39K+1.

-Warlord powers rolled out of the main rulebook will use one dice. This result can be used on any of the three tables. This roll cannot be switched to use into a codex specific chart.

-Any models using any FW/IA rules MUST contact a T.O. for approval before Thursday February 6th. Any participants that bring unapproved rules will answer to the discretion of the T.O. the day of the tournament.

-All forces must use their most recent codex, including WD replacements.



1.) Supplemental Codecies will no longer be able to ally to their base codex. Also codecies cannot ally with themselves, even if rules allow them to do so.



2.) Dataslates/Inquisitorial Supplement will take an ally slot. Taking units from many, many different books and ignoring the force organization chart is too much. This change will make dataslates an interesting addition to the game, without allowing for truly bizzare armies. As an added bonus of explanations, we feel that the codex and allies works well and we encourage people to use allies, but being able to use so many different things at once is mind blowing and hard to list check. So in order to prevent this, we enacted the first two rules.



3.) No Escalation or Stronghold Assault units. Fortifications from main rulebook are still allowed.



4.) Tabling an opponent will not give an auto-full point win in objective based missions. The game is meant to be fun and complete wiping an opponent does not follow our idea of good sportsmanship. If you do manage to wipe an opponent, kudos but you must still adhere to mission objectives. Mission are meant for a reason and we don’t want people ignoring them. If you can’t grab the objectives needed, then you did not complete your mission. If you table your opponent with turns left, the game will continue as normal for the player left to try to finish missions.



5.) The Grimoire of True Names will only affect the natural Daemon Invulnerable Save. It will not affect invulnerable saves provided by wargear, psychic powers, fortifications, etc. While we did not want to single ANY codex, we feel that the Grimoire unbalances the game too much in favor of a single army. Instead of banning it, we feel that only affecting Daemons units natural invulnerable saves was a good, fair and fluffy compromise.



6.) Any given unit may only be affected by one blessing and one malediction at a time. This is to prevent units from being completely bogged down by effects that would render them as less than pity grots.

Chess anybody? The rules are pretty established.

I actually have no problem with someone running those rules. I'd play in it. And if i didn't like them, I wouldn't.

If you don't like those rules, why not run a tournament with what you do like. Give players a choice. And more tournaments is always good.

You missed the point entirely. Sure, it's an absurd point...except that i know groups that play 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition 40k still. I took his post to be an extreme example of what's in this thread, and he made it to show the absurdity in others. Most peoples arguments boil down to "this is how I think the game should be played, why won't TO's run the game this way?"

No, I got the irony and cynicism just fine. I felt obligated to point out that his post did nothing to further the discussion at hand. Sure, negating the entire issue is an option, but does it really need to be positioned?

And now you've made two posts that... well, really aren't furthering the discussion either . Point's made!

I think the "39+1K" label is the most telling. Some people are really, really convinced that there is one "right" way to play warhammer, and that is "40K" and anything else is wrong. But the reality is, every single event, even GW's own events, make specifications on what they're allowing, what kind of missions they're running, terrain setups, etc. Each event is different, and while some things tie them all together, they're never all going to be identical.

But label all tournaments as 39+1K and play "true 40K" in your house... leaves the events for people to attend who understand that TOs can and must make rulings in order to run their events. It's the nature of this game, since GW doesn't organize tourney play and seems to have no interest in making rulings that are needed to run tournaments (unlike, for instance, Privateer Press, who take a very strong interest in doing such things and making those rulings... almost too strong an interest, really!).

As a final thought... if you're the only one playing "true 40K", but it's in your house... does that, by it's very definition, make it "house rules"? I'm joking, but you get the point- everybody is playing by house rules... or at least, everybody who actually is trying to run an event and deal with rules conflicts, etc. As mikhaila said, most TOs welcome others to start their own events if they want to see an event run differently... but people who actually do soon realize that in order to make things work, they're going to have to make some calls/rulings on what to allow, etc. And those calls will always be unpopular with some percentage of people. You can't please everybody... but you can make rulings that make the game as playable as possible for most people.

As an example, I don't know of any event other than the Gladiator at AdeptiCon that allows all FW army lists (at least, I think it does?). So you've got that at one end of the spectrum, and an event that allows "no allies" at the other. In between there is a whole gradient of events, as there should be. And regarding this discussion, it's unlikely for ALL events to ever allow ALL dataslates... but having most events allow the dataslates that include new units is a much more reasonable goal to have (as the OP respectfully laid out, even in his title ). So, that's an attainable goal, whereas rhetoric about "true 40K" or "39K+1" is just a rabbit hole that leads nowhere.

I have been playing in tournaments for a while and this is the first edition I can remember that TOs are struggling with how to run their tournaments. I think that is very telling as well, as is the simple fact that threads like this exist at all.

 puma713 wrote:
I have been playing in tournaments for a while and this is the first edition I can remember that TOs are struggling with how to run their tournaments. I think that is very telling as well, as is the simple fact that threads like this exist at all.

This is a good point. In years past there were things you debated about, but they look so very small in hindsight compared to today.

GW is tossing rules up online, putting out new codices, and supplements at a rapid pace. And they consider them all to be core 40k rules. Because it's all about selling as many models each month as possible.

So does a TO include it all , when the only reason some rules exist is because someone at GW wanted to up sales by getting people to buy 6 riptides? But then the guy that bought them wants to play them, doesn't he?
Do you cave and let the guy that bought a Warhound get to use it? Or the guy with the cardboard scratchbuilt titan play too, because it shouldn't be 'pay to win' ? Hell, does a TO even have access to all the rules people want put in? So much fun having to buy an endless collection of GW downloads, Codices, FW books, just so you can work to put on a tournament and not get to play yourself...

Used to be we argued about playing 1750 or 1850, and how much terrain to use.

 mikhaila wrote:

 puma713 wrote:
I have been playing in tournaments for a while and this is the first edition I can remember that TOs are struggling with how to run their tournaments. I think that is very telling as well, as is the simple fact that threads like this exist at all.

This is a good point. In years past there were things you debated about, but they look so very small in hindsight compared to today.

GW is tossing rules up online, putting out new codices, and supplements at a rapid pace. And they consider them all to be core 40k rules. Because it's all about selling as many models each month as possible.

So does a TO include it all , when the only reason some rules exist is because someone at GW wanted to up sales by getting people to buy 6 riptides? But then the guy that bought them wants to play them, doesn't he?
Do you cave and let the guy that bought a Warhound get to use it? Or the guy with the cardboard scratchbuilt titan play too, because it shouldn't be 'pay to win' ? Hell, does a TO even have access to all the rules people want put in? So much fun having to buy an endless collection of GW downloads, Codices, FW books, just so you can work to put on a tournament and not get to play yourself...

Used to be we argued about playing 1750 or 1850, and how much terrain to use.

Ahhh, the good ol days.

0wlc0der wrote:

With that said, I'm certain arguments could be made for other slates providing additional rules/characters to armies in an attempt to fill gaps to make said army more viable.. Obviously the Tau formation is an outlier to this argument... Statisticians usually ignore outliers and not consider them part of the dataset, I think TOs can do the same.

Not really, Apple and Organs.
The Tau one isnt a Outlier, it is just part of the Trend Where GW is trying to make money of hot selling products. the problem is formations allow for the complete breaking of the FOC chart.

I like the idea of the original post but I think the problem is much deeper than just dataslates.

First off...

How is a dataslate any different than a White Dwarf rules addition?
- An official update that may eventually be part of a larger tome. This happened with the Book of the Astronomicon, Compilation, Compendium, Chapter Approved, Main Rule Books and more!
- If you do not use those models you do not have to buy the rules.
- It is 2014, most players have access to a smartphone, tablet or computer to get a copy of the rules that want to use or have knowledge of. If you are so afraid of technology, go bury your head in the sand until the end of the Age of Strife or just wait a couple months and buy it in print.

in grumpy old man voice Back in my day, we had to get a White Dwarf subscription to get a chance to have new rules and more than half the time we got square base filler!

I do like the new White Dwarf format but it appears that we will not get COMPLETE rules there like we do from the Black Library releases. I guess when the Imperial Knight stuff hits in the coming weeks we will see for sure if we can get all the rules we need there or have to go to Black Library, GW Digital or GW print. For now, most of the new content is digital - WHICH ALLOWS US TO PLAY WITH OUR MODELS (sooo glad I have Cypher and Be'lakor in my cases), so what's wrong with that?

I have been playing since Rogue Trader and have seen the more negative reactions from players and TO's during 6th edition than ever before. I have seen bans on fliers, Death from the Skies, select units from FW books (no fliers allowed after 6E), FW altogether, dataslates, formations, White Dwarf, fortifications, allies, ally matrix, select wargear or rules for individual codexes and more. Is the game that bad? If it is, why are you playing? I feel that the real issue today is the general attitude on message boards and blogs these days. I will not call out any in particular but you can see for yourself that sites that were once invaluable resources for hobby tips and new ways to enjoy the game are now just advertising and rants. Maybe you might want to get some fresh new bookmarks that fit with your hobby style more.

I have read many comments here and on similar threads that are supposed to be based on "game balance". For me, these items seem to never be discussed yet throw off game balance more than any of the hot topics:

Hills count as area terrain.

Ok, so this seemed to be started by stores/clubs/events that did not have enough scenery so they called hills "area terrain". In 6E, Monstrous Creatures get cover saves if even a toe is on the base. Wonder why Riptides and Wraithknights have had a great time??? Get off your bum and build some proper terrain! This includes players! TO's would be thrilled to get help in this area and I do not think any would ever turn down good quality terrain to be loaned to them.

Not enough proper Terrain

Look at pics of some of the tournaments out there and you can see that most of the terrain is nowhere near where it should be for 6E. 25%+ coverage of the table is not enough anymore! We have 8" high beasties and fliers, so make your terrain taller! Generic terrain that was fine in the past will not cut it in 6E. Look at some of the event pictures and results over the past two years and you will see why some armies won easily.

Getting away from balanced armies

Unfortunately, game balance has never existed in 40K. It may have gotten close with a few armies, but never for the whole game.

- 1E - Roll on a chart for X points, maybe get a bolt pistol or maybe a conversion beamer!
- 2E - Playing against poorly armored troops? Better buy that Virus Grenade so you can wipe them out first turn.
- 3E - Finally we start to see regular codex releases, but that slowed down to the point where some armies still are left in the dust
- 4E - The game gets better but poor FAQs and outdated books makes many armies suffer
- 5E - Still waiting for 3E books to be updated. An FAQ that says just don't use their special rules doesn't help.
- 6E - New game! But my army_01 doesn't have anti-air, a new shiny book, or the ally combo that TFG has!


The game is still about models. Sure you could play vassal with a select group of composition rules but I think we all enjoy playing with models on a tabletop more. Try to take a step back and remember why you started this hobby in the first place.

/preach off


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And some replies to previous posts:

kronk, and other who want a physical book
Black Library has done compilations and they said they would have one done for this content in the future. As for a physical book, I think you need to buy the E-book edition and then can have it printed easily (not entirely sure that is the correct format for printing so correct me if you know the right one). I have seen some that players had printed and bound and they turned out quite nice for just a couple bucks.

OverwatchCNC
See above about Compilations and printing. We went from 17 codexes in 5th edition to now having 7 of them replaced and another 6+ supplementals as well as other sources for new rules in less than two years. There are lots of new sources for rules and the argument that it is hard for tournament gamers to know every rule is holding less water all the time (not directed toward you but this was also a common argument against Forge World for quite a long time)

puma713
If you are on the boards here then you probably have the ability to have access to the rules.

So, you may not have an iDevice, do you currently carry 25+ books to a tournament? Plus a dozen Forge World books? I do not know what the total is now, but in November 2012, a hard copy of every book totaled up to 88 pounds!!!

Yeah, 5th edition allowed players to know most of the rules easier but we were also playing with codexes from 3rd edition!!! It is a lot easier to stay current with the rules if they don't get updated!

dkellyj
Yes, the digital files could be tampered with but I have seen more shenanigans with Army Builder than with any other method of cheating (and honest mistakes) and it is still widely used.

Choose your own way to play'ers
You nailed it! GW even posted on the Digital Editions page a couple months ago that the new digital content is just as easy to include/exclude from your games as a print codex. I am just waiting for an event that bans Codex Eldar or Tau - that will make me giggle.

0wlc0der wrote:
With that said, I'm certain arguments could be made for other slates providing additional rules/characters to armies in an attempt to fill gaps to make said army more viable.. Obviously the Tau formation is an outlier to this argument... Statisticians usually ignore outliers and not consider them part of the dataset, I think TOs can do the same.

Think about that for a moment. Tournament organisers ignoring the problems with all the most outlying powerful units....
....
You're gonna have a bad time.

I think there are a few big problems with dataslates/escalation/allies/etc:
1) It makes themed armies even worse than they were before. Trying to run a hormagaunt horde? Not going to work
2) It makes armies look stupid. Showing up with Allied Eldar/Dark Eldar with a Tau formation and imperial fortifications?
3) It makes armies have no weaknesses. Get your shooting from Tau and combat ability from Marines. Or whatever.
and mainly:
4) It focusses high-performing lists towards hyper-analysed trick armies, rather than your 'traditional' take-all-comers army.

 Reecius wrote:

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.

You also had Templecon that weekend that drew people away as well. So you had the big name players both in RI and in LV.

 Tironum wrote:
How is a dataslate any different than a White Dwarf rules addition?

For one, at least back when White Dwarf was good, you weren't just getting the rules addition for your money. You could also cut out or copy the rules piece, and compile it with any other rules additions you had collected, so that you could have them all in a single volume rather than having to open multiple digital files to get at all of the rules you need.

- If you do not use those models you do not have to buy the rules.

Have to? No, of course not.

But for competitive players, keeping abreast of the current rules is kind of important. Making those rules harder to keep track of is therefore not going to be popular with those players.

I have been playing since Rogue Trader and have seen the more negative reactions from players and TO's during 6th edition than ever before. I have seen bans on fliers, Death from the Skies, select units from FW books (no fliers allowed after 6E), FW altogether, dataslates, formations, White Dwarf, fortifications, allies, ally matrix, select wargear or rules for individual codexes and more. Is the game that bad? If it is, why are you playing?

Because once people cut the things they don't like from the game, they still enjoy the game, would be my guess...

I feel that the real issue today is the general attitude on message boards and blogs these days.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, that's not the issue. It's a symptom of the issue... which is GW's recent treatment of their games, and of the people who like them.

In most cases, the companies that do more to actively engage with their customers receive nowhere near the level of anger about the things they do wrong as GW do, because the relationship with their customers isn't just one-way.

The attitude towards GW isn't going to change until GW decides to go back to actually relating to their customers.

Hills count as area terrain.

Ok, so this seemed to be started by stores/clubs/events that did not have enough scenery so they called hills "area terrain".

Actually, it started back in 4th edition, with a ruleset that in one section said that hills shouldn't be area terrain and in another used them as an example of the sort of terrain that should be area terrain...

As a result of that, and the general misunderstanding of the LOS rules that resulted in many people just treating everything as area terrain, many players wound up treating hills as area terrain and it's just sort of stuck.

Added to which, since most tournaments use terrain that is made up of larger pieces with defined base areas, at least from my experience it's quite common for players to just call everything area terrain to save time classifying everything. Nothing to do with not having enough terrain.

Trasvi wrote:

0wlc0der wrote:
With that said, I'm certain arguments could be made for other slates providing additional rules/characters to armies in an attempt to fill gaps to make said army more viable.. Obviously the Tau formation is an outlier to this argument... Statisticians usually ignore outliers and not consider them part of the dataset, I think TOs can do the same.

Think about that for a moment. Tournament organisers ignoring the problems with all the most outlying powerful units....
....
You're gonna have a bad time.

I think there are a few big problems with dataslates/escalation/allies/etc:
1) It makes themed armies even worse than they were before. Trying to run a hormagaunt horde? Not going to work
2) It makes armies look stupid. Showing up with Allied Eldar/Dark Eldar with a Tau formation and imperial fortifications?
3) It makes armies have no weaknesses. Get your shooting from Tau and combat ability from Marines. Or whatever.
and mainly:
4) It focusses high-performing lists towards hyper-analysed trick armies, rather than your 'traditional' take-all-comers army.

Sorry, regarding what I said with "ignore outliers", I meant discard them, or adjust them so they are more similar to the majority of the observed data points... Specifically, to disallow or nerf the tau formation..

I don't understand your first point, but totally agree with 2,3,and 4.. Allies are dumb.. GW has a hard enough time balancing a single book, but now it has to also consider what a dex can do with allies? Ridiculous.. I'm not a fan of formations/slates or allies, but I do think if you allow an army to benefit from one advantage such as allies, it would be wrong to deny another army to benefit from another advantage such as formations or slate characters..

0wlc0der wrote:
GW has a hard enough time balancing a single book, but now it has to also consider what a dex can do with allies?

That's quite a presumption that a lot of people disagree with. It's debatable whether GW even cares about balance any more, either in one codex or between multiple codices.

0wlc0der wrote:
I'm not a fan of formations/slates or allies, but I do think if you allow an army to benefit from one advantage such as allies, it would be wrong to deny another army to benefit from another advantage such as formations or slate characters..

That's quite a leap from one thing (allowing allies, which is near-universal) to another (allowing formations in particular). And again, right now the most broken formation also happens to be for one of the strongest armies that people tend to ally! So it can actually make the situation worse.

I think the trend to limit things in tournaments is going to continue, as GW just throws all these random rules out there... someone has to sort through them, and right now that's being left up to event organizers.