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 TheNewBlood wrote:


Again, the RAW may not be ambiguous, but that doesn't make CFP sharing special rules any less broken. People were rightly afraid of how stupidly overpowered Tau could be if this was allowed to stand.

Thats the point!

its simply wrong to act as if we are dabating RAW wen the only purpose is to do balancing via hous rules. I totaly agree that this could be to strong. and that it should maybe limited. but its gives such a bad taste when someone tries to justify it by telling me the rule itself is ambigous. this is exactly what happened. It was a wild mix of wrong or irelevant rule quoting , balancing issues and last but not least fear mongering. without proper game testing.

The ITC vote results underscore that popularity and fairness are two different things.

The ITC want well-attended events so their solution is to let the mob vote for "how they want to play." The ITC events will be well-attended as a result and maximum revenue generated.

The alternative of letting the Tau play the Hunter Contingent according to RAW would have scared a number of players from attending ITC events. The mob has not had a chance to play against the Hunter Contingent but boy are they scared of it.


The problem with doing things the mob vote way though is that it will cause certain unfair (yet popular) things to happen.

1) The majority instills unfair buffs to promote it's own interests. The Imperium of Man benefits from several buffs that go against the rules in the BRB.

2) The majority instills unfair nerfs against powerful minorities to weaken their interests. The Tau received an unfair nerfing that went against RAW and before any reasonable amount of testing had been done.

3) Weak minorities can get unfair buffs due to the 'underdog effect' so long as they don't threaten majority interests. The Orks were given a completely unfair buff in this ITC vote but it's okay and popular since they are weak underdogs and mascots for 40k.


The alternative to doing things the mob vote way is to elect or nominate a panel of impartial experts (with ideally very little or nothing at stake in any particular faction) who will instill rulings according to RAW/RAI and buff or nerf against RAW/RAI conservatively and only when it proves necessary to balance the game. This method will generate a fairer set of rules than the 'mob vote' method, but sales of tickets at large events will be affected negatively, since some of the fair rulings by this expert panel will undoubtedly sometimes be unpopular to the majority.

I think the ITC ruleset should be recognized for what it is. It's a consensual ruleset that heavily favors popularity over fairness and seeks to maximize attendance at large events by catering to the masses at the expense of minorities.
Since the ITC is unfair at it's core, I won't be using it unless I am prepping for or attending an ITC event. It is simply not a fair standard. Mob voting and methods of maximizing attendance have no place in generating a fair set of rules and a standard set of house rules for playing 40k.

X078 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Just went to a tournament with the new ITC ruleset. It was a somewhat small tournament but out of the 16 people there, 5 brought Tau!

Anyways, it was Round #2 and the 2 Tau players were playing against each other (on Table #1). They were also the 2 top players at that point. It was Paul McKelvey, the ITC #1 Tau player, playing against Jeremy Vesseire aka The French Overlord.

They then proceeded to knock each other out with a draw, thus allowing a Daemon player to win it all.

Nice, any feedback on how playing ITC Tau vs RAW Tau was? And what lists did they use?

Both are top, top players and neither ran any Stormsurges. While I don't know what exactly they were running, Paul was running MSU and Jeremy brought several Ghostkeels (I am assuming the Hunter Cadre + 2 OSC's).

I've played against both before and both are very, very good. If they hadn't knocked each other out, Tau would have won the tournament even with the nerfed intepretation of the CF rules. Honestly, I don't know what effect the ITC's FAQ of the CF had on their games, but both are smart enough to adjust to the changes.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Just went to a tournament with the new ITC ruleset. It was a somewhat small tournament but out of the 16 people there, 5 brought Tau!

Anyways, it was Round #2 and the 2 Tau players were playing against each other (on Table #1). They were also the 2 top players at that point. It was Paul McKelvey, the ITC #1 Tau player, playing against Jeremy Vesseire aka The French Overlord.

They then proceeded to knock each other out of the championship with a draw, thus allowing a Daemon player to win it all.

That is pretty funny, I am nowhere near the caliber of player they are, but my friends and I have done that to each other before at a tournament and it was pretty funny.


i would also love to see more details from the game like the mission info and the lists used.

Apparently it was a very tightly contested game that ended that went over the time limit to T5. However, had they stopped before time was called, I think Jeremy would have won. But Paul manage to tie it up on T5.

Can't give you any other specifics on the game though. I was too busy with my own game.

Well thanks for the info, sounds like it would have been a very interesting game to watch.

X078 wrote:

But more to the point, I knew for a fact how it worked. But my opponent also knew for a fact how it worked. Yet I was unable to convince him. He left the game room that day still thinking that my model was against the rules. He was similarly unable to convince me. I left the game room that day still thinking my model was totally fine.

Didn't you just peruse the rules and it would have been settled?

Anyways that is similar to the the issue with Tau and the Coordinated Fire rule. People start adding their own personal assumptions in to how it is written. "Resolving shots as if one unit" is pretty clear unless US folks got some weird interpretation of "as if". In all honesty GW could have just left that part of the sentence out if they intended for the units to fire on their own. E.g. "These units resolve their shots together - including the use of Marker Lights". But now, RAW there is now ambiguity.

"As if" is more of a "similar to" rather than "exactly the same". In fact, in the past GW has ruled that way on several other rules. For example, counter attack granted +1A "as if" the unit was charging, but they faqd it to clarify the "as if" did not mean "exactly the same as" having charged, and thus counter attack did not trigger rage, furious charge, etc. Hence the statements of ambiguity.

For all the Tau players, I think we have made it perfectly clear that we are upset/disappointed regarding with the ITC vote/results. Now I believe, we should start moving on and start thinking of new possible tactics/army lists if were participating under an ITC event. We are starting to sound very whinny, at least from my perspective. Don't get me wrong, I am still upset and disappointed about the results but nothing I say now on the internet will change the results. So I suggest we should let it play out, see if TAU is still just in the middle of the pack regarding tournament settings then start submitting submission forms to frontline gaming to possibly un-nerfing CF. Hope you guys/gals don't take this the wrong way.

 Mulletdude wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Ok, here's the leaderboard for that event: http://app.torrentoffire.com/#/tournament/NOVA-Open-2015/1/leaderboard

Tau finishes:

2nd (Tau-Dar): 7-1
34th (Tau-Tau): 6-2
51st (Tau-Tau) 5-3
87th (Tau) 4-4
151st (Tau-CSM) 3-5
160th (Tau) 0-5 drop

Except for the one person, the Tau players in the entire event were all in the positive, with the only other person with a record below even was allied with CSM.

Yes, it's one event, but it's one of the largest events, and Tau did 25-20 in record, that's accounting the player who didn't even play all their games, and even if they lost all of their unplayed games Tau would still be positive. If we drop the one statistically abnormal result Tau went 25-15, which is a win rate of 62% which is insane at that level of play.


Edit: And remember, this is pre-buffs, like all the formations, the Ghostkeel, the Stormsurge, and whatever else.

Um. Why don't you just go to their analysis of the event? Tau had a 48% win rate. Lower than CSM.

http://www.torrentoffire.com/7287/nova-2015-recap wrote:Also, for the first time in three years, Tau came in with a losing record, and were actually outperformed by Chaos Space Marines.

Where are they getting these numbers? The results they posted don't indicate this at all because I used every single player that was listed as playing Tau in my quick analysis. The total number of games played by all Tau players listed as Tau in that event is 45, the amount of games won is 25 to 20, even if you include the 0-5 guy, which is above 50%, and even if you give him 3 extra losses for the games he didn't play because of dropping from the event, it's still above 50%


Actually wait, I know what they did, the second place guy at 7-1 is listed as Eldar, not Tau, so they counted it as (25-7)/(45-8) which gives you the 48%. However, that's a really weird way of counting it, since his list is 62% Tau at 1151 points, to the 699 points of Eldar he brought giving him 37% Edlar but still being listed as Eldar.

So yes, Tau has a losing record if you leave in the 0-5-drop guy and then remove the 7-1 list that was majority Tau, which is basically cooking the books :/.

Edit: And if you drop the 7-1 list and the 0-5 list, your Tau statistic once again becomes above 50% at 56%.

How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

 Pouncey wrote:
How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

Two results, on at 5-3 and one at 3-5 (52nd and 65th respectively), So all and all 50%.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

Two results, on at 5-3 and one at 3-5 (52nd and 65th respectively), So all and all 50%.

Yay! Not getting horribly crushed constantly! : D

But isn't that a departure from the fluff? Sororitas are supposed to get slaughtered horribly but end up succeeding at their main objective anyways, like if they're after a holy relic in enemy territory then they go in with a thousand-strong force and come out with less than a squad, but having claimed their target successfully.

Unless... Does the victory conditions just count casualties? Or if they succeed at the mission, is it still counted as a win despite, say, 95% casualties?

 Pouncey wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

Two results, on at 5-3 and one at 3-5 (52nd and 65th respectively), So all and all 50%.

Yay! Not getting horribly crushed constantly! : D

But isn't that a departure from the fluff? Sororitas are supposed to get slaughtered horribly but end up succeeding at their main objective anyways, like if they're after a holy relic in enemy territory then they go in with a thousand-strong force and come out with less than a squad, but having claimed their target successfully.

Unless... Does the victory conditions just count casualties? Or if they succeed at the mission, is it still counted as a win despite, say, 95% casualties?

It's a mix of things really, and every tournament does that mix differently, here's a link to the Nova mission objectives (Primary, secondary, and tertiary), it starts at the bottom of page 5 and ends on page 12:

http://www.novaopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-40K-GT-Invitational-July-31-Primer.pdf

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

Two results, on at 5-3 and one at 3-5 (52nd and 65th respectively), So all and all 50%.

Yay! Not getting horribly crushed constantly! : D

But isn't that a departure from the fluff? Sororitas are supposed to get slaughtered horribly but end up succeeding at their main objective anyways, like if they're after a holy relic in enemy territory then they go in with a thousand-strong force and come out with less than a squad, but having claimed their target successfully.

Unless... Does the victory conditions just count casualties? Or if they succeed at the mission, is it still counted as a win despite, say, 95% casualties?

It's a mix of things really, and every tournament does that mix differently, here's a link to the Nova mission objectives (Primary, secondary, and tertiary), it starts at the bottom of page 5 and ends on page 12:

http://www.novaopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-40K-GT-Invitational-July-31-Primer.pdf

I think they had a typo...

They've got a part describing the tie-breaker method that I think is supposed to say that units at or below half their original starting strength are worth half their point cost in points. But they left out the word half entirely, and the way it's written, so long as a unit didn't have a net gain of models, wounds or hull points, their opponent gets half their point cost...

Ties are broken through Points Destroyed (the points value destroyed of an opponent’s army; units
brought to or below their original starting # of models, wounds or hull points - depending on unit type -
are worth half their point cost; units completely destroyed are worth all their point cost).

I wonder if anyone even noticed or if everyone just skimmed that part since it's pretty universal that half or below is worth half points.

Then I got to the missions. Lotsa words there... Lots... and lot of words...

Sisters of battle aren't bad at all. Certainly not in the top 3, and a decent amount of their codex isn't great, but they can still compete with many codexes quite well.

Akiasura wrote:
Sisters of battle aren't bad at all. Certainly not in the top 3, and a decent amount of their codex isn't great, but they can still compete with many codexes quite well.

Yay! Plus without plastics, they have the advantage of surprise, because due to their prohibitive costs, most players don't get to play against them often.

That certainly doesn't hurt, though in tournaments I'd expect most players to at least be passingly aware of their dangerous units.

A quick read through their dex shows the better units and combos.

Akiasura wrote:
That certainly doesn't hurt, though in tournaments I'd expect most players to at least be passingly aware of their dangerous units.

A quick read through their dex shows the better units and combos.

And a quick read is all it takes, because there isn't much to read.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
How are the lovely Sororitas doing in this contentious event?

Two results, on at 5-3 and one at 3-5 (52nd and 65th respectively), So all and all 50%.

Yay! Not getting horribly crushed constantly! : D

But isn't that a departure from the fluff? Sororitas are supposed to get slaughtered horribly but end up succeeding at their main objective anyways, like if they're after a holy relic in enemy territory then they go in with a thousand-strong force and come out with less than a squad, but having claimed their target successfully.

Unless... Does the victory conditions just count casualties? Or if they succeed at the mission, is it still counted as a win despite, say, 95% casualties?

It's a mix of things really, and every tournament does that mix differently, here's a link to the Nova mission objectives (Primary, secondary, and tertiary), it starts at the bottom of page 5 and ends on page 12:

http://www.novaopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-40K-GT-Invitational-July-31-Primer.pdf

I think they had a typo...

They've got a part describing the tie-breaker method that I think is supposed to say that units at or below half their original starting strength are worth half their point cost in points. But they left out the word half entirely, and the way it's written, so long as a unit didn't have a net gain of models, wounds or hull points, their opponent gets half their point cost...

Ties are broken through Points Destroyed (the points value destroyed of an opponent’s army; units
brought to or below their original starting # of models, wounds or hull points - depending on unit type -
are worth half their point cost; units completely destroyed are worth all their point cost).

I wonder if anyone even noticed or if everyone just skimmed that part since it's pretty universal that half or below is worth half points.

Then I got to the missions. Lotsa words there... Lots... and lot of words...

Events have judges so if something like that comes up a judge can make a ruling or clarify confusion, but yea, it's just a silly typo.

It's basically a different mission each round, which is good as it keeps things different and makes a player experience preform under various conditions and tactical requirements. Tournaments have a bad reputation around here, but honestly, if tournaments are formatted correctly there will always be something for everyone and casual players get the most reward. That's not to say every tournament rewards casual players the most, but the majority of tournaments will be skewed to them, while the majority of spectator tournaments are skewed towards the top X% of the community.

Akiasura wrote:
Sisters of battle aren't bad at all. Certainly not in the top 3, and a decent amount of their codex isn't great, but they can still compete with many codexes quite well.

I hear the biggest issue they have is they're too specialised in terms of weapon options, being mostly melta or flamer, but they have some very valid strengths and a special character that's very potent.

That's not inaccurate. They have a special character and can spam special weapons very well to an extent.

They lack plasma, grav, psykers, and toughness for their point cost however. The appearance of MCs and GMCs have made them a lot weaker, since they lack the best tools to remove them. They do a lot better against the other upper tier or mid tier codexes than they do against the best dexes, but they aren't a bottom tier army like many believe

 Tinkrr wrote:
Events have judges so if something like that comes up a judge can make a ruling or clarify confusion, but yea, it's just a silly typo.

It's basically a different mission each round, which is good as it keeps things different and makes a player experience preform under various conditions and tactical requirements. Tournaments have a bad reputation around here, but honestly, if tournaments are formatted correctly there will always be something for everyone and casual players get the most reward. That's not to say every tournament rewards casual players the most, but the majority of tournaments will be skewed to them, while the majority of spectator tournaments are skewed towards the top X% of the community.

I likely won't be attending any tournaments any time soon. I have social anxiety issues that are a symptom of schizophrenia.

Every time I think about going to the local GW, which has friendly, non-pushy staff (maybe partly owing to me possibly having developed a reputation over the years for just walking in once or twice a month, selecting exactly what I came in for off the shelves, ordering some Sororitas stuff sometimes, paying with debit, and walking out. No need to try to push a sale on someone who only comes in when they want to buy something), and some decent-looking tables, I start to imagine various problems that could arise. I strongly dislike using public restrooms, so what if I need to use the facilities? Well, maybe they have that on-site, and if they don't, there's a large movie theater nearby which certainly might have such facilities available.

That's when it gets worse. I start to imagine coming back from stepping out to the bathroom to find my models stolen, or broken. I've certainly heard plenty of stories over the years about armies being stolen, or people coming back from a break to find all their models in a huge pile on the table, all jumbled together in a giant, broken mess, and no one is willing to say how it happened.

Is it likely? Probably not. But I can't shake those thoughts.

And then there's the social anxiety of just being around strangers. One time I went into the local GW for some paints, and it turned out to be their grand opening event, so there were like 20-25 people crowded around. I thought I spotted one member of the gaming group I used to play with a decade beforehand in the crowd, and from the way he was looking at me, I think he recognized me, or was trying to figure out if it was me, since I'd gained a lot of weight over the years and gone from thin enough to get "Eat some food, skinny!" comments in the high school cafeteria, to quite a bit more than pleasantly plump in my late 20s. Anyways, I planned on having a chat with him, as the last thing I'd said to anyone in that group was over MSN Messenger, with one of them asking, "What happened to you?" (as I'd been absent from the local game room for months and hadn't attended school) to which I replied, "Schizophrenia happened." and logged off. But then I spent at least 10 minutes trying to find one particular paint, the last one my list, but eventually gave up, by then shaking a bit from anxiety, paid for the paints I could find, and left as quickly as I could, just wanting to get the heck out of there.

Usually it's not so crowded, but I was only in there for 15 minutes and that was enough to make my mind focus on just getting out of there as quickly as I could to the exclusion of all other concerns.

My social anxiety also affects my ability to play MMORPGs. I find it intolerable to do any large-scale group activity in World of Warcraft where I have to interact socially with the other group members. Even listening to them in voice chat without speaking is too much.

My situation's probably fairly unusual though.

Akiasura wrote:
Sisters of battle aren't bad at all. Certainly not in the top 3, and a decent amount of their codex isn't great, but they can still compete with many codexes quite well.

I hear the biggest issue they have is they're too specialised in terms of weapon options, being mostly melta or flamer, but they have some very valid strengths and a special character that's very potent.

I dunno about Celestine... I'm probably using her improperly, but I find she can easily get gibbed by a Nob with Power Klaw. Maybe my experience there is odd though, owing to that being exactly what happened in the first round of combat where my mom opted not to hide her Nob from a Challenge.

And yeah, they are specialized, but those weapons excel at what they do. Heavy Flamers for anti-infantry, meltaguns for anti-vehicle, heavy bolters to soften up infantry targets from afar. Though now it occurs to me that that is exactly what is meant by specialized.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Events have judges so if something like that comes up a judge can make a ruling or clarify confusion, but yea, it's just a silly typo.

It's basically a different mission each round, which is good as it keeps things different and makes a player experience preform under various conditions and tactical requirements. Tournaments have a bad reputation around here, but honestly, if tournaments are formatted correctly there will always be something for everyone and casual players get the most reward. That's not to say every tournament rewards casual players the most, but the majority of tournaments will be skewed to them, while the majority of spectator tournaments are skewed towards the top X% of the community.

I likely won't be attending any tournaments any time soon. I have social anxiety issues that are a symptom of schizophrenia.

Every time I think about going to the local GW, which has friendly, non-pushy staff (maybe partly owing to me possibly having developed a reputation over the years for just walking in once or twice a month, selecting exactly what I came in for off the shelves, ordering some Sororitas stuff sometimes, paying with debit, and walking out. No need to try to push a sale on someone who only comes in when they want to buy something), and some decent-looking tables, I start to imagine various problems that could arise. I strongly dislike using public restrooms, so what if I need to use the facilities? Well, maybe they have that on-site, and if they don't, there's a large movie theater nearby which certainly might have such facilities available.

That's when it gets worse. I start to imagine coming back from stepping out to the bathroom to find my models stolen, or broken. I've certainly heard plenty of stories over the years about armies being stolen, or people coming back from a break to find all their models in a huge pile on the table, all jumbled together in a giant, broken mess, and no one is willing to say how it happened.

Is it likely? Probably not. But I can't shake those thoughts.

And then there's the social anxiety of just being around strangers. One time I went into the local GW for some paints, and it turned out to be their grand opening event, so there were like 20-25 people crowded around. I thought I spotted one member of the gaming group I used to play with a decade beforehand in the crowd, and from the way he was looking at me, I think he recognized me, or was trying to figure out if it was me, since I'd gained a lot of weight over the years and gone from thin enough to get "Eat some food, skinny!" comments in the high school cafeteria, to quite a bit more than pleasantly plump in my late 20s. Anyways, I planned on having a chat with him, as the last thing I'd said to anyone in that group was over MSN Messenger, with one of them asking, "What happened to you?" (as I'd been absent from the local game room for months and hadn't attended school) to which I replied, "Schizophrenia happened." and logged off. But then I spent at least 10 minutes trying to find one particular paint, the last one my list, but eventually gave up, by then shaking a bit from anxiety, paid for the paints I could find, and left as quickly as I could, just wanting to get the heck out of there.

Usually it's not so crowded, but I was only in there for 15 minutes and that was enough to make my mind focus on just getting out of there as quickly as I could to the exclusion of all other concerns.

My social anxiety also affects my ability to play MMORPGs. I find it intolerable to do any large-scale group activity in World of Warcraft where I have to interact socially with the other group members. Even listening to them in voice chat without speaking is too much.

My situation's probably fairly unusual though.

Akiasura wrote:
Sisters of battle aren't bad at all. Certainly not in the top 3, and a decent amount of their codex isn't great, but they can still compete with many codexes quite well.

I hear the biggest issue they have is they're too specialised in terms of weapon options, being mostly melta or flamer, but they have some very valid strengths and a special character that's very potent.

I dunno about Celestine... I'm probably using her improperly, but I find she can easily get gibbed by a Nob with Power Klaw. Maybe my experience there is odd though, owing to that being exactly what happened in the first round of combat where my mom opted not to hide her Nob from a Challenge.

And yeah, they are specialized, but those weapons excel at what they do. Heavy Flamers for anti-infantry, meltaguns for anti-vehicle, heavy bolters to soften up infantry targets from afar. Though now it occurs to me that that is exactly what is meant by specialized.

I can't speak for the other problems, but as it may assist others, it's always a good idea to call a judge over to watch your stuff while using a restroom mid game, as it prevents a lot of potential issues. More so, a venue should have staff watching the room, or simply lock the room down, if they encourage a break which makes people leave their models in that room or venue. They can always have at least one judge on hand if they rotate judge breaks properly.