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I would like to say that I love the idea of letting the players vote to determine the rules for tournaments but, the system is flawed. My main issue or the thing that I see as a flaw with the current system is that frontline gaming is the one that puts up the polls, at the same time frontline gaming write articles which influences the voters prior to the poll example this article.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/10/27/the-curious-case-of-buffmander-and-his-merry-band/

Clearly the writer believes the rule should be interpreted one way, and there is nothing wrong with that regardless of how you feel about the rule. The problem comes in that it is a form of campaigning that the opposite side does not have access to. It is the equivalent of allowing one party to have advertisement while the other has no commercials, signs, or ads. I give the writer credit that he does a good job of conveying both sides of the arguement but when there are statements like, "Reading #1 of the rule breaks other game rules". The article goes from informative to persuasive.

So when it comes to voting you have a website that puts up the polls while at the same time write articles that persuade the voter. There is a reason why party supporters must stay a certain distance away from the place where voters are voting and with the ITC System this is not the case. When I look at the results 5 votes for the tank shock ruling 27 votes for the coordinated fire ruling without what I feel is unfair campaigning and advertisement these polls could have easily been different.

So how do you fix the flaw? Let people vote before articles are written at the same place that they vote and especially you Reecius. I like you and what you have done for the gaming community is to be applauded but to make the process truly flawless which I know is your intent you must recognize your influence on the voter. LOL, imagine if you will that you are Obama if Obama comes out and says free pancakes there are people that will automatically say yes and automatically say no because its Obama. Now imagine if you are George Washington who was universally liked by the entire community just like you are and he said free pancakes, what would happen? You now carry that burden, you can easily influence players because of your position. I know you would like to think that you are one of us but your not you have created a system that dictates what we can and cannot play. I would like for you to think about that for a second your articles literally can influence what I can bring to a tournament.

Let the players vote first than write your articles. Let the players play in tournaments with the rules to decide if its to powerful if it is there can always be another poll, it can be revisited it is a democratic process after all. Keep up the good work, I hope I do not come off as a jerk or anything I am just trying to help.

I am kinda torn on the ITC voting thing. On one hand I can appreciate what they are trying to do but on the other hand they are reaching a limited group. In the long run that group determines rules for events all over the country where people were not even aware there was voting. I was pretty disappointed in the Tau voting. It was close but was (what I feel) was a bad decision based on a rule that (again I feel) was clear but might end up being over powering to their overpowered stuff. I see armies like marines that can cross over rules to make extreme combos that never get a second look and just scratch my head.

 Fishboy wrote:
I am kinda torn on the ITC voting thing. On one hand I can appreciate what they are trying to do but on the other hand they are reaching a limited group. In the long run that group determines rules for events all over the country where people were not even aware there was voting. I was pretty disappointed in the Tau voting. It was close but was (what I feel) was a bad decision based on a rule that (again I feel) was clear but might end up being over powering to their overpowered stuff. I see armies like marines that can cross over rules to make extreme combos that never get a second look and just scratch my head.

But if people choose not to vote that's their problem not Frontlines, surely 'serious' tourney players should be aware of the ITC and how it all works,

Frontline have a heavy social media presence and do tend to post to Dakka and other forums so lack of knowledge isn't really an excuse

However there is only so much Reece and Co can do, if players spread the word more people will vote which will help address the perceived 'small clique' issue

Most tourney organizers that use ITC don't really advertise it until their event. I did not pay any attention to ITC voting in the past because it did not affect the events I played in. Now the ATC is using ITC and several regional events are as well so now I am paying attention to the voting. I think it is up to the event organizers to advertise when voting is going on or if they are planning on using ITC so they will pay attention. Most people won't vote until it affects them. I do still feel the voting is lopsided but then again I don't play marine.

They have an opinion but they left it up to the people to decide. Did their opinion influence some people? Sure they did. But as members of the community as well as the vote-counters, what are they supposed to do? Pretend that they have no opinion? I'm really ok with them being up-front about it, especially since they play many more games of 40k than any of us likely do. So to hear an educated opinion from some of the most competitive players in the country is really perfectly fine. At the end of the day, people should still vote to their conscience.

The idea that people should vote and then know the FLG stance is not a bad one; however what about people who have not played against those models/do not understand the implications of their vote? You might say that those people should not vote, but they are ITC players nonetheless and are entitled to their opinion on the matter, so educating those who have not had playlets experience is a good thing, I would argue. It's not on the player to have extensive experience against each of these armies when each vote comes up. On that front, I think it's good that there are editorials published to help people understand more (for example, about tank shock).

You could simply ask the TO what FAQ they are using before you commit to an event.

 luke1705 wrote:
They have an opinion but they left it up to the people to decide. Did their opinion influence some people? Sure they did.

That is the point I am trying to make they influence the voters. Perhaps they influence 30 votes than the cordinate fire ruling would be different. It gets even worse lets say they influence only 6 votes than the tank shock ruling would be different.

 luke1705 wrote:
But as members of the community as well as the vote-counters, what are they supposed to do? Pretend that they have no opinion?

Recognize their opinion because they are the vote counters influence voters more than the average joe. Imagine if you will that your going to your voting district and the person that is responsible for checking identification is telling every voter to vote one way prior to their vote. Not only do they tell you how to vote but they have well written articles explaining why you should vote one way. How many people change their vote because of this, because it only takes 6!

 luke1705 wrote:
I'm really ok with them being up-front about it, especially since they play many more games of 40k than any of us likely do. So to hear an educated opinion from some of the most competitive players in the country is really perfectly fine. At the end of the day, people should still vote to their conscience.

I agree, but when the volunteer at the voting district is telling the swing voters to vote one way and handing out pamplets prior to the vote those individuals are more likely to vote a certain way.

 luke1705 wrote:
The idea that people should vote and then know the FLG stance is not a bad one;

It would make it fair, because at the moment you have flyers and supporters at the voting district.

 luke1705 wrote:
however what about people who have not played against those models/do not understand the implications of their vote?

Those are the voters who are being influenced, and we dont know how many of them there are. If they are voting on something they know nothing about than they will just go by what Reecius says, if there is no articles prior to the vote they will have to research it themselves or go to dakka or the other sites.

 luke1705 wrote:
You might say that those people should not vote, but they are ITC players nonetheless and are entitled to their opinion on the matter, so educating those who have not had playlets experience is a good thing, I would argue. It's not on the player to have extensive experience against each of these armies when each vote comes up. On that front, I think it's good that there are editorials published to help people understand more (for example, about tank shock).

Educating and persuading is two seperate things and those articles are educational but they usually have a conclusion that is persuasive. How many voters read Reecius articles and just go by whatever he says? Is it 30 maybe its only 6 either way its enough to change the outcome.

In retrospect, the way that Reecius and the ITC carried out the vote on the new Tau rulings was flawed. To an outside observer, you could argue that Reecius was arguing for a particular (and not RAW) interpretation of the Coordinated Firepower rule, and then asking people to support his position by voting for it in the survey. Suffice it to say, there were a lot of people both on DakkaDakka and the community as a whole that were unhappy with the way the voting was handled, as well as other perceived problems with the ITC and their willingness to outright change the rules so they could better balance their version of the game.

There was also the question of speed. With both the Eldar and Tau codexes, the ITC reacted pretty quickly i.e. within the month of release and before any major tournaments. There were (and still are) plenty of people of people who would rather have waited until major tournaments had been held to see if these armies were was unbalanced as everyone was saying. Personally, I have never agreed with this argument. Anyone with a pair of working eyes and enough grey matter in their head to comprehend the rules could see that the Eldar Craftworlds codex was broken upon launch and Coordinated Firepower made Tau stupidly overpowered. When those codexes dropped, people were desperate for the ITC to do something, anything about the power creep of these books unbalancing the game. I feel it was better that something was done quickly that could be amended or reversed later than allow a huge negative perception of certain armies to build up in the community (which still persists with Eldar).

The ITC wields outsize influence on the community due to major tournaments adopting their ruleset or being run by Frontline Gaming. Plenty of smaller groups and scenes use their rules as the basis for their own tournament play. As a result, what the ITC rules is legal and not ends up affecting a lot more than the regular tournament-going players But there's one small detail people overlook when considering the ITC rules: they themselves have given free permission for people to modify their rules as they see fit. Don't like something? If you're a TO or Envent Organizer, feel free to change it if you think it would improve the situation for your tournament. I know something much like this is going down for the Midwest Conquest GT.

I do have plenty of disagreements with how the ITC has rules, and feel they do not go far enough in some areas in terms of balancing the game, but I also feel that their rules are a huge improvement over the core rulebook as well as other systems of balancing 7th edition 40k, and I'll continue to play in events that follow the ITC ruleset.

According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

 Mulletdude wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

They can still deny objectives

The ITC is trying to save WH40K, even if it gets the AoS treatment in the future. Personally I wish they would pick a new game and ram it down our throats, but they (FLG) have a VESTED interest in selling GW product. So the ITC needs to make the rules as fair as possible for all parties so people keep playing = keep buying. Granted they do inform about all kinds of other games, but rarely do you see a VBR on it.

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

That formation is sooooo good. I can definitely see why it is under consideration to be changed. You're talking about 20-30 free drones a turn!

 Mulletdude wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

I think you may be under-estimating the effectiveness of fast, free bodies who make for excellent screening units and who can can throw out 40-60 twin-linked S5 shots a turn! That's a lot of fricking shots, and that isn't even counting the rest of the shooting from the "regular" Tau army.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

They can still deny objectives

No they can't.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

They can still deny objectives

They cannot - its in their rules that they can never score or deny.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

That formation is sooooo good. I can definitely see why it is under consideration to be changed. You're talking about 20-30 free drones a turn!

Of course - but first it should be played for a while to see if it's creating a drastic imbalancing on the tournament scene, then assessed as to whether it should be changed.

"That formation is soooo good." can be said for a ton of things:
-Gladius - entire army obsec and 600-700 points of a variety free stuff from the start of turn 1, that is also all obsec
-Decurion - your entire army gets significantly harder to kill
-Aspect host - already amazing arguably underpriced units get more free buffs
-Librarius conclave having dudes tanking perils, sharing powers, and everyone casting on a 2+

Or a bunch of special rules:
-Rerollable jink saves at 2+ just for being ravenwing
-and on and on and on

Just become something is good doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed - you're talking widely ridiculed units (piranhas) that no one beyond a handful of people took, and as one of those people, were generally laughed at/questioned/looked at in disbelief for doing so. I'm not saying they don't have uses, or that with that formation they won't be really good - I'm just saying the benchmark for rules changes needs to be a bit higher, with a bit more burden of proof, to see if it functionally damages the metagame. How long did we let invis and 2++ stick around before they got changed? There was a lot of testing, deliberation, and it was done because of how unbalancing they can be. That same level of care should be taken, or even more, when impacting one particular codex versus core-rulebook/mechanics.

Gentlemen , how can we even debate how broken or ridiculous some of these rules are? At least ITC makes an effort to make the game playable.

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Only for the LVO because attendees want a ruling on it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Haldir wrote:
Gentlemen , how can we even debate how broken or ridiculously some of these rules are? At least ITC makes an effort to make the game playable.

Well its either that or finally admit this game is beyond jumped shark stupid.

Target wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

Because non-scoring, non-denial drones are op?

They can still deny objectives

They cannot - its in their rules that they can never score or deny.

Actually, in their rules, it only says that they are non-scoring.

However, in the BRB, it says that only scoring units can deny.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:

 warboss wrote:
According to their latest video, they're considering hitting the tau again with a nerf bat to limit the usefulness of the Pirahna formation that drops off drones and leaves the table edge afterwards.

That formation is sooooo good. I can definitely see why it is under consideration to be changed. You're talking about 20-30 free drones a turn!

Of course - but first it should be played for a while to see if it's creating a drastic imbalancing on the tournament scene, then assessed as to whether it should be changed.

"That formation is soooo good." can be said for a ton of things:
-Gladius - entire army obsec and 600-700 points of a variety free stuff from the start of turn 1, that is also all obsec
-Decurion - your entire army gets significantly harder to kill
-Aspect host - already amazing arguably underpriced units get more free buffs
-Librarius conclave having dudes tanking perils, sharing powers, and everyone casting on a 2+

Or a bunch of special rules:
-Rerollable jink saves at 2+ just for being ravenwing
-and on and on and on

Just become something is good doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed - you're talking widely ridiculed units (piranhas) that no one beyond a handful of people took, and as one of those people, were generally laughed at/questioned/looked at in disbelief for doing so. I'm not saying they don't have uses, or that with that formation they won't be really good - I'm just saying the benchmark for rules changes needs to be a bit higher, with a bit more burden of proof, to see if it functionally damages the metagame. How long did we let invis and 2++ stick around before they got changed? There was a lot of testing, deliberation, and it was done because of how unbalancing they can be. That same level of care should be taken, or even more, when impacting one particular codex versus core-rulebook/mechanics.

Now I'm not saying that the formation needs to be nerfed. All I'm saying is that I can see why they are considering nerfing it.

I've had one game against it and, as someone here said, "anyone with a pair of working eyes and enough grey matter in their head to comprehend the rules" to tell when something is really good. The Piranha formation basically gives Tau the best tool for one of their worst matchups....fast Assault armies. Unfortunately for me, I was playing assault Daemons with very little shooting. I just couldn't get past his layers and layers of screening units while his shooty units shot the crap out of my army. His drones (BS3 TL thanks to also taking the Dronenet formation) even shot down my Bloodthirster! I am really impressed with this formation as it makes Tau almost an auto-win matchup against these types of armies. IMO, this build is just as strong and maybe even stronger than the original Hunter Contingent.

Like I said, it was only 1 game, but that 1 game was enough to give me a lot of data about it. I'm sure the Frontline guys have probably much more experience than me with the formation to even consider "suggesting" changes to it.

Totally agree JY2 - I think it's a formation to examine. Tell players "its going to be played as X, we're going to source feedback and may change it in the coming (timeframe) depending on how it all pans out.

I've played...6-8 games with it now (running anywhere from 9-13 piranhas, as opposed to my old 8-9 i ran). In some games it was pretty amazing and provided the gas I needed for attrition wars and blocking, in others I realized after I'd made a mistake playing my drone-farmer mini game and instead should have kept the Piranhas on more. I won some, I lost some, as in many cases my opponent's army just didn't care about drones much, and as such more drones didn't do anything for me.

My hope is that at the very least there will be more caution used with this one, and we'll wait to see if it actually causes issues before changing it. I may not agree with removing there ability to come/go in the same turn, but if that was done I'd understand (though not like) it.

The odd way some people are reading the "bring the unit back at full strength" doesn't replace dead ones does still baffle me though, especially with the back up from the war zone damocles books. That bit just needs a faq to cover the fact that if you immobilize a piranha, it forms a new unit with a size of 1 when you do so - so you can't use immobilized piranhas to create new full units of free piranhas.

I am so not a fan of anything that adds free units to the game. Leaves so much open for abuse.

Haldir wrote:
I am so not a fan of anything that adds free units to the game. Leaves so much open for abuse.

Does that include:
-Spawning Termagaunts
-Creating Scarabs using Tomb Spyders
-Daemon Summoning
-Daemon Portaglyph
-Gladius free units

?

Creating free gun drones is hardly the first in the line of free things, nor the most impactful.

Yes , it does. For a friendly game I see no problem. For a tournament...... Free vehicles , broken game mechanics..... That`s how I want to win!

Daemon summoning was originally going to break 7th edition and ruin 40k, it did not. Tervigons? Ha, taking one is considered a fools errand (I take 2). Its when it escalates that I feel it gets a bit unfair, free points in the actual list.

Target wrote:

Haldir wrote:
I am so not a fan of anything that adds free units to the game. Leaves so much open for abuse.

Does that include:
-Spawning Termagaunts
-Creating Scarabs using Tomb Spyders
-Daemon Summoning
-Daemon Portaglyph
-Gladius free units

?

Creating free gun drones is hardly the first in the line of free things, nor the most impactful.

I want to apologize in advance for the slight off-topic reply, but I will just say this and be done with the Tau Piranha formation.

To me, what makes the formation so good is not the free units that it produces (though that is what makes the formation so great). Rather, it is the fact that you literally can do nothing about it if the Tau player doesn't want you to. At least with the other free units, you can do something about them. Tervigons, Spiders, the Portaglyph and Gladius freebies you can kill to stop the free units. Summoning is highly unreliable and then takes away from Daemon capabilities to cast more offensive/defensive powers. But the Piranhas, they are on the board and then off on the same turn before you can even do anything. Not even Interceptor works on them because the Tau player can choose to move them off the table before Interceptor occurs. It is just guaranteed free units with no loss in efficiency in production (that is, until Turn 5 when the piranhas move flat-out onto objectives to score/contest them). Now I am not saying that this makes the formation broken, but what it will do is to make it exceedingly frustrating to play against by a lot of armies. Hence, I understand why the ITC would put this up for consideration by the ITC public.

 jy2 wrote:

Target wrote:

Haldir wrote:
I am so not a fan of anything that adds free units to the game. Leaves so much open for abuse.

Does that include:
-Spawning Termagaunts
-Creating Scarabs using Tomb Spyders
-Daemon Summoning
-Daemon Portaglyph
-Gladius free units

?

Creating free gun drones is hardly the first in the line of free things, nor the most impactful.

I want to apologize in advance for the slight off-topic reply, but I will just say this and be done with the Tau Piranha formation.

To me, what makes the formation so good is not the free units that it produces (though that is what makes the formation so great). Rather, it is the fact that you literally can do nothing about it if the Tau player doesn't want you to. At least with the other free units, you can do something about them. Tervigons, Spiders, the Portaglyph and Gladius freebies you can kill to stop the free units. Summoning is highly unreliable and then takes away from Daemon capabilities to cast more offensive/defensive powers. But the Piranhas, they are on the board and then off on the same turn before you can even do anything. Not even Interceptor works on them because the Tau player can choose to move them off the table before Interceptor occurs. It is just guaranteed free units with no loss in efficiency in production (that is, until Turn 5 when the piranhas move flat-out onto objectives to score/contest them). Now I am not saying that this makes the formation broken, but what it will do is to make it exceedingly frustrating to play against by a lot of armies. Hence, I understand why the ITC would put this up for consideration by the ITC public.

This whole discussion over the Pirahna v. other free unit formations highlights my problem with the ITC polls. The polls, and their content, feels arbitrary. Why do some questions get put up for a poll and not others? To the best of my memory Battle Company providing free units was never put up for a poll. There was/is a lot of flack still over that, but no questions, it feels like the polling questions are unfairly applied sometimes. That has led to quite a bit of vocal frustration over the polling, which it does seem has increased significantly from the inception of the ITC polling.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Target wrote:

Haldir wrote:
I am so not a fan of anything that adds free units to the game. Leaves so much open for abuse.

Does that include:
-Spawning Termagaunts
-Creating Scarabs using Tomb Spyders
-Daemon Summoning
-Daemon Portaglyph
-Gladius free units

?

Creating free gun drones is hardly the first in the line of free things, nor the most impactful.

I want to apologize in advance for the slight off-topic reply, but I will just say this and be done with the Tau Piranha formation.

To me, what makes the formation so good is not the free units that it produces (though that is what makes the formation so great). Rather, it is the fact that you literally can do nothing about it if the Tau player doesn't want you to. At least with the other free units, you can do something about them. Tervigons, Spiders, the Portaglyph and Gladius freebies you can kill to stop the free units. Summoning is highly unreliable and then takes away from Daemon capabilities to cast more offensive/defensive powers. But the Piranhas, they are on the board and then off on the same turn before you can even do anything. Not even Interceptor works on them because the Tau player can choose to move them off the table before Interceptor occurs. It is just guaranteed free units with no loss in efficiency in production (that is, until Turn 5 when the piranhas move flat-out onto objectives to score/contest them). Now I am not saying that this makes the formation broken, but what it will do is to make it exceedingly frustrating to play against by a lot of armies. Hence, I understand why the ITC would put this up for consideration by the ITC public.

This whole discussion over the Pirahna v. other free unit formations highlights my problem with the ITC polls. The polls, and their content, feels arbitrary. Why do some questions get put up for a poll and not others? To the best of my memory Battle Company providing free units was never put up for a poll. There was/is a lot of flack still over that, but no questions, it feels like the polling questions are unfairly applied sometimes. That has led to quite a bit of vocal frustration over the polling, which it does seem has increased significantly from the inception of the ITC polling.

They've answered that question several times: They put up votes based on what topics are seeing a lot of activity on the rules question form. If there's something you don't think should be in the game, throw it on there, like GC toe in cover, wraithknight price point, and free models.

Yes the fact that it's touted as a rules question form is a bit misleading considering they want ALL issues with rules thrown on there, even the ones where the issue isn't the clarity, but the balance or silliness of the rule.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

This whole discussion over the Pirahna v. other free unit formations highlights my problem with the ITC polls. The polls, and their content, feels arbitrary. Why do some questions get put up for a poll and not others? To the best of my memory Battle Company providing free units was never put up for a poll. There was/is a lot of flack still over that, but no questions, it feels like the polling questions are unfairly applied sometimes. That has led to quite a bit of vocal frustration over the polling, which it does seem has increased significantly from the inception of the ITC polling.

While it might feel arbitrary, I think that there is a "method" to their "madness".

1. The Frontline guys playtest it - either amongst themselves or in their local meta - and they find the "issue" to be either really good or really strong. Thus, they present the issue to the public to see what the public thinks or how the public wants to play it. (Keep in mind that when I say the public, I mean the ITC public and the people who follow their blog). For example, they playtested a lot with Battle Company and no one there felt that it was really a big issue. People still had fun playing against BC so the ITC guys didn't feel it necessary to address the public with regards to it.

2. People complain about the "issue" to them a lot. And I'm not talking just about the vocal minority or the one guy who complains to them 100 times about the same thing. Rather, many different people with different backgrounds (i.e. not just one person trying to defend his army, but various people playing different armies complaining about the same thing) complaining about the same thing.

Keep in mind that Reece and the FLG guys are not omniscient. What they are are super-busy people trying to run a business as well as trying to maintain a tournament standard. Unfortunately, they probably only have time to test out a fraction of all the shenanigans that go on rules-wise in this hobby of ours. They can't address every single issue, just those that they personally have experienced or ones that a a substantial amount of people have brought it up to their attention.

You shouldn't pay attention to anything said by that site. They couldn't be more biased about any subject and deaf to anything not in their mindset.

Battle company was actually put up for a vote - the ITC didn't allow for a duplicate detachment of any kind even within the Russian nesting dolls of formations that have occurred lately. There was a vote to allow a single duplicate detachment shortly after the demi battle company was released, and it passed. Similarly, they put it up for a vote whether or not to allow multiple stormsurges since they can be taken in a unit of up to 3, but the previous ruling was that you could only take 1 LOW in your list, period. The Tau were right on the receiving end of that buff (which was not any agenda from Frontline - Frankie would still be the world's greatest 40k player TM even without his double stormsurge list).

The point is that what Jy2 said is true - yes they do selectively put things up for vote, but those things are based on play testing. And the people who whine about this or that not being put up for a vote, etc etc forget that many of these things (scatbikes being 1/3 or all, battle demi company, multiple stormsurges) were actually put up for a vote at one point, and that the crew at Frontline is not opposed to voting again on any given topic if the outcry is great enough. (FYI that doesn't mean that they count the nerd rage posts on dakka, nor am I encouraging you to flood Reece's mailbox with angst-ridden messages)

I personally don't think the piranha formation should be allowed - zero counterplay = zero fun. Any game mechanic that you can do nothing about is by definition broken. Generally, the spawning of free units is balanced by tax models and/or just not that effective in the long run. Even if spawned Gants were obsec (which I think they should be FYI) it would still be an awful tactic. Daemon-summoning has proved time and time again to be not that great. Can it be useful? Sure. But did it break 40k by summoning over 9000 points worth of models over the course of a game? Of course not.

The issue I have with the system is the influence they have over voters prior to the vote.

The current system is basically we playtested this we believe it is broken lets vote on it!

How do you think people who dont have the codex, know absolutely nothing about a formation is going to vote?

Voting in ignorance is a problem regardless of the circumstances. If you don't like their methods campaign for your point of view or vote with your wallet.