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 Crimson Devil wrote:
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.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by "campaign for your point of view or vote with your wallet", would you ellaborate?

Even if someone campaign their point of view it would not have the same influence as one of the Frontline Gaming guys. Who is a conservative going to pay attention to Fox News or Joe Blow?

 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.

Jim - appreciate the added discussion, and I'll say that 1) I think we agree it should be assessed and that 2) your reasoning above is one of the valid reasons I can see to vote it. My main resistance with the discussion of the Piranha formation is that it's detractors tend to frame it in terms of "its too powerful" or "broken" - to which I wholeheartedly disagree. It's definitely very good, but its limited, and far less broken than many things we're A-okay with. However, if the goal was to see if, after having played against it, players feel it's just a game-killingly-obnoxious mechanic and they as a majority want to change it, I can get that. Providing it's done as a rules change, based on the potential for it to be fun-ruining, I can understand that even if I don't agree with it myself.

 CKO wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
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.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by "campaign for your point of view or vote with your wallet", would you ellaborate?

Even if someone campaign their point of view it would not have the same influence as one of the Frontline Gaming guys. Who is a conservative going to pay attention to Fox News or Joe Blow?

Reece has stated he would be happy to debate anyone on the Podcast about rules changes. Let him know you would like to do so about the next vote. Or if you don't want to, don't go to their tournaments and tell him why you won't. The ITC only has the power you let them have. Don't like it, don't use it.

Conservatives generally listen to whoever is the angriest. Start your own podcast and yell a lot.

I'd prefer a reasoned discussion rather than that, if it's all the same to you Crimson . No need for our negative political climate to bleed over into wargaming...

Target wrote:
Jim - appreciate the added discussion, and I'll say that 1) I think we agree it should be assessed and that 2) your reasoning above is one of the valid reasons I can see to vote it. My main resistance with the discussion of the Piranha formation is that it's detractors tend to frame it in terms of "its too powerful" or "broken" - to which I wholeheartedly disagree. It's definitely very good, but its limited, and far less broken than many things we're A-okay with. However, if the goal was to see if, after having played against it, players feel it's just a game-killingly-obnoxious mechanic and they as a majority want to change it, I can get that. Providing it's done as a rules change, based on the potential for it to be fun-ruining, I can understand that even if I don't agree with it myself.

This is where I'm at. Things have come up a number of times recently and hopefully the guys at Frontline will listen and improve the process. What I'd like to see, if using the current voting system, is:

1. A clear "FAQ" and "Errata" distinction, like GW and I believe Privateer Press have done. This shows you when it's just a rules clarification, or a rules change (for balancing purposes). Companies do this all the time, but it really helps to distinguish which is which. Otherwise, it creates confusion and hard feelings...

2. A clearer system for "nominations". Is there a dedicated link for rules question nominations on the Frontline page? I think something like that would be excellent, as right now it is very vague / opaque regarding how something gets enough "critical mass" to be nominated for vote.

3. A way to go back and re-evaluate items after a certain amount of time has passed. Basically, I can only really speak to nids as that's my army and not being a fan of the current direction of rules I don't keep up with all of them... but I don't get why 5 Flyrants is totally kosher while something like this isn't. It seems arbitrary what gets nominated, and sometimes even the results seem arbitrary... so a way to re-visit them would be useful.

In the end, it's a can of worms and I'm glad someone is trying to tackle it... but I think things need to be clearer. Voting is actually the least important part of it in my mind - what I want to see is more transparency in the process, whether a rules committee were making the calls (which might actually result in more consistent results) or whether it was put to a public vote.

You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Not only are the marine units more powerful, and OB SEC, they are there from the start of the game and require no actions nor concessions from the owning player to acquire them. Its literally just free points for taking units that are already desirable.

By definition, there is nothing you can do to stop the marine player from getting their free units on the table and having a large advantage.

The tau formation requires you to basically not use the piranhas all game as they keep flying off the table, and the units are only on the table in waves.

All this assumes you dont kill the piranas with interceptor, or get first turn to do it, or that the tau player can afford to actually not use them the whole game. Plenty of things can be done about this tau formation.

A unit brought into the game at a later turn will have less opportunity to influence the game then a unit available at the start.


In terms of "fun to play" Ill take tau formation every single time rather then play marines that get a 30% boost in free points of an all OB sec army as that is just such a huge advantage in objective based game play. At least the tau player has to do something to get their free units, and those units arrive peicemeal for me to blow back off the table, and they in no way can affect the objectives, instead of all just being a set bonus like with marines that I literally cannot do anything about as a player.

+1 RiTides, right now the community at large is left in the dark and expected to have faith in the process because of good intentions. Without taking things personally and while staying objective I think it is fair to say that with their already touted busy schedules and limited resources that it is very unfair to expect them to handle it to the standards the community demands while keeping everything so privately. As said, it just feels arbitrary what gets selected for vote and often the wording is less then neutral.

They say it's based on feedback, but from whose community? Just their own? Are folks expected to personally call or email frontline? Honest questions. Are only folks attending frontline events (BAO/LVO) allowed to voice concerns? Again, I have no real idea. I also have a hard time believing he is filtering all the data personally, what systems is he implementing, how can he tell it isn't the same few loud individuals for example if it is done by phone, in person through email? When are issues readdressed? That's another huge problem I see, for example I don't find out of the book invisibility that much of an issue anymore, or rerollable invulns. Deathstars are not actually what they were, not with maelstrom and gladius MSU running around. Who knows though, maybe the community would still maintain the status quo, which is fine, however it would be nice to readdress old problems rather then leave them for years on end while the game changes around them.

I think folks would respect the results much more, and cut FLG a deserved break if things were done more publicly/transparently. Honestly a forum with ITC only related questions and concerns and public polls by free to register users would make the most sense, filter ALL concerns there, then folks know what is a concern, how much debate or play testing is done. Right now, it does appear to be arbitrary. Appears to be. Just to be clear.

I think the main problem is that right now, it's a hybrid - a public vote, but everything prior to the actual vote isn't public. What Red Corsair describes sounds like a lot of work, but in some ways also sounds like something like what the Mantic Rules Committee does. The burden doesn't have to be on the Frontline staff alone, they could reach out to the tourney circuit and get some qualified folks to help.

On that note, as I said, whether it's a committee like that helping sift through nominations / craft the questions, or whether they actually make the decisions, it actually wouldn't matter to me. But some improvement to the process needs to be made, to increase transparency or help with consistency... ideally both.

Once again, the work you guys are doing is appreciated and hopefully discussions like this will help improve the process even more!

 Crimson Devil wrote:
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.

Exactly.

Also, it's not ignorance if you know that you don't like Tau, and just want them to be nerfed into oblivion. That's simply bias, and there's a longstanding tradition of using that as the basis of one's vote, regardless of any merits that might be present. Or lacking.


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 easysauce wrote:
You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines..

Absolutely the can, and should. If the ITC membership chooses to bias for SMs and against Tau, that is entirely their choice.

It's is equally valid to say that Tau players should simply boycott ITC events until such time that the nerfs are undone.

That's how formats change and groups gain or lose influence. By people voting with their feet and wallets.

I don't see a problem with influencing voting. Anyone else is free to as well.

It might be helpful for a longer discussion period before voting, with knowledge of each question's exact wording. But I understand these issues must be resolved before big tournaments, so time is constrained.

 easysauce wrote:
You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Just a point of clarification, but did they say they wanted to ban the formation? I thought the only issue they had was coming on the table and leaving in the same turn. The problem was having a unit that your opponent cannot engage. I could be wrong. Does anyone know?

+1 on Tides as well from me.

So I clearly let lack of sleep and super long work hours this week get the better of me before I replied on the nearby Adepticon, but my major concerns remain. ITC has been really turning off myself and my friends with recent votes. The target of votes seem arbitrary, and they haven't been about rule clarifications as much as they have been blatent rule rewrites or balancing acts. If the ITC is going to concern itself with rebalancing the games rules as a whole, they need to do it for everybody. Not just the flavor of the month. And that means every race needs to be cracked open and the top teir reduced on their core units - the lower ones buffed in methods like the ork superheavy walker.

As a separate note, it's really a problem if reece and/or frankie are going to be throwing their opinion on rules out there before public votes. It skews public opinion of people who have never tried the rules or read them - and to be honest anyone who read that op ed they posted should realizd there are so many logic holes in the rule challenges they raise you could drive a truck through it. Some were just outright falsehoods such as "unit coherency". If that post hadn't been made by Reecius I sincerely doubt they would have voted down coordinated firepower since they raised problems like that which didn't actually exist. And offering to simply debate some random community member on their podcast is a super gakky solution that will not help us as a community.

I love this game and have no intention of allowing us to fall into the same comp trap that WHFB fell into over the years. By the final version the game balance was such an attrocious mess and the rules so heavily comped in tournaments that attendance and purchaser interest fell into a void and GW felt no option existed other than a complete reboot that turned into AoS. 40k balance still mostly works, and I don't think we want to start alienating entire blocks/races at the tournament level by simply kneecapping them. Only when a rule is unworkable should an faq be created for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mhelm01 wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Just a point of clarification, but did they say they wanted to ban the formation? I thought the only issue they had was coming on the table and leaving in the same turn. The problem was having a unit that your opponent cannot engage. I could be wrong. Does anyone know?

If the Adepticon rule is any guide (and they copied the coordinated firepower one verbatim from the itc) then yes, it also restricts the formations recovery when off the board to hullpoints lost and not lost piranhas from the unit. I really have no idea what they think they are fixing, firestream isn't all that much of a balance issue in our experience with the rules as written. Seems to lose as much as it wins against any decent list, it's free units but they are made out of paper mache.

mhelm01 wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Just a point of clarification, but did they say they wanted to ban the formation? I thought the only issue they had was coming on the table and leaving in the same turn. The problem was having a unit that your opponent cannot engage. I could be wrong. Does anyone know?

1: Any flyer from any faction can already do the "I fly off the table you cant shoot me, neener neener neener trick"

2: Id argue that RAW if you arrive and use your arrival move to move off the table, you cannot dump the drones off anyways, making it pointless.

3: Killing a few drones over the span of a few turns is of little consequence compared to having all those drones on the table from turn 1, let alone compared to 30% of free OB SEC space marine stuff on the table from turn one.

4: If the issue actually is things that players cannot affect, you have ways to affect the pirana's ability to spawn troops, they are limited, but they are there. You have zero ways to stop a marine player from geting a 30% points advantage on you, in addition to the other supurb benifits from that formation (namely ob sec))

 easysauce wrote:

mhelm01 wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Just a point of clarification, but did they say they wanted to ban the formation? I thought the only issue they had was coming on the table and leaving in the same turn. The problem was having a unit that your opponent cannot engage. I could be wrong. Does anyone know?

1: Any flyer from any faction can already do the "I fly off the table you cant shoot me, neener neener neener trick"

2: Id argue that RAW if you arrive and use your arrival move to move off the table, you cannot dump the drones off anyways, making it pointless.

3: Killing a few drones over the span of a few turns is of little consequence compared to having all those drones on the table from turn 1, let alone compared to 30% of free OB SEC space marine stuff on the table from turn one.

4: If the issue actually is things that players cannot affect, you have ways to affect the pirana's ability to spawn troops, they are limited, but they are there. You have zero ways to stop a marine player from geting a 30% points advantage on you, in addition to the other supurb benifits from that formation (namely ob sec))

Just to clarify a few things:
#2 - RAW allows you to deposit drones and leave. You deposit in the movement phase, then you have a rule that says - if you're within 6" of a board edge at the end of the movement phase you can go into ongoing reserve, no conflict here.

And also I don't think Reece and FLG have ever stated they plan to ban the formation, they are considering *changing* it. From the last thread I saw him posting in on it he seemed to feel at the time replacing dead piranhas was how the rule read, plus the backup of the previous rule doing just that from warzone damocles. The bit they're considering changing (I think) is the moving on/off in the same turn.

I actually got my first point wrong, flyers/FMC explicitly cannot leave combat airspace the turn they arrive.

If that is the only contention, that the tau player can just land and go, just say tau are bound by the same rule as flyers/FMC/everything else that can go into ongoing reserves.

GW wrote tau a specific exemption with that in mind i would hope? A bit like a special rule on a flyer stating they can leave the same turn they arrive.

Either way its still troops that cannot deny or score being piecemeal deposited near a board edge, not really scary even without nerfs.

Yes, how dare they provide this free way for the community to organize itself! They should do more work in their spare time to make this free thing better and more transparent!

I keep telling people that the great thing about the ITC is not that the rulings are perfectly balanced or that the rules are legislated in such a way that everyone's happy. The great thing about the ITC is that it draws a bright line, now matter how "arbitrarily" it's drawn, about ambiguous rulings and unpleasant tactics. Based on how quickly the ITC format been adopted by the tournament organizers it shows that there was a need for TOs to not deal with these rule issues. TOs want to bring people together and throw a tournament. They don't want to keep making the same rulings over and over again.

The most important part of the ITC is that rulings are made that allows everyone to come to the table and not have any discussion about contentious issues. The actual determinations are irrelevant.

DarknessEternal wrote: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.

The salt is strong with this one!

Bythe same token, you shouldn't listen to anything on this website either, as they too are totally blind to anything that doesn't fit their strict definition of the game.

easysauce wrote:You really cannot ban this formation in good faith while keeping things like free OB sec units for marines.

Not only are the marine units more powerful, and OB SEC, they are there from the start of the game and require no actions nor concessions from the owning player to acquire them. Its literally just free points for taking units that are already desirable.

By definition, there is nothing you can do to stop the marine player from getting their free units on the table and having a large advantage.

The tau formation requires you to basically not use the piranhas all game as they keep flying off the table, and the units are only on the table in waves.

All this assumes you dont kill the piranas with interceptor, or get first turn to do it, or that the tau player can afford to actually not use them the whole game. Plenty of things can be done about this tau formation.

A unit brought into the game at a later turn will have less opportunity to influence the game then a unit available at the start.


In terms of "fun to play" Ill take tau formation every single time rather then play marines that get a 30% boost in free points of an all OB sec army as that is just such a huge advantage in objective based game play. At least the tau player has to do something to get their free units, and those units arrive peicemeal for me to blow back off the table, and they in no way can affect the objectives, instead of all just being a set bonus like with marines that I literally cannot do anything about as a player.

Sure, ObSec Rhinos and Drop Pods are powerful. But there's one important distinction: the Marine player doesn't get to regenerate their Rhinos and Drop Pods every turn. The Tau player does. And due to an esoteric timing interaction, Interceptor does not work against the Piranhas entering or leaving. If the Tau player is smart, they'll hide the formation out of range and Line of Sight of the opposing player so they can't be targeted.

"But it's just Gun Drones!" "They can't score!" They can still deny objectives. And they come on in waves.That's plenty of TL S5 shots at BS2. Not quite Scatbiker levels of firepower, but still nasty. And the Tau player gets more of those every turn, so you can effectively cover the board in drones and prevent your opponent from moving. You can kill Rhinos pretty easily (Drop Pods are more obnoxious), but you can't kill all the gun drones a turn on top of whatever else the Tau player brought.

I'm not saying that the formation should be banned; that's not the ITC's way of doing things. I would instead clarify/nerf the formation, such as by preventing new drones from coming on when the Piranhas re-enter and allowing Interceptor to be used against them. That way there is some actual counterplay to the formation.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

"But it's just Gun Drones!" "They can't score!" They can still deny objectives. And they come on in waves.That's plenty of TL S5 shots at BS2. Not quite Scatbiker levels of firepower, but still nasty. And the Tau player gets more of those every turn, so you can effectively cover the board in drones and prevent your opponent from moving. You can kill Rhinos pretty easily (Drop Pods are more obnoxious), but you can't kill all the gun drones a turn on top of whatever else the Tau player brought.

I'm not saying that the formation should be banned; that's not the ITC's way of doing things. I would instead clarify/nerf the formation, such as by preventing new drones from coming on when the Piranhas re-enter and allowing Interceptor to be used against them. That way there is some actual counterplay to the formation.

Again, they cannot deny objectives. Their rule has never allowed them to - previously it said they could never score or deny, in 7th it says "they can never score" but that's because the core rulebook now states only scoring units can deny.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

"But it's just Gun Drones!" "They can't score!" They can still deny objectives. And they come on in waves.That's plenty of TL S5 shots at BS2. Not quite Scatbiker levels of firepower, but still nasty. And the Tau player gets more of those every turn, so you can effectively cover the board in drones and prevent your opponent from moving. You can kill Rhinos pretty easily (Drop Pods are more obnoxious), but you can't kill all the gun drones a turn on top of whatever else the Tau player brought.

they cannot deny objectives,

they are also forced to be deployed close to the tau players zone, and they can only leave to get more drones within 6", not a huge foot print, not going to "cover the whole board" and prevent an opponent from moving, not by a long shot, and it has less chance to do this then a batle company which gets all its free units from turn one, without having to tie up a unit to spawn them.

Drones die to las guns, rhinos do not, drones cannot cap, deny, or contest anything, ob sec rhinos/free units can (the increase in pts affects other units, my SM army was already heavy in drop pods and the mandatory units for BC, now they are free, in effect I got free pts to spend on other stuff of my choosing).

I cant take it very seriously when you argue that a few drones per turn is harder to kill then 30% more points of SM all at once. Your assertion that 30% extra points of marines is easy to deal with is laughable, its one of the most played formations specifically because it grants what is arguably the best bonuses in the entire game when playing ITC scoring based on objectives. When you play against a battle company you are literally putting you 1850 list against someone else's 2000+pt list, and all they had to do was take units that are already desirable, even a 100pt advantage is a huge boon, let alone 30%.

 Fishboy wrote:
Now the ATC is using ITC and several regional events are as well so now I am paying attention to the voting.

Quick side-question, where was it said that the ATC would be following ITC rules? I was planning on attending this year but haven't heard any format rules yet. This would be interesting information!

As to the topic as a whole, I personally am not opposed to the ITC FAQ or it's process of voting, however I think that they could be a little more open in the pre-poll stages. For example, they put up a poll about what should be done with the overall Tau formation, and spread it to the best of their abilities. I have no problem with that, but how are the options chosen? There were a few different "answers" to the Tau formation question, but how were the options chosen, and what if there are other answers that other people have thought of, that weren't even options in the poll? It's possible that this is already covered by them and I just missed it, but I wouldn't mind if say, a week before the poll is released, they put up the questions they intended to ask and invited people to email in what they thought the options to be voted on were.

Yes, the polling process could be considered flawed/biased, but I personally thing FLG has done a good enough job so far that I'm willing to let them continue.

GreyDragoon wrote:

So I clearly let lack of sleep and super long work hours this week get the better of me before I replied on the nearby Adepticon, but my major concerns remain.
...
If the Adepticon rule is any guide (and they copied the coordinated firepower one verbatim from the itc) then yes, it also restricts the formations recovery when off the board to hullpoints lost and not lost piranhas from the unit.

Couple of things (disagree if you will, I won't argue it. I'm just laying out the thought process behind the decisions):

1) The AdeptiCon faq ruling on Coordinated Firepower, despite its similarities in print, is not merely a copy/paste from the ITC faq. The committees driving the 'ITC' and AdeptiCon faqs no longer share members (until recently, they did), and the process by which the AdeptiCon faq committee arrived at its decision did not involve offering a 'vote' to players. Essentially, the following abilities/allowances are expressly made by Coordinated Firepower: Ignore restriction of shooting with one unit at a time. Ignore restriction of markerlights only benefitting one unit (at a time). Gaining a (conditional) +1BS against a nominated target. That is all.
2) The decision regarding restoring units to 'Full Strength' centered around the fact that 'Full Strength' is insufficiently defined. It could mean that I purchase a single Piranha, and then, subsequent to leaving the table, I return that unit with the maximum number of Piranha allowed by the codex (a 'Full Strength' unit). It could mean that I replace 'lost' Piranha up to the number I purchased (as per the Damocles rule, yes?). It could mean that I repair missing hull points, remove damage effects (Weapon Destroyed) and replenish Seeker Missiles and Drones. Of these three options, the first is absurd, the second is not stated explicitly in the formation's rules, and the third still satisfies returning the unit at full strength.
3) The AdeptiCon faq has already ruled that the Piranha from the formation cannot enter from reserves and leave the table on the same turn. The reasoning has nothing to do with an opponent's inability to 'interact' (AdeptiCon abides by Invisibility and 2++ rerollables as written). The reasoning has to do with the following problem: No unit in the game has express permission to enter from reserves and then leave the table in the same turn. Several (Flyers and Swooping Hawks as examples) are expressly forbidden from doing so. The Piranha formation, while describing the conditions by which it can leave the table, does not address whether or not it can exercise that ability on the turn it enters from reserves. So, we can assume one of two things: 1) Any unit with the ability to leave the table may exercise that option on the turn it enters from reserves unless expressly forbidden from doing so (see: Flyers and Swooping Hawks). 2) Any unit with the ability to leave the table may NOT exercise that option on the turn it enters from reserves unless expressly permitted to do so. Influencing the decision between these two options is the understanding of 40K as a 'permissive' rules set (not implying in any way that you are not aware of this, merely including it for the sake of completeness). The committee came down on the side of the second assumption.

Cheers!

Those are some very good explanations, DCannon4Life! That's really all I'm looking for - while I don't totally agree with bogalubov that the "actual determinations are irrelevant", I think the main thing for me is the process. And right now, whether it's accurate or not, the voting process feels a bit skewed / unfair. In normal (political) voting, there is a very clear process for things like getting on the ballot, how to get a referendum question up for vote, etc. There's also a clear process for "undoing" any of these things.

So, if continuing with the public voting method the ITC is using now, then I think some of those prerequisite parts of the process need to be made clearer. I would also be fine with a committee decision like AdeptiCon and other tournaments implement... As long as it is clear, the players can either embrace and support it, or reject it. TOs are really striving for clarity so it can be a real benefit to the community, but if the process is suspect it can have the opposite effect (people kept mentioning fantasy, and I agree that was a part of its downfall).

DCannon4Life wrote:
2) The decision regarding restoring units to 'Full Strength' centered around the fact that 'Full Strength' is insufficiently defined. It could mean that I purchase a single Piranha, and then, subsequent to leaving the table, I return that unit with the maximum number of Piranha allowed by the codex (a 'Full Strength' unit). It could mean that I replace 'lost' Piranha up to the number I purchased (as per the Damocles rule, yes?). It could mean that I repair missing hull points, remove damage effects (Weapon Destroyed) and replenish Seeker Missiles and Drones. Of these three options, the first is absurd, the second is not stated explicitly in the formation's rules, and the third still satisfies returning the unit at full strength.

Piranha Firestorm Wing, Rearm and Refuel special rule:
If all of the surviving models from a unit in this Formation are within 6" of a table edge at the end of their Movement Phase, the unit can enter Ongoing Reserves. When it returns to play, it does so at full strength with any damage repaired and Drones and seeker missiles replaced.

In your example, #3 is a given and separate point from what full strength means - it has to occur in any interpretation. Because the sentence as written states it does so at full strength, with....the following things...which as the sentence works are things that are in addition to being at full strength.

Remember, vehicle squadrons are just units, like a unit of 10 space marines. If you take the exact same concept and go: You purchase a unit of 10 sternguard with combi-meltas, 3 die, you can remove the unit from the board and it returns at full strength with all combi-weapons replaced. Do only 7 space marines come back with renewed combi-weapons, or do 10 space marines come back? I think anyone would be hard pressed to say anything other than 10, as "full strength" is what the unit began at.

I completely agree that #1 is an absurd interpretation, but #2 is both how it reads, and has precedent for being exactly defined as that in the last incarnation of the rule. I can understand - even if I don't agree with - the change to the coming/going from reserves in the same turn. But the "full strength" bit is silly.

Target wrote:

Remember, vehicle squadrons are just units, like a unit of 10 space marines. If you take the exact same concept and go: You purchase a unit of 10 sternguard with combi-meltas, 3 die, you can remove the unit from the board and it returns at full strength with all combi-weapons replaced. Do only 7 space marines come back with renewed combi-weapons, or do 10 space marines come back? I think anyone would be hard pressed to say anything other than 10, as "full strength" is what the unit began at.

That reasoning doesn't transfer as well to vehicles though for a bunch of reasons. At full strength for single wound infantry can mean almost nothing else but adding back guys. It could mean many different things for a unit of vehicles.

I'll also throw in that applying the interpretation where the unit goes back up to its original size leads to a number of other questions and ridiculous circumstances, most of which happen when one of the piranhas is immobilized.

Take a unit of 3 and 1 gets immobilized and 2 separate into a different unit. What happens when:

Just the 2 go off the tables and come back?
When the unit of 1 goes off the table (note nothing in the rule about leaving requires the model to be mobile)?
When they both go off in the same turn?

Not only is bringing piranhas back to life not well substantiated by the text (I'll concede it's questionable, if it was clear cut than no one would be arguing), but it requires 3 to 4 further clarifications.

 easysauce wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

"But it's just Gun Drones!" "They can't score!" They can still deny objectives. And they come on in waves.That's plenty of TL S5 shots at BS2. Not quite Scatbiker levels of firepower, but still nasty. And the Tau player gets more of those every turn, so you can effectively cover the board in drones and prevent your opponent from moving. You can kill Rhinos pretty easily (Drop Pods are more obnoxious), but you can't kill all the gun drones a turn on top of whatever else the Tau player brought.

they cannot deny objectives,

they are also forced to be deployed close to the tau players zone, and they can only leave to get more drones within 6", not a huge foot print, not going to "cover the whole board" and prevent an opponent from moving, not by a long shot, and it has less chance to do this then a batle company which gets all its free units from turn one, without having to tie up a unit to spawn them.

Drones die to las guns, rhinos do not, drones cannot cap, deny, or contest anything, ob sec rhinos/free units can (the increase in pts affects other units, my SM army was already heavy in drop pods and the mandatory units for BC, now they are free, in effect I got free pts to spend on other stuff of my choosing).

I cant take it very seriously when you argue that a few drones per turn is harder to kill then 30% more points of SM all at once. Your assertion that 30% extra points of marines is easy to deal with is laughable, its one of the most played formations specifically because it grants what is arguably the best bonuses in the entire game when playing ITC scoring based on objectives. When you play against a battle company you are literally putting you 1850 list against someone else's 2000+pt list, and all they had to do was take units that are already desirable, even a 100pt advantage is a huge boon, let alone 30%.

I will admit that I was mistaken; i thought that units that couldn't score could still deny objectives, and had forgotten about the BRB passage stating to the contrary.

I'm not saying that the Battle Company formation isn't extremely powerful; tournament results have already borne it out as highly effective. What I am saying is that there are ways to counter it. Strong melee and enough mid-strength high-rof weapons will kill plenty of Rhinos, and Space Marines can also die to enough lasgun shots. There is no way for the opposing player to prevent the Piranha formation from making more drones. Over the course of the game, you can get almost as many free points in drones as in free transports. And lest we forget, enough S5 shots will kill both Rhinos and Space Marines.

I'm having trouble taking you seriously if you don't understand the obvious potential for abusive shenanigans this formaiton allows, and why the ITC and other tournaments would nerf it.

 RiTides wrote:
Those are some very good explanations, DCannon4Life! That's really all I'm looking for - while I don't totally agree with bogalubov that the "actual determinations are irrelevant", I think the main thing for me is the process. And right now, whether it's accurate or not, the voting process feels a bit skewed / unfair. In normal (political) voting, there is a very clear process for things like getting on the ballot, how to get a referendum question up for vote, etc. There's also a clear process for "undoing" any of these things.

The reason I say that each individual determination is irrelevant is that I have never seen a rules debate thread end with everyone coming to an agreement. Rule debates are tedious and never ending. If people learn to just accept a ruling and stop talking about it, that's the only way it ends. If we keep the door open to only accepting "reasonable" interpretations, that means the debate never ends.

I think this applies to the process as well. I don't disagree that clarity in the process will bring peace of mind to some people about how questions made it onto the ballot. However, I really doubt that seeing the guts of the process will make everyone happy. Then we start questioning about how they determined the number of rule question submissions required to get a question on the ballot or other minutia.

I think what most people want to happen is that they show up to a tournament and just play without having to have lengthy rule discussions. If there's a dispute, you look at the ITC FAQ, find the answer and move on. My guess is that most people want this, otherwise the ITC wouldn't have become so widely accepted. If it turns out that the majority of the players want every question answered perfectly and to have greater transparency in the ITC process, FLG will adjust and make it a priority. It's in their interest to keep the majority happy, so that people keep showing up to their events and getting funneled to their website to buy stuff from them.

So overall, I don't care what the individual rulings are, I just want to show up and play with predetermined expectations.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

Target wrote:

Remember, vehicle squadrons are just units, like a unit of 10 space marines. If you take the exact same concept and go: You purchase a unit of 10 sternguard with combi-meltas, 3 die, you can remove the unit from the board and it returns at full strength with all combi-weapons replaced. Do only 7 space marines come back with renewed combi-weapons, or do 10 space marines come back? I think anyone would be hard pressed to say anything other than 10, as "full strength" is what the unit began at.

That reasoning doesn't transfer as well to vehicles though for a bunch of reasons. At full strength for single wound infantry can mean almost nothing else but adding back guys. It could mean many different things for a unit of vehicles.

I'll also throw in that applying the interpretation where the unit goes back up to its original size leads to a number of other questions and ridiculous circumstances, most of which happen when one of the piranhas is immobilized.

Take a unit of 3 and 1 gets immobilized and 2 separate into a different unit. What happens when:

Just the 2 go off the tables and come back?
When the unit of 1 goes off the table (note nothing in the rule about leaving requires the model to be mobile)?
When they both go off in the same turn?

Not only is bringing piranhas back to life not well substantiated by the text (I'll concede it's questionable, if it was clear cut than no one would be arguing), but it requires 3 to 4 further clarifications.

Take multiple wound models - it transfers just fine. Imagine it's Tyranid warriors. It does create rules oddities - just as many rules do, that need to be closed because of sloppy writing. That's the bit you need to fix/close up, and you do so as follows:

-Note: If a Piranha in a squadron is immobilized and abandoned, it immediately forms a new unit with an initial strength of 1 model, per the core rulebook. (this is just restating the core rulebook so far). Immobilized models can still use the "Rearm and Refuel" option, as they are only required to be within 6" of a board edge, however their "full strength" is 1 model, as they form a new unit when immobilized (still just restating the rules).

Now from here you can go one of two ways, RAW or what is likely RAI:
RAW: If a unit of Piranha have abandoned vehicles from their squadron due to immobilized results and then leave the board, they come back at the full initial strength. Note, this could create an additional Piranha over what was brought.
---This is just the RAW of it, their initial unit size didn't change, so that's how it works. But, no way to know if it was RAI. On one hand you're creating a new Piranha - on the other hand, the rule pretty clearly wants you replacing dead piranha, which is (sort of) the same thing.
RAI: If a unit of Piranha have abandoned vehicles from their squadron due to immobilized results and then leave the board, they come back at the full initial strength, minus the abandoned squadron members as long as those members remain alive.

Target wrote:

Take multiple wound models - it transfers just fine. Imagine it's Tyranid warriors. It does create rules oddities - just as many rules do, that need to be closed because of sloppy writing. That's the bit you need to fix/close up, and you do so as follows:

-Note: If a Piranha in a squadron is immobilized and abandoned, it immediately forms a new unit with an initial strength of 1 model, per the core rulebook. (this is just restating the core rulebook so far). Immobilized models can still use the "Rearm and Refuel" option, as they are only required to be within 6" of a board edge, however their "full strength" is 1 model, as they form a new unit when immobilized (still just restating the rules).

Now from here you can go one of two ways, RAW or what is likely RAI:
RAW: If a unit of Piranha have abandoned vehicles from their squadron due to immobilized results and then leave the board, they come back at the full initial strength. Note, this could create an additional Piranha over what was brought.
---This is just the RAW of it, their initial unit size didn't change, so that's how it works. But, no way to know if it was RAI. On one hand you're creating a new Piranha - on the other hand, the rule pretty clearly wants you replacing dead piranha, which is (sort of) the same thing.
RAI: If a unit of Piranha have abandoned vehicles from their squadron due to immobilized results and then leave the board, they come back at the full initial strength, minus the abandoned squadron members as long as those members remain alive.

So you've had to write a small paragraph and make up your own rules to explain the implications of a decision that is only weakly supported by the text...

My point with all this is that FAQ writing is not easy. There are many, MANY things to consider. I understand people only see the final product which may look ad hoc from the outside. But quite a bit of effort goes into making a document that is clear, objective, consistent, and simple.

Except it's not weakly supported by text, its *clearly* supported by the text, and the previous version of the rule, which Reece referenced in his discussion of it. Literally they removed the explanation, which they felt was obvious, from the rule. (i.e. five models). The entire rest of the rule is the same, word for word.



Note - I also went overboard and wrote in stuff to make it crystal clear just to make sure it couldn't be mis-used. That's the point of an FAQ.

bogalubov wrote:
I think this applies to the process as well. I don't disagree that clarity in the process will bring peace of mind to some people about how questions made it onto the ballot. However, I really doubt that seeing the guts of the process will make everyone happy. Then we start questioning about how they determined the number of rule question submissions required to get a question on the ballot or other minutia.

Well, I didn't mean just showing the process - by making it transparent, it might also cause it to be more consistent or at least understandable. Right now, I don't think it's clear why certain old rules get on the ballot and others don't - although it's clear any new release is up for being addressed very quickly.

So, while it's true that there would be scrutiny about the details, with the level of scrutiny already going on right now, releasing information about the process of rules nomination and possibly making it more transparent / consistent could help relieve some of that pressure... I certainly think it could only help, not hurt, with credibility and player adoption.

Target wrote:
Except it's not weakly supported by text, its *clearly* supported by the text, and the previous version of the rule, which Reece referenced in his discussion of it. Literally they removed the explanation, which they felt was obvious, from the rule. (i.e. five models). The entire rest of the rule is the same, word for word.

Note - I also went overboard and wrote in stuff to make it crystal clear just to make sure it couldn't be mis-used. That's the point of an FAQ.

It could be they took it out because it's obvious. Why they felt a compelling need to save 16 characters to make a rule less clear is beyond me. They also could have removed it because they wanted to change the meaning. I don't know, you don't either.

Prior versions of rules are not binding. They're not really anything.

Based off the text that's available and legal now the correct interpretation is ambiguous. You can still think you're right, but to say that it is unambiguous is just being stubborn.

And I guarantee that whatever reasoning you use to conclude that this particular situation is unambiguously the way you think it should be will in other instances, applied in the exact same way, lead to interpretations that are ridiculous and counter intuitive. GW just does not write rules that are meant to be subjected to any level of technical scrutiny.