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I find myself hosting a tournament at our local club, time and again, as most of the other members rarely have the time to do the footwork.
We have been playing for years now and have been having fun, mostly playing 40k exclusively.
Then horus heresy came along and the drama started to pick up steam. We have one player who consistantly makes armies that are nightmarish to play against,
and when he got hold of HH books he started throwing cash at it and steamrolled everyone.
This time around i Decided i was not going to allow his HH army to take part, as some of our players have no interest playing against him.

However, is this fair?

At this point, I don't think it's strictly "fair", but that's more because "normal" 40k stuff is perfectly capable of both matching and overmatching 30K stuff between the Eldar, SM, and Necron books and various allied shennanigans and balance pretty much entirely has gone out the window.

Were this 5E or 6E, I'd say "yeah, FW said they're really not designed around the same paradigm and there can be mismatches both ways, probably best to leave it out", but with 7th the way it is, I don't think there's a balance issue (as balance is basically nonexistent), I think there's very specifically a player issue.

No 30k army could possibly be as broken as the Necron and mechanicum formations, Eldar or space marines and their hundreds of points of free transports. If your 40k players are getting wiped by a hh army it sounds like they need to step it up.

 Toofast wrote:
No 30k army could possibly be as broken as the Necron and mechanicum formations, Eldar or space marines and their hundreds of points of free transports. If your 40k players are getting wiped by a hh army it sounds like they need to step it up.

Pretty much this. I've gone through the HH books trying to "break" it, but really they fall a bit short. If the man is making a legal TAC list from HH and rocking out against varied 40k armies, more power to him.

I would just take him aside and ask him to not be a dick. I use to build the most powerful decks and memorize how to unlock all the OP characters in fighting games back when I was young, but then I realized my friends didn't like to exist as my punching bags, so I decided to stop doing all of that, even playing joke characters.

Now a tournament is a place where it's more serious, but just ask him to do something sensible. Especially if money isn't on the line.

That or maybe institute a "theme" for the game. Like others have said, Forgeworld isn't as broken as before anymore, so there's usually no good reason to restrict someone unless they drop a Warlord Titan on the table.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Toofast wrote:
No 30k army could possibly be as broken as the Necron and mechanicum formations, Eldar or space marines and their hundreds of points of free transports. If your 40k players are getting wiped by a hh army it sounds like they need to step it up.

Pretty much this. I've gone through the HH books trying to "break" it, but really they fall a bit short. If the man is making a legal TAC list from HH and rocking out against varied 40k armies, more power to him.

Yearh, i doubt that is the way my group views the game. Many of them basically still use armies that haven´t changed since 3rd or 4th edition. That is how we like it, there is a place for any army, even those that aren´t exploiting the latest insanity combo. We don´t enjoy the hyper-compeditive scene.
But yes, i see your point. You could abuse things like eldar just as badly, and some do, just not in our group.

Well your group should try to accommodate the player, because unless they are being annoying in the game as a person its not their fault you aren't having fun. What are they bringing? A LOW? Because besides a few select tanks and taking a few choice OP primarchs there is nothing the HH legion armies can bring that can't be done more OP by the vanilla space marine book. If that's just to strong for your group and they aren't willing to adapt...well you might have to worry about your group stagnating, because those people you dislike playing will go elsewhere to have fun

If most of the people still largely have 3rd-4th ed armies, why not just make it easier on everyone to do a 3rd/4th ed tournament?

autumnlotus wrote:
Well your group should try to accommodate the player, because unless they are being annoying in the game as a person its not their fault you aren't having fun. What are they bringing? A LOW? Because besides a few select tanks and taking a few choice OP primarchs there is nothing the HH legion armies can bring that can't be done more OP by the vanilla space marine book. If that's just to strong for your group and they aren't willing to adapt...well you might have to worry about your group stagnating, because those people you dislike playing will go elsewhere to have fun

He brings a spartan and the huge Landraiderish one with the massive cannon, i think it´s a LOW. Apart from that he has almost exclusively termies with the IW typhoon launchers. Tell me how that is done even remotely as effective with the marine codex? Willingness to adapt is one thing, but shelling out major amounts of money is not something most of them are willing to do anymore. The arguement being that they have an army, they dont need another one. I don´t have the power to MAKE them update everything, and neither should i.

If most of the people still largely have 3rd-4th ed armies, why not just make it easier on everyone to do a 3rd/4th ed tournament?

That would be the logical take on it, perhaps we should do that, but then again we would exclude the odd tau player and that is too bad.

 tarnish wrote:
Yearh, i doubt that is the way my group views the game. Many of them basically still use armies that haven´t changed since 3rd or 4th edition. That is how we like it, there is a place for any army, even those that aren´t exploiting the latest insanity combo. We don´t enjoy the hyper-compeditive scene.
But yes, i see your point. You could abuse things like eldar just as badly, and some do, just not in our group.

This is your problem, and it has nothing to do with whether or not 30k should be legal. You're trying to have a "tournament" where nobody is supposed to try to win. The solution is to stop having tournaments and just play casual games with your friends.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tarnish wrote:
He brings a spartan and the huge Landraiderish one with the massive cannon, i think it´s a LOW. Apart from that he has almost exclusively termies with the IW typhoon launchers. Tell me how that is done even remotely as effective with the marine codex?

Ever hear of grav centurions? Slightly more expensive per model, but a better gun and significantly harder to kill. You should be glad the guy is playing a fluffy 30k army instead of bringing a more powerful 40k list.

Peregrine hit it spot on.
Older armies will lose, there is a power creep over time and if they haven't kept up, the armies will do poorly.


Against an old structured army I'm sure even current nids could pull out on top.

The HH lists really aren't that bad.
The example you gave of the Spartan and IW termites, look at the points costs for them.

Yes, some units are tough, but you pay through the nose for them.
Same thing with 40k.




While I agrees that they shouldn't have to buy a new army, they don't have to.
Just restructure what they have to make the most of the current book.

You can't really run a tournament then complain because one player brought a half decent list, nor should HH be blamed.
He just has an army built from the current point in time.

 tarnish wrote:
That would be the logical take on it, perhaps we should do that, but then again we would exclude the odd tau player and that is too bad.

Tau has a 3rd ed and a 4th ed dex. Notably, the 3rd ed one combined with the skimmer rules for the 4th ed one actually resulted in the completely broken "Fish of Fury" combo. Just try to ask him to not do that (basically use the Devilfish as a mobile cover bunker that he can shoot through) and it should all be good.

All valid points, but as is i still stand there with a problem that is mainly a matter of players handling change poorly and who aren´t willing to spend their way out of the gutter.
As it stands i doubt we will have a tournament at all unless i restrict Something. Noone apart from this player is min/maxing his way to the top, so really, this is straight forward to me.
Advocating this guy to tone his list down is probably not the way to go, so that leaves me with one option again.
Powercreep is frowned upon in these circles, and i can´t change that. The only result from that would be guys leaving the club and possibly leave the game to gentlemen such as you guys.

 tarnish wrote:
All valid points, but as is i still stand there with a problem that is mainly a matter of players handling change poorly and who aren´t willing to spend their way out of the gutter.

Then they aren't willing to have a tournament. Sucks to be them, but that's a problem for them to figure out.

As it stands i doubt we will have a tournament at all unless i restrict Something. Noone apart from this player is min/maxing his way to the top, so really, this is straight forward to me.

Then don't have a tournament. Your players clearly don't want to have a tournament, so why insist on running one?

Run a fluffier tournament style. Give high points for "barely" winning and less points for roflstomps. Or just don't disguise it as a fun day in competitive clothing at all. Just say it's a game day that has no best general prize, just best sport and best painted.

As long as you have a best general spot, someone is going to shoot for it, and trying to shame them for it is less than honest of you.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Run a fluffier tournament style. Give high points for "barely" winning and less points for roflstomps.

This is a really bad idea. Imagine you're winning a game, and you have to refuse to shoot/assault with one of your units (leaving it standing there doing nothing) so you don't accidentally kill too much stuff and lower your score. For most people that is not fun at all. If you have to resort to this kind of counter-intuitive rule then you're better off not having a tournament at all.

 Peregrine wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Run a fluffier tournament style. Give high points for "barely" winning and less points for roflstomps.

This is a really bad idea. Imagine you're winning a game, and you have to refuse to shoot/assault with one of your units (leaving it standing there doing nothing) so you don't accidentally kill too much stuff and lower your score. For most people that is not fun at all. If you have to resort to this kind of counter-intuitive rule then you're better off not having a tournament at all.

Have you tried it? We have a couple times. It's not something for every tournament, or even one with any importance, but it adds somewhat of a twist to an otherwise mundane run-through of the motions. If you think that's a terrible idea, well then that's just your opinion. (Granted I didn't think it'd be much good til we tried it either.)

The real point of my post was after that though. They shouldn't bill the gathering as a tournament if they don't want people showing up intending to win.

 Peregrine wrote:

 tarnish wrote:
All valid points, but as is i still stand there with a problem that is mainly a matter of players handling change poorly and who aren´t willing to spend their way out of the gutter.

Then they aren't willing to have a tournament. Sucks to be them, but that's a problem for them to figure out.

As it stands i doubt we will have a tournament at all unless i restrict Something. Noone apart from this player is min/maxing his way to the top, so really, this is straight forward to me.

Then don't have a tournament. Your players clearly don't want to have a tournament, so why insist on running one?

Peregrine is right.
Here we also stopped playing local tournaments for obvious reasons. Our players are more interested in apoc games or larger games 2v2.

 Peregrine wrote:

As it stands i doubt we will have a tournament at all unless i restrict Something. Noone apart from this player is min/maxing his way to the top, so really, this is straight forward to me.

Then don't have a tournament. Your players clearly don't want to have a tournament, so why insist on running one?

Exactly, have some sort of themed event that is not a tournament.

If you really want to hand out prizes/awards then have a selection of criteria rather than just won most games. This is from one of GW's Battlefield events (note that the 1st and 3rd awards go to both players in that battle):

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, I don't think it's strictly "fair", but that's more because "normal" 40k stuff is perfectly capable of both matching and overmatching 30K stuff between the Eldar, SM, and Necron books and various allied shennanigans

what about tau?

Now we are getting somewhere
I´m starting to warm to the idea of having a gaming weekend where the objective is more and different then just simply having to win over and over.

Have a look at this - I've run this a couple of times and it's always been well received.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/pn9a4fmb1gcolfj/40k-battlefields-pack_09-2.pdf

I'd ditch the ally and apoc references for the current edition but everything else is pretty much fine.

The uneven points missions are always interesting plus the requirement to have a 3K army that you can also draw 1K, 1.5K, 2K armies from makes it difficult to be really optimised (for most armies).