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 PLC wrote:
Was the draw random every round? or was it swiss after the first?

Swiss

Guys, you arnt seriously taking this tournament result seriously? Where was the discussion when Caledonian Uprising 2018 was? You do realise GW events in the UK are perhaps the least competitive in the UK?

As for the results, one of the Ork players who came 3rd is a friend of mine and team England ETC player, Courtney Rhodes. He took Orks for a laugh as his main competitive army wasn't ready yet. He's a top bloke and solid player, so no suprise he came 3rd with a weak book. There is no way in hell he would take that army to a proper event in the current meta but as GW events attract such poor army builds, then its a viable tourney to try something new and fun.

Be aware that in the UK, most of the top players dont attend GW events because of its price (most expensive tourney in the UK) and its lack of competitive aim (soft scores play too much of a role in the results). Therefore you wont see many of the big names attending.

If you want to know what the "top tier lists" or "codex choices" are, i suggest you all look out for the upcoming 6 nations, War of the Roses, St georges Tournament, Battlefield Birmingham or the London GT. They will have plenty of the more competitive players attending.

Just an FYI

So, you're in essence saying that all the other lists were uncompetitive and the other players weren't upto snuff?

Genuine question, not being snarky.

 r_squared wrote:
So, you're in essence saying that all the other lists were uncompetitive and the other players weren't upto snuff?

Genuine question, not being snarky.

More than 85% of lists there were likely non-competitive or upto the standard you'd expect to see in majority of the tourney scene in the UK. There also were a few top tier players that I know of attend. When I say "that i know of" I know a lot of players on the tourney circuit and most players who play in their local shops will attend GW events as they dont know about the scene or arn't interested.

The players themselves, I wont be judgemental as I havnt played them, however if I have not seen them attend a tourney with a lot of the big names then I cant exactly expect much from them? More so when lists like that chaos one (its terrible) wins.

My point is that if you guys want to have a look at the tourney scene in the UK, the GW events are not to take much by.

The eldar player that won heat 2, Max Barton, is another good player I know who also attends the majority of the Indy scene here and it was a walk in the park for him because the majority of players there don't know how to play to a high standard or use lists which just arn't top tier.

@killswitch
Aye, a lot of the internet crowd doesn't have that great a grasp on which events are serious and indicative of the game state, how important matchups and missions are, and think that only lists that finished on the podium are worth looking at, especially at large events, where you can be contending for first, take a narrow loss from some unlikely happenstance, sometimes even a single roll, and fall a ton of spots.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
@killswitch
Aye, a lot of the internet crowd doesn't have that great a grasp on which events are serious and indicative of the game state, how important matchups and missions are, and think that only lists that finished on the podium are worth looking at, especially at large events, where you can be contending for first, take a narrow loss from some unlikely happenstance, sometimes even a single roll, and fall a ton of spots.

Hence why I feel like enlightening the folks here. You guys also need to realise that the GW stream is EXCEPTIONALY biased. at the last indy event, they streamed table 8 (not the top 7 tables) for the last game because they did not like the cheese fest of armies, people were using a few proxies, or if it was all GW models they didn’t like the paint job. They mainly pick average armies to play on the stream which are more “fun” for people to watch which I think is an absolute joke as it makes us look bad for one and gives the stream nothing, no tactical advice, no insight into the meta, nothing. Element Games stream the top table from their events, the next one is War of the Roses, not sure on the date but its in march. There are plenty of high end tournaments here in the UK as we have access to 5 ETC teams (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland), we also attract players from Europe who attend our bigger events, so you will find that the indy tournaments will have at least a 60% field of top tier players, meaning that even on the middle tables you will have a tough game. This is NOT the case at GW events as it does not attract those types of players due to the way they use “Sporting votes” (Also known as best mates votes or ill give you one if you give me one votes) as tie breakers rather than VPs. Also the mission pack they use is pure GW which is completely imbalanced.

Hope that opens a few people’s eyes 

Killswitch is entirely right. I'm no top player but have taken part in some of these and it's clear that Independent events and GW events have a separate outlook on hardcore competitiveness.

An important factor that's not been discussed is that GW have much more strict rules around painting and basing, which has a hard impact on the types of armies you see there. GW will say your armies need to be fully GW models, fully painted and based, with no proxies or anything.

While the tournaments at Element near Manchester advise that 3 colour minimum is preferred, it's not always mandated. You can take unpainted models. You can sometimes proxy stuff in (if it's clearly not for advantage).

This means that people will bring lists that chase or push the meta and are far more cutting edge in competitive advantage. It's pretty hard for people to paint "to the meta" to the standard that GW expect you to have when playing at Warhammer World.

I think thats pretty disrepectful Killswitch. Just because its not an ETC spamfest doesn't mean its a weak tournament.It just means people other than you and your buddies went. Its a different scoring system just like ITC and ETC are different. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the sportsmanship and paint scores being part of the event. I played 5 nice guys (in the midst of some tough games which isn't always easy) and some truly beautiful armies.
I saw plenty of reaper-ynnari LVO winning style lists. Some nasty blood angels and more than a couple big chaos lists.
Just because people you don't know or associate with attended doesn't mean your better than them?


I came 4th overall. Losing my first game to a crazy alpha strike then winning my next 4 big.
I was playing Tyranids/Genestealer Cult. Pablo and Val have been talking about my list on Chapter Tactics this morning for those interested.

KillswitchUK wrote:
...As for the results, one of the Ork players who came 3rd is a friend of mine and team England ETC player, Courtney Rhodes. He took Orks for a laugh as his main competitive army wasn't ready yet. He's a top bloke and solid player, so no suprise he came 3rd with a weak book. There is no way in hell he would take that army to a proper event in the current meta but as GW events attract such poor army builds, then its a viable tourney to try something new and fun...

I'm quite interested in what list he took, any chance you could provide an insight?

Sneggy wrote:
I think thats pretty disrepectful Killswitch. Just because its not an ETC spamfest doesn't mean its a weak tournament.It just means people other than you and your buddies went. Its a different scoring system just like ITC and ETC are different. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the sportsmanship and paint scores being part of the event. I played 5 nice guys (in the midst of some tough games which isn't always easy) and some truly beautiful armies.
I saw plenty of reaper-ynnari LVO winning style lists. Some nasty blood angels and more than a couple big chaos lists.
Just because people you don't know or associate with attended doesn't mean your better than them?


I came 4th overall. Losing my first game to a crazy alpha strike then winning my next 4 big.
I was playing Tyranids/Genestealer Cult. Pablo and Val have been talking about my list on Chapter Tactics this morning for those interested.

I was waiting for someone who attended the tourney to back it up!

For a start, what is an ETC spamfest? You mean a to say that a tournament which uses a balanced, well thought out scoring system to win a game which isn’t one dimensional and easy to win means that top tier players whom are testing for the ETC bringing top tier lists of different variety due to the way the ETC works is a spam fest? Even IF it was a spamfest, that is what 40k is right now, GW release a codex and gives you one overpowered unit, so ofcourse it will be spammed, that’s 8th edition, not our fault.

The Sportsmanship and painting scores is fine to have if it doesn’t effect the standings of the top players. The top indy tournaments have no issues with sportsmanship, and painting is to a good standard. All tourneys adhere to a strict 3 colours minimum which is fine. At the end of the day, it’s a gaming tournament, not a place to find out if youre good with a paint brush.

That pint you have made about “LVO” lis tis my point exactly on how little you and others know about the UK scene. I won a large Uk event back in October with a similar list a few weeks after the Eldar book came out. Another one of my friends, Matt Edmunds from the Scotland ETC team, won Blood And Glory, another UK event which was even covered by GW which shows we already created that Ynaari list ages ago, yet its known as an LVO list?

Blood Angels arn‘t nasty, they are 2nd tier at best.
I never said I was better than them, I’m saying its not a big event with any top tier players. Prove me wrong and attend a bigger tourney and do well?

Gratz on 4th place, Tyranids are currently top tier and I’d expect a nid list to win the event if it contained 6+ Hive Tyrants. If you feel the list is strong, attend some of the Indy events 

If I am coming accross as disrespectful, thats just my blunt way of putting things forward. Sorry if thats the case but I am only speaking the truth. Something which gets me in trouble a lot


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 r_squared wrote:

KillswitchUK wrote:
...As for the results, one of the Ork players who came 3rd is a friend of mine and team England ETC player, Courtney Rhodes. He took Orks for a laugh as his main competitive army wasn't ready yet. He's a top bloke and solid player, so no suprise he came 3rd with a weak book. There is no way in hell he would take that army to a proper event in the current meta but as GW events attract such poor army builds, then its a viable tourney to try something new and fun...

I'm quite interested in what list he took, any chance you could provide an insight?

The ork list? Ill message him now and ask him for it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Silentz wrote:

While the tournaments at Element near Manchester advise that 3 colour minimum is preferred, it's not always mandated. You can take unpainted models. You can sometimes proxy stuff in (if it's clearly not for advantage).

This means that people will bring lists that chase or push the meta and are far more cutting edge in competitive advantage. It's pretty hard for people to paint "to the meta" to the standard that GW expect you to have when playing at Warhammer World.

Actually none of our events that I attend allow unpainted models, and if people take the p1%% out of the 3 minimu colour (3 coloured dots for example) they will not be allowed to use them.

 Silentz wrote:
Killswitch is entirely right. I'm no top player but have taken part in some of these and it's clear that Independent events and GW events have a separate outlook on hardcore competitiveness.

An important factor that's not been discussed is that GW have much more strict rules around painting and basing, which has a hard impact on the types of armies you see there. GW will say your armies need to be fully GW models, fully painted and based, with no proxies or anything.

While the tournaments at Element near Manchester advise that 3 colour minimum is preferred, it's not always mandated. You can take unpainted models. You can sometimes proxy stuff in (if it's clearly not for advantage).

This means that people will bring lists that chase or push the meta and are far more cutting edge in competitive advantage. It's pretty hard for people to paint "to the meta" to the standard that GW expect you to have when playing at Warhammer World.

Looks like independents thus have better showcase of what's broken and GW has better tournaments.

KillswitchUK wrote:


I was waiting for someone who attended the tourney to back it up!

For a start, what is an ETC spamfest? You mean a to say that a tournament which uses a balanced, well thought out scoring system to win a game which isn’t one dimensional and easy to win means that top tier players whom are testing for the ETC bringing top tier lists of different variety due to the way the ETC works is a spam fest? Even IF it was a spamfest, that is what 40k is right now, GW release a codex and gives you one overpowered unit, so ofcourse it will be spammed, that’s 8th edition, not our fault.

The Sportsmanship and painting scores is fine to have if it doesn’t effect the standings of the top players. The top indy tournaments have no issues with sportsmanship, and painting is to a good standard. All tourneys adhere to a strict 3 colours minimum which is fine. At the end of the day, it’s a gaming tournament, not a place to find out if youre good with a paint brush.

That pint you have made about “LVO” lis tis my point exactly on how little you and others know about the UK scene. I won a large Uk event back in October with a similar list a few weeks after the Eldar book came out. Another one of my friends, Matt Edmunds from the Scotland ETC team, won Blood And Glory, another UK event which was even covered by GW which shows we already created that Ynaari list ages ago, yet its known as an LVO list?

Blood Angels arn‘t nasty, they are 2nd tier at best.
I never said I was better than them, I’m saying its not a big event with any top tier players. Prove me wrong and attend a bigger tourney and do well?

Gratz on 4th place, Tyranids are currently top tier and I’d expect a nid list to win the event if it contained 6+ Hive Tyrants. If you feel the list is strong, attend some of the Indy events 

If I am coming accross as disrespectful, thats just my blunt way of putting things forward. Sorry if thats the case but I am only speaking the truth. Something which gets me in trouble a lot

Its known as an LVO list because thats where it was made famous, not because thats where it was done first.

We will agree to disagree on a lot of points, not really the place for it here.
Its an 80 man GT, the lists and players are relevant and worthy of discussion regardless of your low opinion of them.

As far as me having no idea about the UK scene.....I am the current Uk ITC region winner

KillSwitchUK wrote:

Actually none of our events that I attend allow unpainted models, and if people take the p1%% out of the 3 minimu colour (3 coloured dots for example) they will not be allowed to use them.

You're right on the bigger ones like Cally but the Winter Warmup and March Mayhem ones certainly do. Although they are one day RTTs and seen as practice for the proper tournaments I guess.

Sneggy wrote:As far as me having no idea about the UK scene.....I am the current Uk ITC region winner

Lol. Love it.

Like I said, thats not the UK scene. The big events in the UK utilise ETC and only recently have we started getting ITC points for them. For the last year, no one even knew what the ITC points was. Happy to see how you do this year now the bigger events give out ITC points Come attend the bigger events and lets chat and chill out

As for the Ork list, he used about 150 boys, Mek on bike with shield (2 of them I think), 3 big kannons and 3 dakka jets. He said hed prefer more kannons next time!

@Sneggy What are the terrain situation like at Heat 3? Pretty much every GW event I’ve been to/seen has had diabolical amounts of terrain on the table, with usually zero, proper, LoS blocking pieces. It, for me, is one of the major differences GW events have when compared to other competitive events.

As for the whole painted/unpainted/proxy stuff, we’ve seen a big move away from that with the ITC change they made for the BAO last year. Every [MAJOR] event I’ve seen posted since (in the UK) has required fully painted and based models and proxies have to be cleared for use before the event.

My concern with how GW scores events right now, comes from the current state of the meta. Progressive scoring is fine, however, 2 or 3 turns of progressive scoring with only Warlord, Line breaker and First Blood as secondaries isn’t. It’s all well and good having a super “top tier LVO list”, but, if you come up against 120 Ork Boyz who just sit on 3 out of the 5 objectives for the 2 or 3 turns of the game, you’re not going to win the majority of the time.

Were a lot of the lists competitive for the event? Yes, I totally believe that a lot of them were. Was there a fair amount of event players there? Yeah I think there were, but, likely not a majority percentage. Would the lists hold up in any other competitive style of play at any other event? Probably not.

Different events. Different styles. Different rules. What worked here, or elsewhere, might not work in the other styles of events. We need to remember that. While there is some cross over between ITC, ETC and GW events in terms of “what is good”, each presents a different situation and requirements for list building (in terms of building for the missions).

We should be looking at the results for Heat 3, simply as a basing point for what to potentially encounter at the Grand Final in May. We shouldn’t be looking at the lists as the “next LVO winning lists”, and visa versa.

However, big spanner in the works will come in March when the FAQ drops. Personally, I don’t think we should be basing our future lists off any tournament results until April at the earliest.

Kdash wrote:

My concern with how GW scores events right now, comes from the current state of the meta. Progressive scoring is fine, however, 2 or 3 turns of progressive scoring with only Warlord, Line breaker and First Blood as secondaries isn’t. It’s all well and good having a super “top tier LVO list”, but, if you come up against 120 Ork Boyz who just sit on 3 out of the 5 objectives for the 2 or 3 turns of the game, you’re not going to win the majority of the time.

Solution: Drop the point levels if you can't play 5-6 turns in time. If deliberate slowplay still ruins it chess clock.

He never said slow play, he said the games won in 2-3 turns.

who just sit on 3 out of the 5 objectives for the 2 or 3 turns of the game,

That seems to imply the game only goes 2-3 turns.
In which case the problem is only playing the first half of a game, not that the scoring is unfair.

That doesn't necessarily mean its slowplaying. But it is an issue, we saw it at the Heat, we saw it at LVO, I assume it happens at other tournaments aswell.
Games are simply not finishing to their natural conclusion.

KillswitchUK wrote:
He never said slow play, he said the games won in 2-3 turns.

Well that's controllable if game has enough time. If there's enough time you can play 5, 6, 7 or whatever scenario rules allow for.

Slow play can be an issue, but, it is a different issue to playing a horde.

No matter how fast you play, having 150 Boyz in a competitive event will always result in a shorten game, in terms of turns. Even if the opponent was playing pure Custodes with 15 models, I doubt you’d get to turn 4 or 5 due to time.

When the armies themselves place a turn limit on the game, and when there are no penalties for not going past turn 3, of course you’re going to see horde armies pick up a lot more wins than they might normally do.

Most ITC and ETC games tend to get decided in turns 1-3 I believe - as a result of the alpha strike meta, whereas, a horde style GW game is decided due to time.

KillswitchUK wrote:
...As for the Ork list, he used about 150 boys, Mek on bike with shield (2 of them I think), 3 big kannons and 3 dakka jets. He said hed prefer more kannons next time!

Thanks very much, I was expecting weirdboy spam, but its nice to see dakkajets being utilised.

The terrain at heat 3 was fine imo. Not the best I've seen, but only 1 board I played on had what I would say was a significant lack of LoS blockers.

KillswitchUK wrote:Like I said, thats not the UK scene. The big events in the UK utilise ETC and only recently have we started getting ITC points for them. For the last year, no one even knew what the ITC points was. Happy to see how you do this year now the bigger events give out ITC points Come attend the bigger events and lets chat and chill out

Not going to enter into the age old ETC vs ITC argument. We are all free to enjoy toy soldiers how we like. I did well in ITC last year. You did well in ETC. Everyones a winner.
I'm at a bunch of the ETC format events this year so hopefully we can meet up, have a beer and a good game. Currently got tickets for Cale and LGT booked in.

Kdash wrote:@Sneggy What are the terrain situation like at Heat 3? Pretty much every GW event I’ve been to/seen has had diabolical amounts of terrain on the table, with usually zero, proper, LoS blocking pieces. It, for me, is one of the major differences GW events have when compared to other competitive events.

As for the whole painted/unpainted/proxy stuff, we’ve seen a big move away from that with the ITC change they made for the BAO last year. Every [MAJOR] event I’ve seen posted since (in the UK) has required fully painted and based models and proxies have to be cleared for use before the event.

My concern with how GW scores events right now, comes from the current state of the meta. Progressive scoring is fine, however, 2 or 3 turns of progressive scoring with only Warlord, Line breaker and First Blood as secondaries isn’t. It’s all well and good having a super “top tier LVO list”, but, if you come up against 120 Ork Boyz who just sit on 3 out of the 5 objectives for the 2 or 3 turns of the game, you’re not going to win the majority of the time.

Were a lot of the lists competitive for the event? Yes, I totally believe that a lot of them were. Was there a fair amount of event players there? Yeah I think there were, but, likely not a majority percentage. Would the lists hold up in any other competitive style of play at any other event? Probably not.

Different events. Different styles. Different rules. What worked here, or elsewhere, might not work in the other styles of events. We need to remember that. While there is some cross over between ITC, ETC and GW events in terms of “what is good”, each presents a different situation and requirements for list building (in terms of building for the missions).

We should be looking at the results for Heat 3, simply as a basing point for what to potentially encounter at the Grand Final in May. We shouldn’t be looking at the lists as the “next LVO winning lists”, and visa versa.

Terrain was pretty good actually. Enough of it at least. Some of the placement was questionable on the tables I played on (all buildings/ruins round the outskirts, forests in the middle on a couple of tables) but theres definitely been plenty of effort put in by GW to get their boards up to tournament standard. I was playing a primarily assault army and didn't struggle to hide units if I really really needed to.

Agree with you on horses for courses. Would I run my heat 3 list at an ITC event? nope it bleeds secondaries horribly. I'd play something similar, with a little tinkering for format and likely meta.
I'm now looking towards finals and London GT as the next majors for me. They are a week apart and will likely feature two different lists (unless I really cant be bothered to practise both)

Ordana wrote:

who just sit on 3 out of the 5 objectives for the 2 or 3 turns of the game,

That seems to imply the game only goes 2-3 turns.
In which case the problem is only playing the first half of a game, not that the scoring is unfair.

That doesn't necessarily mean its slowplaying. But it is an issue, we saw it at the Heat, we saw it at LVO, I assume it happens at other tournaments aswell.
Games are simply not finishing to their natural conclusion.

Kdash wrote:Slow play can be an issue, but, it is a different issue to playing a horde.

No matter how fast you play, having 150 Boyz in a competitive event will always result in a shorten game, in terms of turns. Even if the opponent was playing pure Custodes with 15 models, I doubt you’d get to turn 4 or 5 due to time.

When the armies themselves place a turn limit on the game, and when there are no penalties for not going past turn 3, of course you’re going to see horde armies pick up a lot more wins than they might normally do.

Most ITC and ETC games tend to get decided in turns 1-3 I believe - as a result of the alpha strike meta, whereas, a horde style GW game is decided due to time.

On the slow play and hordes thing. My list had somewhere around 120 models in it. Every single game finished naturally. I think the closest any of them went to the clock was 20mins left. This includes a game against another tyranid horde and vs poxwalker spam.
If you are properly motivated, practised and organised you can play horde armies on a time limit. If you struggle that badly try practising on a chess clock. I'm not a huge fan of them in events as they are a bit clunky and can be gamed but for practising time management they are very helpful.

KillswitchUK wrote:
Guys, you arnt seriously taking this tournament result seriously?

This tournament seems to use the actual rules for 40k as they appear in the book (I think?), which makes it more relevant to most people who play the game.

Your argument for why we shouldn't take it seriously seems to be that the people taking part aren't very good at the game. If your going to say something as offensive as that you should probably provide some evidence to support it.

Tournaments that just require 3 colour min or even no painting are by definition more likely to attract the lazy, clumsy and under-motivated unwilling to give it their all for a tournament. By definition less competitive.

Lack of soft scores means people are likely to edge out points not on skill, but on loop-hole abuse, also by definition less competitive.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Tournaments that just require 3 colour min or even no painting are by definition more likely to attract the lazy, clumsy and under-motivated unwilling to give it their all for a tournament. By definition less competitive.

Lack of soft scores means people are likely to edge out points not on skill, but on loop-hole abuse, also by definition less competitive.

Maybe. That's all pretty speculative. Although two of the last games in the LVO were won off the back of rules lawyering so you may have a point lol.

Btw for the benefit of the people on this thread who may not already know... Killswitch is Alex Harrison.

England ETC team member, ex LVO winner, etc. etc.

He knows what he's talking about when its 40k. Even if he's total ****head. /s
Totally.

Luv ya Alex

ITC is a relatively speaking new phenomenon that's been imported by FLG. The indy scene and its old guard have been playing for years and I do remember Alex, Josh, Nathan etc. from 5th edition for good or worse. I think Josh was playing in GTs in 4th edition when Allen (el Sour) / Flame On crew were around and dominating / being dominated by the Europeans. Max was GT winner in the early noughties too from what I remember.

So... its just horses for courses. If you genuinely want a frakking tough weekend of no holds barred 40k gaming, go to Cally and potentially LGT this year. To be honest LGT is also relatively new and Zach has been building good hype over the last 2 years. Some of UK's strongest players are up North and London is difficult to get to.

I feel old...

Hahaha. Harsh but fair

As for what I said about heat 3 full of players that arnt good....well....to put it another way.....they arnt what you'd see a top end tournament to contain. If anyone thinks otherwise then fair enough. I'm just being brutally honest and sometimes the truth hurts. Damn I sound like Stelek

Kdash wrote:
Slow play can be an issue, but, it is a different issue to playing a horde.

No matter how fast you play, having 150 Boyz in a competitive event will always result in a shorten game, in terms of turns. Even if the opponent was playing pure Custodes with 15 models, I doubt you’d get to turn 4 or 5 due to time.

When the armies themselves place a turn limit on the game, and when there are no penalties for not going past turn 3, of course you’re going to see horde armies pick up a lot more wins than they might normally do.

Most ITC and ETC games tend to get decided in turns 1-3 I believe - as a result of the alpha strike meta, whereas, a horde style GW game is decided due to time.

That's problem with too big point levels for the time allocated.

KillswitchUK wrote:
Hahaha. Harsh but fair

As for what I said about heat 3 full of players that arnt good....well....to put it another way.....they arnt what you'd see a top end tournament to contain. If anyone thinks otherwise then fair enough. I'm just being brutally honest and sometimes the truth hurts. Damn I sound like Stelek

Well, it's your opinion of the truth. To 99% of us you're just some guy who also plays Warhammer posting on the internet (much like us). All I can gather is you and some other heavy hitter tournament player from the same region are disagreeing on how big a deal to make of this tournament.

40k doesn't have Fakers, Day9's, Idras and Bjergsons yet.