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Something for the non-ITC folks to chew on:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bUs0HrJ3f6YzR6mWlT1LRLq0i9_0ekf7ah9WhCTxsIo/edit

Pertinent to our discussion:

- All models are expected to be WYSIWYG to a reasonable standard. Exceptions will be made for themed units or armies.

(bullet item) Using a reasonable substitute to “Counts As” another model, does not violate our policy. Thus, subbing emo, aesthetic elves for Melnibonian sickies with flesh grafted wings. Swooping Hawks for scourges.

And now you know where I am coming from with my far looser interpretation of WYSIWYG. I am not trying to persuade you guys from eating the same protein biscuit as me and the other ITC folks. I'm just letting you know, that we butter our bread side down, over here, and it is just fine, hundreds of players accept this. Just take a look at how many players are on the ITC points lists.

And if I come to your side of town, and I must butter my bread side up (100% WYSIWYG), then I will do so. Happily.

Vive la difference!

Yay! I must be one of the ones doing well! Thanks, ChainswordHeretic. <----- very light-heartedly intended. <3

Actually you are! you are not misrepresenting anything and you are stating your opinions clearly, I am cool with that We do not have to agree on everything and to be honest it will be impossible in the context of a code of context for 40k tourneys as is evident from this thread.

 akaean wrote:
@Brothererekose
How have you not bought tons and tons of scourge boxes until now! They are probably the best model in the DE Range, and one of GW's best bits for conversions! Scourge wings look fantastic on everything from Battle Sisters to Chaos Space Marines...

I know, shameful, huh? But, I've only restarted DE for a month or so, not seriously since 5e.

Sigh. Wonder when people will stop pretending 40k is competive game. It's not. Never has bebn, never been. Using terms competive and 40k is huge joke and is direct cause for these problems.


Get rid of attitude that 40k is competive game, problem solved

tneva82 wrote:
Sigh. Wonder when people will stop pretending 40k is competive game. It's not. Never has bebn, never been. Using terms competive and 40k is huge joke and is direct cause for these problems.


Get rid of attitude that 40k is competitive game, problem solved

That doesn't fix anything. Let's go with the marketing and say it's a friendly game.

"Did you know you were playing a list outside what the rulebook allows? That other guy didn't have a fair chance'

"Yeah, but it's ok it's a friendly game"

It comes done to playing someone and knowing they are going to deal with you fairly and that they can expect the same out of you. Dungeons and Dragons, one of the greater hobbies least competitive games still has floor rules and league rules to ensure a fair playing experience. Those are rules the community needed when the cheaters were normally on their side. Let that sink in.

tneva82 wrote:
Sigh. Wonder when people will stop pretending 40k is competive game. It's not. Never has bebn, never been. Using terms competive and 40k is huge joke and is direct cause for these problems.


Get rid of attitude that 40k is competive game, problem solved

Any game can be played with a competitive mindset, regardless of whether or not it is “designed” to be competitive or not. (hell, even single player Pokemon Red/Blue has the competitive aspect of speed running for World Records etc)

I play for fun, but, when I go to events, I also up my game, tactics and lists as I see it as an opportunity to test myself and my skills against other people doing the same. In a sense, I get competitive, because I want to see whether or not I can win.

Now, I don’t go out and try to be a complete dick about it all, or try to game the system etc (Shock! Horror! Not everyone playing with a competitive attitude is That Guy!! – but sure, some are!) I still aim to ensure it is a good game for both players, even if it is a completely 1 sided smashfest.

Mindset is everything. It is just unfortunate that some people do not have the ability to control said mindset.

Now, whether you want to argue if tournaments should exist or not is a completely different subject, as there are just as many narrative tournament style events here in the UK as competitive ones. (well, maybe not now GW branched out into their GT Heats in addition to their narrative stuff). The events are still pitching players and teams against each other for the “glory of winning”, but, they do it with different rules in place and a different mindset around the event. It doesn’t mean it isn’t competitive though.

The game has changed since I originally played. Back then it was all about playing with mates at home, at the local GW or at a gaming group. Now days, those still but events have filled some of the gaps that were there originally. They give people a chance to go out and play people they’ve never met before, in a reasonable and fair environment, often outside of their local area. Before a big event, besides going to Warhammer World with mates, I’d never have chosen to travel to the next town’s GW store and just look for a game. However, after going to few events, I can now easily and happily travel around the UK to various groups and join in with their events and games over a weekend.

Being competitive isn’t bad. Everyone needs to accept that. Being unable to control yourself however, is where the problem lies. And that problem has nothing to do with the game itself.

Kdash wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Sigh. Wonder when people will stop pretending 40k is competive game. It's not. Never has bebn, never been. Using terms competive and 40k is huge joke and is direct cause for these problems.


Get rid of attitude that 40k is competive game, problem solved

Any game can be played with a competitive mindset, regardless of whether or not it is “designed” to be competitive or not. (hell, even single player Pokemon Red/Blue has the competitive aspect of speed running for World Records etc)

I play for fun, but, when I go to events, I also up my game, tactics and lists as I see it as an opportunity to test myself and my skills against other people doing the same. In a sense, I get competitive, because I want to see whether or not I can win.

Not when "competitive" means changing fundamental rules the game wasn't designed around.

You can play Football casually or competitively, but if you insist "competitively" means both teams get equal time of ball possession, you're fundamentally changing the game into something it's not. Same with changing the scoring method from balls in the goal to some weird "football-recon" of needing to have players in pitch quarters or whatnot.

You might be able to play 40K competitively, but only if you'd accept, among many other things, that some armies/games/players simply take longer than others and 40K isn't a game designed or intended to finish in X amount of time with equal time for both players. It's just not in the DNA of that rule set. By definition, a competitive 40K tournament would need a schedule flexible enough to allow games to go "as long as they need to be" and players to take "as much time as their army needs". You cannot change that if you wanna play 40K, competitively or not.

Look at any 40K game on Warhammer Twitch if you want, any old 40K game from GW people, game designers, etc.. . In an Orks vs. Knight game. of course the Ork player needs 3 times as much time as the Knight players. That's 40K. In an Ork vs. Ork match, the game will wrap at the and of turn 2 in the same time as a Knight vs. Knight game might get to turn 7. That's 40K.

There's a disconnect or possibly double meaning of what "playing 40K competitively" means. I suppose as per your example, you can play 40K "intense and focussed like a professional", yes. But if "playing 40K competitively" means changing/adding rules like ITC missions or time requirements at odds with the game, you're gonna have to face the reality that these changes are largely incompatible with the core game they are trying to change.

The problem isn't that you cannot play 40K "competitively/focussed/professionally". The problem is that "40K competitively" has taken on the meaning of a bunch of house rules that seek to ease organisational matters for TOs (like having fixed time) which are, at the core, incompatible with the game itself.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Kdash wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Sigh. Wonder when people will stop pretending 40k is competive game. It's not. Never has bebn, never been. Using terms competive and 40k is huge joke and is direct cause for these problems.


Get rid of attitude that 40k is competive game, problem solved

Any game can be played with a competitive mindset, regardless of whether or not it is “designed” to be competitive or not. (hell, even single player Pokemon Red/Blue has the competitive aspect of speed running for World Records etc)

I play for fun, but, when I go to events, I also up my game, tactics and lists as I see it as an opportunity to test myself and my skills against other people doing the same. In a sense, I get competitive, because I want to see whether or not I can win.

Not when "competitive" means changing fundamental rules the game wasn't designed around.

You can play Football casually or competitively, but if you insist "competitively" means both teams get equal time of ball possession, you're fundamentally changing the game into something it's not. Same with changing the scoring method from balls in the goal to some weird "football-recon" of needing to have players in pitch quarters or whatnot.

You might be able to play 40K competitively, but only if you'd accept, among many other things, that some armies/games/players simply take longer than others and 40K isn't a game designed or intended to finish in X amount of time with equal time for both players. It's just not in the DNA of that rule set. By definition, a competitive 40K tournament would need a schedule flexible enough to allow games to go "as long as they need to be" and players to take "as much time as their army needs". You cannot change that if you wanna play 40K, competitively or not.

Look at any 40K game on Warhammer Twitch if you want, any old 40K game from GW people, game designers, etc.. . In an Orks vs. Knight game. of course the Ork player needs 3 times as much time as the Knight players. That's 40K. In an Ork vs. Ork match, the game will wrap at the and of turn 2 in the same time as a Knight vs. Knight game might get to turn 7. That's 40K.

There's a disconnect or possibly double meaning of what "playing 40K competitively" means. I suppose as per your example, you can play 40K "intense and focussed like a professional", yes. But if "playing 40K competitively" means changing/adding rules like ITC missions or time requirements at odds with the game, you're gonna have to face the reality that these changes are largely incompatible with the core game they are trying to change.

The problem isn't that you cannot play 40K "competitively/focussed/professionally". The problem is that "40K competitively" has taken on the meaning of a bunch of house rules that seek to ease organisational matters for TOs (like having fixed time) which are, at the core, incompatible with the game itself.

You really have a problem with chess clocks, don’t you? :/

“competitive” 40k isn’t changing any of the core rules of the game, or how things work. Sure, the mission format might be slightly different to the rulebook missions, but, that is a thing welcomed by GW and brings different experiences to the game. Sure, it can alter how a player approaches the game or what people add to their lists, but it isn’t fundamentally changing the game. You still follow the rules as normal, just the player "objectives" are different.

You also can’t compare 40k to football or any other team based “real time” sport. 40k is a game built around “I go, you go”. If I was able to always pull a Ynnari on you and interrupt you with a move of my own after you activate 1 unit, then, yes, we could start to draw comparisons, but, until I have the ability to “tackle you and take control of possession” then the comparison can’t be made.

As for chess clocks – that is a completely different discussion and is being implemented as a solution to a bigger problem. As highlighted in all the other threads arguing the pros and cons of chess clocks – as you well know.

Please stop comparing a timed event to a game streamed live on the Warhammer Community twitch channel. It is COMPLETELY different, and even GW bend the rules of their own events when streaming tournament games.
When GW streams one of their own tournaments, they do, and have on countless occasions, allow the players on the stream to continue playing after time has been called, if they are in a position to either naturally finish the game, or have only got to something like turn 3 – giving the players 1 extra turn to ensure a more “reasonable” game length.
As for all the other games they stream, they are NOT event games and they do not have a hard set cut off point. Plenty of their games over run on time, that is why they have such big time frames for each of their game sections. They are not on a time constraint (well, within reason) and they are playing for fun. No-one playing in a normal game (like they are doing on the stream) cares about whether or not 1 player is taking twice as long as the other, because it doesn’t matter. They still play to the NATURAL conclusion of the game.

As for GW event games going forward, we can see they are already trying different approaches to the ITC in an attempt to fix the same problem of games not ending on time. Their current option is to cut the points from 2000 to 1750. If that doesn’t bring the desired effect, you might see them start looking at timing players more as well.

Houserules? If you consider having a game length set at 3 hours, because the event needs to be ran fairly and within 2 days, then I’m a little bit confused. Sure, in a perfect world, 70 players playing 5 games could be played in “as long as it needs”, but, unfortunately that is not reasonable or practical for anyone involved. I am travelling up to an event after work today, starting tomorrow morning and ending Sunday afternoon. After which I need to spend 2-3 hours driving home, get everything sorted and then be ready to leave my house again for 6am Monday morning for work. If the event allowed players to just play until the end regardless of time, then, I’d have serious doubts about attending unless I could book the Monday off work as a holiday.
The ITC missions are house rules, I accept that – but, as I said above, they aren’t changing the fundamentals of the base game. Yes they have an impact on the event and the game, but, you are still playing 40k. Just because they aren’t listed in the rulebook or chapter approved, doesn’t mean they are “bad” or mean you aren’t playing 40k. GW’s GT heats and finals use everything straight from CA and the Rulebook. Does that make their events more “competitive” or a more “pure” form of competitive play than the ITC in your view?
The only other ITC house rule is that ground floor ruins block LoS. Personally, I, and thousands of others, accept this and think it is good for the game. Terrain is far from standard across every event and every table at each event. I also don’t think GW sells a piece of terrain that actually doesn’t have a window, hole or gap in it giving you LoS to whatever is “hiding”/”waiting” within in ambush. To me, it is one of the biggest flaws of GW terrain and their current core rules. If by using a recognised and publicly accepted house rule as a fix to this big CORE RULES issue, is bad for the game, then, quite frankly I’m not going to let it bother me and carry on using it anyway.

Most games I play, competitive or not, end within 3 hours. Most event games I play end with around 30 minutes to spare (some cases they end after turn 1 like a fair amount of game 5 games did at the LGT). Every so often, a game I am playing will run to time, usually somewhere between turns 4 and 5. That said, I’ve not had the dubious honour of playing the guy with 250 infantry models. The most i’ve played against was about 150-160ish, and we still managed to end on time.

Yes, playing with 250 Orks within a set time limit can be extremely challenging. But, as it has been said countless times by horde players on here (yes take with some salt) that it is possible to finish games with hordes on time.
Finally, going to an event is your own personal choice. You know the rules and limits beforehand. You plan around that. If you know that it will be using chess clocks as part of the “solve slow play and games not finishing” test project, then, you know you’ll have 1.5 hours or so to play your turns. If you then know you can’t play your 250 orks in 1.5 hours, then, either, don’t go to the event, take a slightly different ork list or still go with the 250 orks knowing and accepting that you’re not going to get your full amount of turns in and are going to be at a disadvantage in the latter stages of the game. Please stop trying to say that because a person’s choice of army LIST (not overall army, but LIST) is not particularly viable in a normal tournament situation, makes the game not competitive or “not suitable” for events.

I have no problem playing vs a horde list at a timed event. With or without chess clocks. No problem at all, as long as they are reasonable in their approach to time and the overall game. What I do have a problem with though, is not being able to have a fair conclusion to a game because we only managed to get 1 or 2 turns in. What is worse for the game? Getting to turn 2, or having an equal share of the time?

Kdash wrote:



Yes, playing with 250 Orks within a set time limit can be extremely challenging. But, as it has been said countless times by horde players on here (yes take with some salt) that it is possible to finish games with hordes on time.
Finally, going to an event is your own personal choice. You know the rules and limits beforehand. You plan around that. If you know that it will be using chess clocks as part of the “solve slow play and games not finishing” test project, then, you know you’ll have 1.5 hours or so to play your turns. If you then know you can’t play your 250 orks in 1.5 hours, then, either, don’t go to the event, take a slightly different ork list or still go with the 250 orks knowing and accepting that you’re not going to get your full amount of turns in and are going to be at a disadvantage in the latter stages of the game. Please stop trying to say that because a person’s choice of army LIST (not overall army, but LIST) is not particularly viable in a normal tournament situation, makes the game not competitive or “not suitable” for events.

Again, you're conflating individual responsibility of players to stick to event rules (or the choice to not go to the event) and the discussion on whether the event rules make sense.

If the event requires you to wear a cowboy hat all the time, yes, it's the players responsibility to bring such a hat if they decide to go to this event (or opt to not attend). But that doesn't impinge in any way on the discussion if a rule requirement cowboy hats makes sense and/or improves the play-experience for everyone in the first place.


And there is no more fundamental or "core" change to the game than changing the win-conditions of a mission. If you change who wins or loses a game from a BRB mission to an ITC mission, it'll affect 100% of games played directly in who wins and who loses.

If, by contrast, you remove the psychic phase from the game or whatever, it'll affect maybe 60-70% of games and armies at best, for example, and the win/lose conditions much more indirectly. It'd be a much more minor change to the game all things considered.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Kdash wrote:



Yes, playing with 250 Orks within a set time limit can be extremely challenging. But, as it has been said countless times by horde players on here (yes take with some salt) that it is possible to finish games with hordes on time.
Finally, going to an event is your own personal choice. You know the rules and limits beforehand. You plan around that. If you know that it will be using chess clocks as part of the “solve slow play and games not finishing” test project, then, you know you’ll have 1.5 hours or so to play your turns. If you then know you can’t play your 250 orks in 1.5 hours, then, either, don’t go to the event, take a slightly different ork list or still go with the 250 orks knowing and accepting that you’re not going to get your full amount of turns in and are going to be at a disadvantage in the latter stages of the game. Please stop trying to say that because a person’s choice of army LIST (not overall army, but LIST) is not particularly viable in a normal tournament situation, makes the game not competitive or “not suitable” for events.

Again, you're conflating individual responsibility of players to stick to event rules (or the choice to not go to the event) and the discussion on whether the event rules make sense.

If the event requires you to wear a cowboy hat all the time, yes, it's the players responsibility to bring such a hat if they decide to go to this event (or opt to not attend). But that doesn't impinge in any way on the discussion if a rule requirement cowboy hats makes sense and/or improves the play-experience for everyone in the first place.


And there is no more fundamental or "core" change to the game than changing the win-conditions of a mission. If you change who wins or loses a game from a BRB mission to an ITC mission, it'll affect 100% of games played directly in who wins and who loses.

If, by contrast, you remove the psychic phase from the game or whatever, it'll affect maybe 60-70% of games and armies at best, for example, and the win/lose conditions much more indirectly. It'd be a much more minor change to the game all things considered.

How does having a necessary time limit on games at a 2 day event not make sense? Wearing a cowboy hat is like some of the old, original AoS rules – like “pretend you’re riding a horse and you get full re-rolls for a turn”. Completely stupid, I agree and have no positive impact on the game, but, they are also completely different to setting 3 hours per game. People need to stop thinking that the event or the rules are “out to get them personally”. Player choice has so much more of an impact on their own experiences at events, than the TO setting a time limit on a game due to logistics and practicality. As I said, in a perfect world time limits wouldn’t be a factor, but unfortunately that’ll never happen unless we move to 3 games over 2 days and the support in place to allow players than finish after 1 hour to be notified of their next game 4-5 hours later when the final horde v horde game has finished.

Changing how a mission is won has nothing to do with the core rules that allow you to play the game in order to win the mission.

The ITC missions do not change the core rules, the phases of play, codex rules, unit rules, stratagems etc etc. It’s like saying, the Chapter Approved Missions fundamentally changed the game because they changed how to win a mission compared to the 8th edition Rulebook.

The mission is essentially an “end goal” of a game of 40k. Each and every mission from GW and ITC change the “end goal”. You still go about getting there in the same way. Just because you get points for killing a unit of 10 models, rather than a guaranteed first blood or linebreaker, doesn’t mean the game is fundamentally different.

Kdash wrote:


How does having a necessary time limit on games at a 2 day event not make sense?

Maybe it makes sense. Maybe not. That's not the question. Point is, it's not what the game is designed to do and adding that requirement is a fundamental change to the "core" of the game.

At the very least, logic would imply that it will not simply "work" without some complementary changes to the game engine.


If ITC, ATC or somebody else can make a game better than 40K, I am all for it. But it's a change that'll require some fundamental game-design re-thinking. You can't just slap chess clocks and timing requirements on nilly willy and presume it'll fly like it's meant to do that.

Kdash wrote:



Changing how a mission is won has nothing to do with the core rules that allow you to play the game in order to win the mission.

The ITC missions do not change the core rules, the phases of play, codex rules, unit rules, stratagems etc etc. It’s like saying, the Chapter Approved Missions fundamentally changed the game because they changed how to win a mission compared to the 8th edition Rulebook.

The mission is essentially an “end goal” of a game of 40k. Each and every mission from GW and ITC change the “end goal”. You still go about getting there in the same way. Just because you get points for killing a unit of 10 models, rather than a guaranteed first blood or linebreaker, doesn’t mean the game is fundamentally different.

Sure it is. Especially if you put it into context with the "time discussion above". A BRB mission like The Relic can easily be scored at the end of turn 2. This is crucial, since, as discussed, 40K out of the box doesn't require you to play to turn 6 always in time X. It's not meant to do that. Changing that to ITC "missions" which require to play to turn 5 to make sense when the game itself doesn't support that design goal (prior to changes) means there'll be tensions and problems where the changed rules (or "end goals" .. how is the end goal not the core of the game? That's like saying scoring goals isn't "core" to football or crossing the finishing line as fast as possible isn't the "core" of a track race?) do not work well with the engine that drives the game.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Kdash wrote:



Yes, playing with 250 Orks within a set time limit can be extremely challenging. But, as it has been said countless times by horde players on here (yes take with some salt) that it is possible to finish games with hordes on time.
Finally, going to an event is your own personal choice. You know the rules and limits beforehand. You plan around that. If you know that it will be using chess clocks as part of the “solve slow play and games not finishing” test project, then, you know you’ll have 1.5 hours or so to play your turns. If you then know you can’t play your 250 orks in 1.5 hours, then, either, don’t go to the event, take a slightly different ork list or still go with the 250 orks knowing and accepting that you’re not going to get your full amount of turns in and are going to be at a disadvantage in the latter stages of the game. Please stop trying to say that because a person’s choice of army LIST (not overall army, but LIST) is not particularly viable in a normal tournament situation, makes the game not competitive or “not suitable” for events.

Again, you're conflating individual responsibility of players to stick to event rules (or the choice to not go to the event) and the discussion on whether the event rules make sense.

If the event requires you to wear a cowboy hat all the time, yes, it's the players responsibility to bring such a hat if they decide to go to this event (or opt to not attend). But that doesn't impinge in any way on the discussion if a rule requirement cowboy hats makes sense and/or improves the play-experience for everyone in the first place.


And there is no more fundamental or "core" change to the game than changing the win-conditions of a mission. If you change who wins or loses a game from a BRB mission to an ITC mission, it'll affect 100% of games played directly in who wins and who loses.

If, by contrast, you remove the psychic phase from the game or whatever, it'll affect maybe 60-70% of games and armies at best, for example, and the win/lose conditions much more indirectly. It'd be a much more minor change to the game all things considered.

The number of players affected by a change is completely different to the effect of the change on balance. You've created a false dichotomy by comparing missions to a phase of the game. Changing the missions affects everyone but, hypothetically, if those missions are perfectly balanced it affects everyone equally so there is no effect on the balance of the game. Removing a phase from the game (let's say the movement phase) affects the same number of people. It's effect on balance is not equal.

Your comparisons to other sports/games are flawed for other reasons but since I just had to explain the rather obvious problem with your other. You seem to have some problem with chess clocks, which isn't what's being discussed here so I wonder why you bring it up.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Kdash wrote:
How does having a necessary time limit on games at a 2 day event not make sense?

Maybe it makes sense. Maybe not. That's not the question.

It totally makes sense, SunnySideUp; Chess clocks address and solve a key problem, Slow Play. Care to write a syllogism why it doesn't?

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Point is, it's not what the game is designed to do and adding that requirement is a fundamental change to the "core" of the game.

At the very least, logic would imply that it will not simply "work" without some complementary changes to the game engine.

And from GW itself, there are matched play rules, designed for tourneys. This logic you have claimed that is doesn't work is refuted by:
a. Warmachine's successful chess clock use. And Warmachine is not an Apples to Oranges analogy to 40k, like M:tG, which is too far off base. The analogy works and so do chess clocks.
b. GW had, and continues, to reach out to the community for 8e's development. They have their Facebook page to take player input. They consulted extensively with FLG and others as 8e was being written.The upshot? 8e *has* GW writing and continuing to adapt to tourney player & organizer input.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
If ITC, ATC or somebody else can make a game better than 40K, I am all for it. But it's a change that'll require some fundamental game-design re-thinking. You can't just slap chess clocks and timing requirements on nilly willy and presume it'll fly like it's meant to do that.

Actually, that is exactly what chess clocks do. And what do you think the ITC *has* been doing for several years? I'll tell you:

a. they modified and eventually created new missions that work better in a tourney setting. And these are constantly being reviewed and improved
b. When GW gave up in 4e's time on having tourneys (The Los Angeles - Westminster Battle bunker closed about then, right?) Calif seemed a tourney waste land. Nothing happening. Then, sometime in 5e's waning days, if I've got the timing right, GE Pasadena started a monthly RTT (I was there!). And someone started a little yearly gig called the Bay Area Open.

To help the tourney scene.

 Brothererekose wrote:

And from GW itself, there are matched play rules, designed for tourneys. This logic you have claimed that is doesn't work is refuted by:
a. Warmachine's successful chess clock use. And Warmachine is not an Apples to Oranges analogy to 40k, like M:tG, which is too far off base. The analogy works and so do chess clocks.
b. GW had, and continues, to reach out to the community for 8e's development. They have their Facebook page to take player input. They consulted extensively with FLG and others as 8e was being written.The upshot? 8e *has* GW writing and continuing to adapt to tourney player & organizer input.

Indeed. And based on all that, they have clearly shown through their own tournaments how to avoid/discourage/penalise ATC style problems and/or the problem of not enough games reaching their natural conclusion within the time frame set for most tournaments. 1750 points + sportsmanship and army presentation scores with significant and tangible impact on the tournament score.

Yet FLG/ITC appear almost principally opposed to follow what GW implemented as their conclusion after that process of deliberation involving, yes, FLG, but also hundreds of other sources, thousands of gamers in stores, their own social networks, etc.., etc.. as you noted.

Hard to make the case that ITC is working in sync or in the spirit of GW's design if their actions are the exact opposite.

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Not when "competitive" means changing fundamental rules the game wasn't designed around.

You can play Football casually or competitively, but if you insist "competitively" means both teams get equal time of ball possession, you're fundamentally changing the game into something it's not. Same with changing the scoring method from balls in the goal to some weird "football-recon" of needing to have players in pitch quarters or whatnot.

You might be able to play 40K competitively, but only if you'd accept, among many other things, that some armies/games/players simply take longer than others and 40K isn't a game designed or intended to finish in X amount of time with equal time for both players. It's just not in the DNA of that rule set. By definition, a competitive 40K tournament would need a schedule flexible enough to allow games to go "as long as they need to be" and players to take "as much time as their army needs". You cannot change that if you wanna play 40K, competitively or not.

Look at any 40K game on Warhammer Twitch if you want, any old 40K game from GW people, game designers, etc.. . In an Orks vs. Knight game. of course the Ork player needs 3 times as much time as the Knight players. That's 40K. In an Ork vs. Ork match, the game will wrap at the and of turn 2 in the same time as a Knight vs. Knight game might get to turn 7. That's 40K.

There's a disconnect or possibly double meaning of what "playing 40K competitively" means. I suppose as per your example, you can play 40K "intense and focussed like a professional", yes. But if "playing 40K competitively" means changing/adding rules like ITC missions or time requirements at odds with the game, you're gonna have to face the reality that these changes are largely incompatible with the core game they are trying to change.

The problem isn't that you cannot play 40K "competitively/focussed/professionally". The problem is that "40K competitively" has taken on the meaning of a bunch of house rules that seek to ease organisational matters for TOs (like having fixed time) which are, at the core, incompatible with the game itself.

I've been over the BRB several times and I don't see anything that indicates that 40k is supposed to be an asynchronously timed game. Not even comments in the 'horde' codexes that you should expect to take a larger share of the game from your opponent. The closest is CA's apcolypse rules, which warn about the need to prearrange such long play times as they go well beyond the 'normal' scope of a 40k game.

I get it. Change is scary and it's hard to say where this wave of dangerous gamer liberalism will end. Next they'll want to be able to marry dice and the government will tax your ITC points on behalf of newbs.

Let me ask this: Have you actually tried playing with a chess clock? I have in both 40k and WMH and found my performance as a player vastly improved by the constraint. I spent less time dithering about staticly unlikely outcomes, stopped fretting about whether my 'gaunt blob was three figures deep or four if I wasn't in combat, and instead focused on the important tactical picture.

And Hell, if my plastic D6s wanna get hitched to my metal ones I won't stand in the way.

 Brothererekose wrote:

Actually, that is exactly what chess clocks do. And what do you think the ITC *has* been doing for several years? I'll tell you:

a. they modified and eventually created new missions that work better in a tourney setting. And these are constantly being reviewed and improved
b. When GW gave up in 4e's time on having tourneys (The Los Angeles - Westminster Battle bunker closed about then, right?) Calif seemed a tourney waste land. Nothing happening. Then, sometime in 5e's waning days, if I've got the timing right, GE Pasadena started a monthly RTT (I was there!). And someone started a little yearly gig called the Bay Area Open.

To help the tourney scene.

Except it's not working very well, is it? Otherwise we wouldn't have all those LVO/ATC "scandals" or the big witch-hunt for "slow players" for an issue that isn"t even a problem in the base game, not least because the ITC missions throw up so many more timing problems than the BRB/CA missions (with timing just being one example, of course... many more places where ITC creates unintended balance problems such as their bias towards field control, for example, which they don't account for with, for example, increased points for troops and infiltrators, which clearly have a buff/more important role in ITC.. etc.., etc.. )




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


Let me ask this: Have you actually tried playing with a chess clock? I have in both 40k and WMH and found my performance as a player vastly improved by the constraint. I spent less time dithering about staticly unlikely outcomes, stopped fretting about whether my 'gaunt blob was three figures deep or four if I wasn't in combat, and instead focused on the important tactical picture.

And Hell, if my plastic D6s wanna get hitched to my metal ones I won't stand in the way.

Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.


I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced. Setting a hard limit on model count, possibly simplifying time-intensive rules like CC for the competitive games to get a more even field there, etc.., etc..

I know, change is scary. It's scary precisely because it doesn't happen in a vacuum and creates "ripples' in an interwoven rules system like 40K that need to be addressed or it'll throw balance out of whack.


Likewise, if "professionalisation" is something the competitive scene strifes for, you probably need to tier off and create different "leagues" or "tiers' of players for events like the LVO/Adepticon/etc.. instead of having 12-year old Timmy with his first Dark Imperium starter box looking to have some fun and Nick Nanavati in the same pool. Or perhaps a golf-style handicap system. Or something. It just doesn't make sense in the current form and it WILL create problems, always.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Except it's not working very well, is it?

I attend ITC tourneys. I think they go great. That's why I'm leaving in 90 minutes to go to BAO. My 6th BAO. I have never done better than 4 - 2. I go for fun and I keep going because the event is well run.

I was at LVO, and while driving back to LA, my buddy had the twitch broadcast on his phone, so I had a play-by-play when T.G. wouldn't let his opponent continue movement after placing some Deep Striking dudes. That has nothing to do with GW's rules nor ITC's.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Except it's not working very well, is it? Otherwise we wouldn't have all those LVO/ATC "scandals" or the big witch-hunt for "slow players" for

This is what Fox News does. "Look! 60,000 Americans died in crashes this year. Thanks, Obama!" None of these problems can be laid at the feet of the tourney changes to the game.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
an issue that isn"t even a problem in the base game, not least because the ITC missions throw up so many more timing problems than the BRB/CA missions (with timing just being one example, of course... many more places where ITC creates unintended balance problems such as their bias towards field control, for example, which they don't account for with, for example, increased points for troops and infiltrators, which clearly have a buff/more important role in ITC.. etc.., etc.. )

Do you actually attend tourneys? And, do you have some solutions for missions or tourney play?

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Let me ask this: Have you actually tried playing with a chess clock? I have in both 40k and WMH and found my performance as a player vastly improved by the constraint. I spent less time dithering about staticly unlikely outcomes, stopped fretting about whether my 'gaunt blob was three figures deep or four if I wasn't in combat, and instead focused on the important tactical picture.
And Hell, if my plastic D6s wanna get hitched to my metal ones I won't stand in the way.

Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.
I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced. Setting a hard limit on model count, possibly simplifying time-intensive rules like CC for the competitive games to get a more even field there, etc.., etc..

I know, change is scary. It's scary precisely because it doesn't happen in a vacuum and creates "ripples' in an interwoven rules system like 40K that need to be addressed or it'll throw balance out of whack.

Then write some rules and present. Be a part of the solution, not just a complainer on a forum.

 Brothererekose wrote:

Then write some rules and present. Be a part of the solution, not just a complainer on a forum.

Why not? Making people aware of things not working well like ITC chess clock rules is a good thing. Certainly more productive than going full FLG-scientology and trying to drown out any and all criticism of their output with a deluge of ass-kissing and "whatever they do is perfect" that makes no contribution whatsoever.

There is a fine line between critic and troll, and you've crossed it.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.

I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced.

Chess clocks of any flavor are automatically done "right". If you want to play a horde slowly, and you lose to time, too bad for you. Learn to play faster, or play smarter, or play quicker.

tl;dr = "git gud"

We used chess clocks a lot in Warmachine initially, then in WWX when I was doing that. And frankly, I can't see any reason not to use chess clocks in events.

The arguments of "but it's not fair to horde armies" is a weak one IMO, as my answer there is either "don't bring a horde army to a timed event then" or "then have a damn plan and know what you're doing." I have personally seen large model count armies do just fine in chess-clocked games (in fact, have seen non-horde armies wind up losing due to running out their own time against horde armies who used their time wisely).

If you want to play competitively, at events with certain types of restrictions, then you need to plan for that environment and know how to run your army in that situation; the event does not need to change to accommodate you.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.

I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced.

Chess clocks of any flavor are automatically done "right". If you want to play a horde slowly, and you lose to time, too bad for you. Learn to play faster, or play smarter, or play quicker.

tl;dr = "git gud"

Is the intent of using chess clocks to enforce that both players use the same amount of time or is it to enforce the game concluding in a set amount of time? I don't see why players using the same amount of time is relevant. If the goal is to complete a full game of 4 turns in 3 hours and two players manage to do that but one player uses 2 hours of time to complete their 4 turns and the other player uses 1 hour of time to complete their 4 turns is that a problem? Different players using different armies can take different amounts of time to complete a turn without wasting time/slow playing so forcing all players to complete their turns in the same amount of time seems like an artificial constriction to me.
If games need to finish within a set timeframe then tournament rules should assess a penalty to both players for failing to complete the required amount of turns within the required amount of time. The focus should be on completing the game not equalizing time used by each player, no?

Prestor Jon wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Chess clocks of any flavor are automatically done "right". If you want to play a horde slowly, and you lose to time, too bad for you. Learn to play faster, or play smarter, or play quicker.

tl;dr = "git gud"

Is the intent of using chess clocks to enforce that both players use the same amount of time or is it to enforce the game concluding in a set amount of time? I don't see why players using the same amount of time is relevant. If the goal is to complete a full game of 4 turns in 3 hours and two players manage to do that but one player uses 2 hours of time to complete their 4 turns and the other player uses 1 hour of time to complete their 4 turns is that a problem?

The intent is to ensure that both players get to play ALL of their turns within the allotted time. The fair way to do that is via a chess clock, so that a slow player cannot force the other player to rush their turns.

If you waste your time, too bad. You simply pass your turns. No move, no saves, nothing. Auto-fail.

Prestor Jon wrote:
If the goal is to complete a full game of 4 turns in 3 hours and two players manage to do that but one player uses 2 hours of time to complete their 4 turns and the other player uses 1 hour of time to complete their 4 turns is that a problem?

It's a problem because if the player who requires 2 hours is matched against a player who requires their full 1.5 hours the game will not finish. You can't count on the other player being faster than average so that you get to have more than 50% of the time. So by taking more than 50% of the time you're saying that you feel entitled to more than your share and would rather not finish the game than stay within the limit.

(Now, chess clocks do have some major problems with the logistics of implementing them in a game that doesn't clearly define "active player", but the principle of a 50/50 split is not one of those problems.)

 Brothererekose wrote:

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:
Actually, it is 100% what you posted and the problem is how you are perceiving things. The other posters in this thread are doing just fine.

Yay! I must be one of the ones doing well! Thanks, ChainswordHeretic. <----- very light-heartedly intended. <3

Today, this happened:




Not only did a lot of our discussion win me over to replacing the blue hawks, but:
a. the scourges cheaper price than I originally thought (I said so myself!)
b. damned fragility and weight of the old models made me realize that I do not want to keep worrying about dropping them, when they are constantly Deep Struck on the edge.
c. and of course WYSIWYG for its own sake

*waits for the Slow Clap*

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of course, each box only has one haywire blaster, so I'll be converting, snipping, and such, because it'd be 8 boxes before I'd be able to field 2 units with 4 HWs each, that's $200; so I can be 100% WYSIWYG modeling the haywire blasters.

Do you guys see how nuts that is?

"Yes, Casey, it is nuts, but it has been that way for all of GW's run. Take Devastator squads for example. You had to buy four boxes before you could field a matching 4 ML unit or 4 LasCan team. That's just the way it is. Unless you bought back in 4e, when single LasCan marines came in a clamp package."

That counter argument given, using some of the expressions you guys have used (not sarcastically, but demonstrating that I am trying to listen and internalize and accept your reasons), I am going to do my opponent the courtesy of time and conversion. I am looking at my many sprues of DE bits. There's no haywires there, but other guns that will 'come close' to make the unit look like they all have haywire. I hope she or he will see I was thinking of them, in the spirit that several of you have voiced. srsly

Still, I wonder, would an opponent know a haywire from a shredder from a heat lance from a shard carbine? Quiz, anybody? Not you Red Corsair, you already play DE so , no ringers!

You can help me keep score, though.






Answers:

Spoiler:

a. disintegrator cannon
b. shredder
c. haywire blaster
d. splinter rifle
e. blaster
f. splinter cannon
g. shard carbine
h. blast pistol
i. splinter pistol
j. dark lance
k. heat lance

I created the quiz to illustrate a point:
WYSIWYG or not, a lot of opponents won't know one of those guns from another. I wouldn't know and still don't, any of the Imperial Knights guns and what they do. I ask my opponents to recite the stats, and if I forget, I ask again, next turn.

A. Disintegration cannon
B. Shredder
C. Haywire
D. Splinter rifle
E. Blaster
F. Splinter cannon
G. Shard carbine
H. Blaster pistol
I. splinter Pistol
J. Dark Lance
K. Heat lance

Not trying to prove anything, i just like quizzes lol

good lord... can we please move on from the Time clock discussion ?!

here... continue in this thread
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/760214.page

sunny side up decided to bail from that thread and just continue here....sheesh

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.

I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced.

Chess clocks of any flavor are automatically done "right". If you want to play a horde slowly, and you lose to time, too bad for you. Learn to play faster, or play smarter, or play quicker.

tl;dr = "git gud"

What happens when the meq opponent of that horde player wanted to shoot a giant mob of figs that charged his
3 model remnant unit and should have wiped them out if there had been time to resolve the close combat? Instead of being able to fire on them on his turn, they'll instead resolve the combat on his turn and move forward again with impunity. Sure, you could have the option of allowing the opponent to take it out of his block but that might not allow him to do what he wants then and is punishing the wrong player.

Don't get me wrong...I'm intrigued by the idea of adding chess clocks to tourney 40k but they're not a magic bullet for slow play issues as your git gud post suggests.

 warboss wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Yes. I love playing with chess clocks, if you're playing with armies of roughly equal time-intensity and/or players of comparable skill/experience.

I'd love to see chess clocks done right. But to make them work for 40K, there're knock-on effects that need to be considered and changed as well to keep things balanced.

Chess clocks of any flavor are automatically done "right". If you want to play a horde slowly, and you lose to time, too bad for you. Learn to play faster, or play smarter, or play quicker.

tl;dr = "git gud"

What happens when the meq opponent of that horde player wanted to shoot a giant mob of figs that charged his
3 model remnant unit and should have wiped them out if there had been time to resolve the close combat? Instead of being able to fire on them on his turn, they'll instead resolve the combat on his turn and move forward again with impunity. Sure, you could have the option of allowing the opponent to take it out of his block but that might not allow him to do what he wants then and is punishing the wrong player.

I'm not sure you understand how chess clocks work. If the active Ork player runs out of time during their charge, and the MEQ player still has time, the correct resolution is that the clock shifts to the MEQ player, who then does his shooting. The Ork player is out of time, so passes the rest of their turn(s), doing NOTHING except pulling models from the table during the MEQ player's turn. The MEQ player then plays out his turn(s) against a Dummy, who auto-fails Saves and Morale (no time to roll them).

Note that the clock shifted to the Ork player when he interrupted the MEQ player's turn in order to shoot ALL his Boyz at the charging Assault Marines. It also shifted to the Ork player when he rolled his Attacks and Saves. Basically, whenever you're done with our actions, you hit it, and the clock passes to your opponent to roll dice, etc. It's not the entire turn. If you interrupt your opponent, it's your clock that ticks. If you want to spend a LOT of time interrupting your opponent's turn to roll a ton of 5+ shooting dice for 3+ wounds, that's on you. Opponent then gets the clock back when he rolls 3+ saves.

My implementation of "out of time" intends to be maximally punishing to the player who runs out of time, verging on automatic loss, except the player who still has time still has to play out their turns to grab objectives, etc.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I'm not sure you understand how chess clocks work. If the active Ork player runs out of time during their charge, and the MEQ player still has time, the correct resolution is that the clock shifts to the MEQ player, who then does his shooting. The Ork player is out of time, so passes the rest of their turn(s), doing NOTHING except pulling models from the table during the MEQ player's turn. The MEQ player then plays out his turn(s) against a Dummy, who auto-fails Saves and Morale (no time to roll them).

Note that the clock shifted to the Ork player when he interrupted the MEQ player's turn in order to shoot ALL his Boyz at the charging Assault Marines. It also shifted to the Ork player when he rolled his Attacks and Saves. Basically, whenever you're done with our actions, you hit it, and the clock passes to your opponent to roll dice, etc. It's not the entire turn. If you interrupt your opponent, it's your clock that ticks. If you want to spend a LOT of time interrupting your opponent's turn to roll a ton of 5+ shooting dice for 3+ wounds, that's on you. Opponent then gets the clock back when he rolls 3+ saves.

My implementation of "out of time" intends to be maximally punishing to the player who runs out of time, verging on automatic loss, except the player who still has time still has to play out their turns to grab objectives, etc.

Yeah, that's not what I was thinking. I was considering it a simple player turn timer and not a timer that flips back and forth for each player's actions in every phase of every turn (would that be an individual allotment for each phase/turn or just one pool for the entire game?). Feel free to PM me with any response so as not to further distract from the thread.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Brothererekose wrote:
Then write some rules and present. Be a part of the solution, not just a complainer on a forum.

Why not? Making people aware of things not working well like ITC chess clock rules is a good thing.

I believe you are operating on mistaken assumptions:

a. that "Making people aware of things not working well" on a forum "is a good thing".

It is not. My experience tells me that attending those events, giving feedback directly to the organizers, and having your local community work out problems *actually* solves problems, not just in 40k, but in the world. Complaining about governments in forums goes nowhere. Run for office, help run a campaign to out an official, elect one, help write a law ... etc.

I understand that coming up with solutions is a far more difficult task than simply complaining, and not every one has the mindset to do this. <----- srsly, not meant to be a passive-aggressive backhand, but most people lack the guts to go into a confrontation to solve tense problems.

It's been a few days, and I don't know how far back those posts were, but I moved to have a bad player banned from my store, not by complaining about him, but by rallying the others into speaking/communicating directly to the TO, and even organizing a 2nd tourney in case he would show up, so he would be by himself, and the rest of us would have a 3 round RTT. However much credit I try to claim, he was still banned.

b. that chess clocks don't work.
I'm gonna let that little chessnut just lie there.

Lastly, is your dakka nation flag is Germany's? Are you in the states playing ITC or are you a non-ITC player?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
I think the key messages here are:

'Don't care.'
'Can't be bothered.'

... to take the time to compose a post that adds to the discussion ...?