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It's not even hard to build a pure Deathwing list at 2k points.You can easily make a 2000 point army with only Deathwing models thanks to there being 4 different Deathwing terminator squads, 3 different elite characters, numerous HQ choices, plus access to the Armoury (and don't even try to tell me that Deathwing taking Land Raiders is unfluffy).

 Cephalobeard wrote:
I didn't misread you, I made a separate point. It's why I didn't quote you.

You did quote me with these handy little fellas: "

But, as long as you're not making the claim that i advocated removal of allies, i'm fine with it. I personally don't have a problem with allies. i would be curious to see how an event would turn out where there weren't any allies. More imbalance, less imbalance, who knows.

The intention of that quote was to set the tone for my reply to that specific line, because it was taken slightly out of context, not to imply you setting the tone of the discussion.

All good homie, not putting words in your mouth.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
The intention of that quote was to set the tone for my reply to that specific line, because it was taken slightly out of context, not to imply you setting the tone of the discussion.

All good homie, not putting words in your mouth.

All good!

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
I dont see a realm, at all, in which GW stops supporting allies.

It makes them money, and gives people a reason to branch out to new armies.

Tournaments can make whatever rules they want.

"If the argument is that we aren't playing the game that GW intended, then let GW publish guidelines on how they recommend we play"

Errr, read the pack for any of their tournaments at warhammer world? They put them on their website for download. For free.



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Reemule wrote:


I think this is a winner idea. I'm not up to date enough with the CA missions though. Mostly just play ITC.

The CA missions are *much* more varied than the ITC missions which makes it more of a challenge to build an army that is equally well equipped for all of them.

In AoS all the top tournaments use the equivalent GHB battle plans. It seems to go pretty well and there is a genuine tactical discussion around how to build your army for each mission and to cope with the special rules of some of them.

I forget where I saw it (might have been somewhere here actually) but I once saw someone argue that GW's rules for tournaments weren't "real 40k" because... I forget why, but something relating to how ITC was better/more balanced. Had a good laugh about that one.

If anything I think we see more variety with GW's actual GTs than we do with ITC's tournaments. Yet people still flock to ITC as "the" tournament style and ignore how GW themselves do it.

Every time I see a tournament with GW's missions I see a bunch of 120 Plaguebearer lists because they don't need to actually kill things to win.

"Everyone continuously argues that there is a wide gulf between your casual matched play gamer and tournament players, so why not have 2 completely different rulesets? It'd still be up to your individual RTT to use tournament or matched."

You've got it backwards. Typical causal matchplay games are more like the actual game GW made for us. Tournament players are playing a house ruled game. Lots of games are house-ruled but casual games are played as ether CA missions / maelstrom or eternal war. Typically in a pick up game (this is how most games are played) to keep things simple you just play by the rules. Not made up missions. Not made up secondary objectives. What needs to happen is tournaments need to actually have players compete in the game everyone is typically playing - not the game they made up. That would be interesting. Or instead we can keep doing it like this where I have a matchplay rulebook group / a matchplay houserule group / a few ITC player I play with / and a dude that is always wanting to play narrative because of all this horsegak. A legit matchplay ruleset from GW would fix this over night. I can sympathize with the need for houserules cause this games rules are GAK. It sucks to be playing the game differently with everyone I play though. I want every game experience to make me a better player - not make me forget how things actually work.

 Xenomancers wrote:
"Everyone continuously argues that there is a wide gulf between your casual matched play gamer and tournament players, so why not have 2 completely different rulesets? It'd still be up to your individual RTT to use tournament or matched."

You've got it backwards. Typical causal matchplay games are more like the actual game GW made for us. Tournament players are playing a house ruled game. Lots of games are house-ruled but casual games are played as ether CA missions / maelstrom or eternal war. Typically in a pick up game (this is how most games are played) to keep things simple you just play by the rules. Not made up missions. Not made up secondary objectives. What needs to happen is tournaments need to actually have players compete in the game everyone is typically playing - not the game they made up. That would be interesting. Or instead we can keep doing it like this where I have a matchplay rulebook group / a matchplay houserule group / a few ITC player I play with / and a dude that is always wanting to play narrative because of all this horsegak. A legit matchplay ruleset from GW would fix this over night. I can sympathize with the need for houserules cause this games rules are GAK. It sucks to be playing the game differently with everyone I play though. I want every game experience to make me a better player - not make me forget how things actually work.

Now that is a big point. The game is divided. The ITC missions are basically house rules, so you have people playing games with house rules and people playing the game without house rules (i.e. Eternal War/Maelstrom missions). You have people who think the "pure" game (i.e. not ITC) is not "proper" 40k and the houseruled version is. I absolutely sucks to have to figure out what set of houserules you're using; it brings back memories of the olden days where each game store/club would have their own addendum to the main rules that you had to know, such that going to a different store often meant learning that they played the game in a totally different way with different restrictions.

Tournament can of course set whatever houserules they want. It however becomes a problem if GW starts to balance the game based on results of those tournament, which are not even playing proper 40K.

"Proper 40k" is such a wide ranging and nebulous concept that it is a useless term. Ask 100 people and get 100 answers as to what it is.

 Crimson wrote:
Tournament can of course set whatever houserules they want. It however becomes a problem if GW starts to balance the game based on results of those tournament, which are not even playing proper 40K.

Which is what they do, seeing how they kneejerk react to things in ITC tournaments that are often made possible due to how the ITC missions/objectives work. At this point, they should just fully endorse the ITC as the tournament rules for 40k and be done with it. "We are partnering with the Independent Tournament Circuit to standardize a set of rules and scenarios for competitive Warhammer 40,000 gameplay"

Wayniac wrote:
I forget where I saw it (might have been somewhere here actually) but I once saw someone argue that GW's rules for tournaments weren't "real 40k" because... I forget why, but something relating to how ITC was better/more balanced. Had a good laugh about that one.

If anything I think we see more variety with GW's actual GTs than we do with ITC's tournaments. Yet people still flock to ITC as "the" tournament style and ignore how GW themselves do it.

Because it's the standard.

ITC became the standard because GW didn't really take a serious approach to game balance at the tournament level in previous editions, and doesn't really seem interested in doing so in 8th edition. In previous editions, ITC rules were required to make the game function. Because ultimately the rubber meets the road and rules have to be interpreted with a definitive answer so the game can continue moving, and 7th edition as an example had a lot of "grey areas," where there was no settled answer in debate forums. You can't have a 30 minute argument before ever game in a tournament, you need an answer. In the end, people were submitting FAQ requests to ITC because they were just more likely to answer, and frankly, you'll get a faster response from them even still. Additionally, they also added balance to the game when it really had none. Fulmination was absurd, along with many of the other powers, like the ones that let you move terrain about the board.

ITC remains the standard at this point because they're more committed to the tournament scene and evolving the game in a positive way. For example, GW's original rule was that the person who finishes deploying first, gets the choice for first turn. ITC immediately rejected that, because it's an absurd advantage, and added a rule that players roll off with a +1 to the person who finished first. Surprise surprise, that became a rule. At the start of 8th edition, GW didn't have a tournament mission packet. It was the same tired, boring, eternal war and maelstrom nonsense. I have yet to meet someone who actually misses end of game scoring from eternal war. ITC was the first to create a progressive scoring mode, and also allowing you to choose secondary objectives, rather than a bland fixed "Slay the warlord, linebreaker, and first strike." More ways to win creates more opportunities for a skilled player to overcome a disadvantage from list imbalance, and it also removes the random dumb luck from drawing maelstrom cards.

Additionally, ITC offers a ranking system that many people actually really buy into. Players can know how they stand in comparison with their peers. Wizards of the Coast had a system like this for magic the gathering. Competitive players need leaderboards, and the ITC has leaderboards.

If you attend a tournament hosted by the ITC folks, you'll see the following:

1. Thematic tables, with fully painted and varied terrain, on a matching FAT mat.
2. Space between tables, with room on the sides of the tables for your dudes.
3. Best coast pairings to ease matchup management and swiss pairings.
4. Livestream tables, for people to follow along.

You don't see this kind of commitment from GW. So naturally, ITC is the standard. And, it's for good reason.

GW really needs to get with the times and embrace the tournament community, rather than keeping them at arms length. People have proven that they don't need perfect balance to enjoy playing this game competitively. There is no reason for GW not to get invested in this.

Wayniac wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Tournament can of course set whatever houserules they want. It however becomes a problem if GW starts to balance the game based on results of those tournament, which are not even playing proper 40K.

Which is what they do, seeing how they kneejerk react to things in ITC tournaments that are often made possible due to how the ITC missions/objectives work. At this point, they should just fully endorse the ITC as the tournament rules for 40k and be done with it. "We are partnering with the Independent Tournament Circuit to standardize a set of rules and scenarios for competitive Warhammer 40,000 gameplay"

That would be fantastic. Or in the reverse if GW made an acceptable matchplay rule set - they should just adopt that. Casual match play and tournament play should be playing by the same rules.

Maelstrom is frequently not decided by player choices, or even die rolls, but card draws. It can die in a fire. Eternal war is better, but limited.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Tournament can of course set whatever houserules they want. It however becomes a problem if GW starts to balance the game based on results of those tournament, which are not even playing proper 40K.

Which is what they do, seeing how they kneejerk react to things in ITC tournaments that are often made possible due to how the ITC missions/objectives work. At this point, they should just fully endorse the ITC as the tournament rules for 40k and be done with it. "We are partnering with the Independent Tournament Circuit to standardize a set of rules and scenarios for competitive Warhammer 40,000 gameplay"

That would be fantastic. Or in the reverse if GW made an acceptable matchplay rule set - they should just adopt that. Casual match play and tournament play should be playing by the same rules.

Why?

I see no reason why tournament play needs to align 100% with matched play.

"Every tournament play game is a matched play game, but not every matched play game is a tournament play game."

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Tournament can of course set whatever houserules they want. It however becomes a problem if GW starts to balance the game based on results of those tournament, which are not even playing proper 40K.

Which is what they do, seeing how they kneejerk react to things in ITC tournaments that are often made possible due to how the ITC missions/objectives work. At this point, they should just fully endorse the ITC as the tournament rules for 40k and be done with it. "We are partnering with the Independent Tournament Circuit to standardize a set of rules and scenarios for competitive Warhammer 40,000 gameplay"

That would be fantastic. Or in the reverse if GW made an acceptable matchplay rule set - they should just adopt that. Casual match play and tournament play should be playing by the same rules.

Yes. I think ITC is basically the same rules anyways other than them adding that the first level of any building/ruin blocks LOS. Apart from that, it just uses all the beta rules that GW suggests anyway. At that point though you have your split:

Matched Play (pickup games, etc.): Use BRB/Chapter Approved missions
Competitive Play: Use ITC Champions Missions

and everything else is the same. Which, typing that, you kind of have now it's just not officially codified. But most people I play with do that already. You often aren't using ITC missions in a casual pickup game, but you're using all the other beta rules. The only thing that's often discussed is the LOS blocking rule (which I honestly like and think it should be baseline. I also think they need to have the woods rule from AOS 2.0 ported, where you can't see through woods if a line between the two models crosses more than 1" of its base, to actually make woods do something useful)

 Marmatag wrote:
I would be curious to see how a major tournament would go if the restrictions were:

1. No allies, period. You get one faction.
2. Rule of 3, all beta rules, all matched play rules.
3. No Forgeworld.
4. Chapter Approved missions.
5. 2000 points.
6. Chess clocks. starting round 1.
7. Varied terrain similar to ITC. ITC really gets terrain right. (tables are varied, beautifully painted, and thematic).

If the argument is that we aren't playing the game that GW intended, then let GW publish guidelines on how they recommend we play. Let's play the same game the designer play.

RIP FW exlcusive armies.


That's just me being salty, I do agree that FW can't balance gak, and it's probably a fair restriction.

ERJAK wrote:
The big one: Narrative deserves a lot more respect than it gets.

No it doesn't. In fact, it gets way too much respect as it is. GW's version of "narrative" play is an absolute joke, consisting of little more than a mission pack that wouldn't be terribly out of place in a conventional tournament and a suggestion to use a point system that deliberately does a poor job of evaluating unit strengths for no benefit in return. IOW, it's just a normal matched play game with a worse point system, there's nothing at all narrative about it. And TBH I'm surprised that narrative players are willing to put up with that lack of respect from GW, and allow their form of gaming to be hijacked by CAAC TFGs who find power level useful for virtue signalling about how much they hate competitive players.

If GW wants respect for narrative play then they need to make it a genuine narrative system with things like missions tailored to specific armies and stories, character creation and development over time, guidelines on how to make a compelling scenario that is also balanced enough to be fun, etc. It needs to put the story first and properly support it, not just make a vague statement of FORGE A NARRATIVE and leave it all up to the players to figure out.


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Sir Heckington wrote:
That's just me being salty, I do agree that FW can't balance gak, and it's probably a fair restriction.

It's not like anyone else at GW can balance anything either. FW bans are idiotic and TFG behavior, and the whole idea needs to die. Anyone suggesting them needs to be met with the same contempt as someone who suggests banning space marines because tactical marines are overpowered cheese.

meleti wrote:
Every time I see a tournament with GW's missions I see a bunch of 120 Plaguebearer lists because they don't need to actually kill things to win.

Well I've played in one of their tournaments at warhammer world this year and I did not see a single list like that.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

meleti wrote:
Every time I see a tournament with GW's missions I see a bunch of 120 Plaguebearer lists because they don't need to actually kill things to win.

Well I've played in one of their tournaments at warhammer world this year and I did not see a single list like that.

Of course there's probably a degree of selection going on, where GW HQ's rules and implicit policies say "don't bring optimized lists" and the events only attract the kind of players who aren't going to build a tournament list with the primary goal of winning.

Martel732 wrote:Maelstrom is frequently not decided by player choices, or even die rolls, but card draws. It can die in a fire. Eternal war is better, but limited.

Yeah, Maelstrom is pretty bad.

I kind of feel the same way about the Open War cards, but everybody around me seems to like them. They're okay, but four games with "Acid Rain" and "Eager for a Fight" later, and I'm kind of tired of them.

meleti wrote:Every time I see a tournament with GW's missions I see a bunch of 120 Plaguebearer lists because they don't need to actually kill things to win.

It is my opinion that the destruction of enemy units should not contribute directly to victory. Victory should be decided by capturing and holding positions; and the destruction [or threat thereof] of enemy units simply facilitates the completion of such objectives.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not like anyone else at GW can balance anything either. FW bans are idiotic and TFG behavior, and the whole idea needs to die. Anyone suggesting them needs to be met with the same contempt as someone who suggests banning space marines because tactical marines are overpowered cheese.

FW creates balance problems. Your canned response seems to be "but GW has balance issues." Yes, that is true, but it's also a horrible argument, because balance isn't binary, there are degrees of imbalance and FW further exacerbates imbalance.

Can you make a credible argument that isn't built on snide or calling people TFG for why FW should be allowed in tournaments?

 Marmatag wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not like anyone else at GW can balance anything either. FW bans are idiotic and TFG behavior, and the whole idea needs to die. Anyone suggesting them needs to be met with the same contempt as someone who suggests banning space marines because tactical marines are overpowered cheese.

FW creates balance problems. Your canned response seems to be "but GW has balance issues." Yes, that is true, but it's also a horrible argument, because balance isn't binary, there are degrees of imbalance and FW further exacerbates imbalance.

Can you make a credible argument that isn't built on snide or calling people TFG for why FW should be allowed in tournaments?

We both know he can't. At this point, we could probably make a Peregrine-Bot. "CAAC" "GW are incompetent idiots" "TFG" and a few other things and it'd be close to the real thing.

I mean, he's technically not wrong. Banning FW isn't a good idea, but it's also the sort of thing that really can't be handled any other way. GW themselves banned it indirectly by upping the points costs of a ton of things in Chapter Approved that priced them out of play. An outright ban isn't much further from that. It stops some of the worst offenders that tend to be brought by a minority of people. It does nothing to change the actual balance of the game though, but it does remove some outliers.

FW is bad at balancing, but not all things are just additions or outliers to armies.


The entire renegades and heretics index for example, even if it is a steaming pile of gak.

If the Dec. 15th release date holds true, when can we except to see teasers for CA?

Wayniac wrote:

I mean, he's technically not wrong. Banning FW isn't a good idea, but it's also the sort of thing that really can't be handled any other way.

Not wanting FW to be banned for the sake of balance is a perfectly reasonable position. I support it fully. It just becomes ludicrous when the same person is advocating all sort of other restrictions, such as banning allies.

 Marmatag wrote:
FW creates balance problems. Your canned response seems to be "but GW has balance issues." Yes, that is true, but it's also a horrible argument, because balance isn't binary, there are degrees of imbalance and FW further exacerbates imbalance.

And Codex: Space Marines also exacerbates imbalance. Codex: Eldar exacerbates imbalance. Allowing anything but IG exacerbates imbalance. Therefore everything but IG should be banned, and we can finally have a balanced tournament format.

Can you make a credible argument that isn't built on snide or calling people TFG for why FW should be allowed in tournaments?

Because it's published by GW as part of the standard 40k game.


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 Crimson wrote:
It just becomes ludicrous when the same person is advocating all sort of other restrictions, such as banning allies.

The difference is that banning allies doesn't prevent you from using any parts of your collection. You might not be able to use all of those models together, just like you can't use all four of your Baneblades in a 1000 point game, but if there's a specific unit you want to use you are free to do so. Banning FW means telling players who bought those units that they aren't permitted, period. It's much more equivalent to banning alll space marines than banning soup.

The difference is that banning allies doesn't prevent you from using any parts of your collection. You might not be able to use all of those models together, just like you can't use all four of your Baneblades in a 1000 point game, but if there's a specific unit you want to use you are free to do so. Banning FW means telling players who bought those units that they aren't permitted, period. It's much more equivalent to banning alll space marines than banning soup.

This. It also means certain armies are basically just told to feth off just because a subsection of the same company makes their rules, so they don't get to play in that tournament.

 Peregrine wrote:


The difference is that banning allies doesn't prevent you from using any parts of your collection. You might not be able to use all of those models together, just like you can't use all four of your Baneblades in a 1000 point game, but if there's a specific unit you want to use you are free to do so. Banning FW means telling players who bought those units that they aren't permitted, period. It's much more equivalent to banning alll space marines than banning soup.

Except many factions really only work properly with allies. Except many people have collections which rely on allies. It is just arbitrary. If you can bring models from two books, Codex Astra Militarum and IA Index Astra Militarum then other players should be allowed to bring models from two books as well, Codex Adeptus Mechanicus and Codex Space Marines, for example.