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A clear concise set of matched play rules that are used for pickup games as well as tournaments. None of this "rule of 3 isn't an official rule its just a suggestion" garbage. Something that simply goes: These point totals have these limits so build your army within the guidelines for your chosen point total, set up the terrain matching one of our suggested examples (show pictures of actual GW game tables not diorama tables) or follow our guidelines for each table size (2 big LOS blockers, 4 Medium Ruins etc or whatever turns out to be a good amount), roll on one table of missions to determine mission, deploy your armies, determine first, start playing the game. A standard list of instructions to be expected whether its people meeting at a friend's house for their weekly game night or a multi-day 100+ person tournament. Pretty much MTG's Standard, but for 40k. Edit: Fixed some spelling.

same thing i always want. an army builder app by GW that is good and an algorithm that reads match data and adjusts points according to unit performance.

allow users to log in and actually keep track of casualties on the app itself to get all of the performance data. heavily weigh in tournament results over pick up games, but do not ignore pick up games altogether. adjust points for units quarterly based on performance and before to long we would actually have a balanced game. playtesters and rules writers are human, they might be the place to get us the jumping off point but they will always have imperical bias. they may roll bad a few tiems on a unit and decide it is needing to be lower in cost to points, or (and i am assumign it has happened to orks a lot) they may roll hot on say a stompa and decide it is worth the 1k points it currently costs when it just isn't.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
same thing i always want. an army builder app by GW that is good and an algorithm that reads match data and adjusts points according to unit performance.

allow users to log in and actually keep track of casualties on the app itself to get all of the performance data. heavily weigh in tournament results over pick up games, but do not ignore pick up games altogether. adjust points for units quarterly based on performance and before to long we would actually have a balanced game. playtesters and rules writers are human, they might be the place to get us the jumping off point but they will always have imperical bias. they may roll bad a few tiems on a unit and decide it is needing to be lower in cost to points, or (and i am assumign it has happened to orks a lot) they may roll hot on say a stompa and decide it is worth the 1k points it currently costs when it just isn't.

This is a terrible idea. Want to buff your army? Submit tons of fake battle reports where all of your units suck and automatically drop their points.

A lot of the meta is following trends anyway. This would be constantly skewed and not at all as good a way of balancing instead of just, you know, hiring people good at the game, or good at game design, and listening to them.

Ebay is a thing. Getting $200 for a half-decent army should be no problem if you want to.

I dont think I would buy anything GW, if I had 200$. Too much money that can just be flushed down the toilet thanks to GW. I wish they said stuff like, you need X minimum month income to play this game. And not lure people in to wait months for changes, spending money on books that fix nothing.

You probably have missed Magic Arena. Free to play magic for everyone that owns a windows device.

Probably did, I don't really have a PC or tablet to play games on right now. Was kind of a my choice w40k or that.

There also are plenty of hobbies which are not tabletop gaming.

Not where I live. I could get in to drinking, but alcohol is a no go with the medicin I have to take.

 Peregrine wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
same thing i always want. an army builder app by GW that is good and an algorithm that reads match data and adjusts points according to unit performance.

allow users to log in and actually keep track of casualties on the app itself to get all of the performance data. heavily weigh in tournament results over pick up games, but do not ignore pick up games altogether. adjust points for units quarterly based on performance and before to long we would actually have a balanced game. playtesters and rules writers are human, they might be the place to get us the jumping off point but they will always have imperical bias. they may roll bad a few tiems on a unit and decide it is needing to be lower in cost to points, or (and i am assuming it has happened to orks a lot) they may roll hot on say a stompa and decide it is worth the 1k points it currently costs when it just isn't.

This is a terrible idea. Want to buff your army? Submit tons of fake battle reports where all of your units suck and automatically drop their points.

first off there would be the issue of scale with how many people are playing 40k a thousand games would be nothing. second you program in a correction for specific users, you have to factor so that a given user can only influence the score by a determined step outside actual tournament results unit preformance so unless thousands of peopel are underreporting thousands of games and having to do it in real time of a suppossed game. another safeguard would be the requirment of a handshake so both players have to use the ap and link it to a GW set of users. sign in with lists, keep track of casualties on said list and boom its harder to game the system unless you have multiple user accounts, even then if the same users submit to many battlereports back over say 10 per month or so you flag the connection and purge that data out as its either the same person trying to game the system or two players playing against each others list making thus not relevant to the meta as a whole.

I trust a computer a hell of a lot more than I do play testers and rule writers as it stands now. there are jsut so many units that under.over perform for thier points and somebody decided to gset them there/ and adjust based on how they feel vs actual cold honest data

This thread continues to highlight why I'm actually glad GW doesn't really listen to gak we say anyway

 Peregrine wrote:
Why? If ITC is a better format than RAW 40k then why is this a problem? So far you seem to be obsessing over whether or not "competitive 40k" is straight out of the rulebook and saying very little about whether or not ITC's changes are good for competitive play.

I feel you've missed my point, and we're not going to see eye to eye after attempts to explain it. There is no evidence to support that the ITC is a better format because there is nothing to compare it to. There isn't any data showing comparisons between 40k events and Alt-40k events. I'm not disagreeing that my discussion HAS moved from 'competitive 40k' as a whole to directly mentioning the 'ITC'. It's because there isn't a difference here in the US, so it's easier for me to compare my experience with the problem. I'm confident that the other Alt-40k formats, like NOVA, ATC/ETC, all have their supporters/detractors as well. They aren't an influence in my area, and that's all that needs to be said at this point.

'The ITC is a better format' is not an opinion shared by the 40k community.
There was even a great article on BOLS that got lost to the wind which I feel covers the points better than those posted here.
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/08/40k-no-one-uses-gws-missions-but-why.html

GW even posted this article, which many currently wishing to start into 40k have found.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/30/new-warhammer-40000-choosing-your-army-may30gw-homepage-post-4/

The final mechanism for selecting an army is to use points, most commonly associated with matched play. These will be familiar to anyone who plays the game today and are designed to balance your force for use in the 12 Eternal War and Maelstrom of War missions.

This is something the ITC hasn't done. There are technically 36 missions that GW wants players to balance their armies for. Something that has failed to be incorporated by the current Competitive formats. Anyone who starts here and falls in love with the game, will eventually grow restless with their group. At some point they will jump into tournaments. They quickly realize that everything they learned needs to be thrown out the window. It's clear that there are those who are okay with this, just as there are those who aren't. There are things in the ITC that have made it into the game, like the rule of 3, removal of sudden death, etc. Regardless of my feelings on it, good job. There are other things that haven't made it in, that really need to be dropped. The secondary objectives, and their diversity need to be removed. They didn't make it in the transition from 7th to 8th, and there is still no sign of them in each of the CA updates. LONG overdue for them to go. When are we going to see Maelstrom in competitive events? Quite a few tournaments wanted to see it gone when 8th dropped, and it's not only still around, but it's significantly improved in the short time it's been around compared to EW missions. Don't care if you don't want to play them or not. Just can't see any claim that the current competitive scene is reflective of the community when they refuse to play something that is very much a part of the game. Especially when it's been included as part of the Matched Play aspect of the game.

---------
Going to add this bit in, since there are some players who seem to forget this.

 Reecius wrote:
Don't forget, we don't dictate things. If you all prefer any other type of missions and in your events want to run them, feel free to. You can still participate in the ITC global community and have fun and play the game the way you want to if that is the general consensus in your area.

The idea is to have fun and participate, how you choose to do that is up to you and your local community.

As for what we do as the baseline of the ITC, that comes down to what participants want. Everyone has their own perspective on it, often conflicting, so this is why we solicit feedback to find the most broadly appealing choice. It isn't always exactly what we all want (myself included) but compromise is the name of the game. The hope is to come close to what we all want but we do have to accept none of us are likely to get exactly what we want down to the smallest details.

THIS is directly from the man's post. He is quite clear that the ITC comes down to what the participants want. There is ZERO mention that the ITC is any reflection of what GW or the 40k Community wants. They've always had an open door for those to participate and post their events, and even score toward their system and there has never been a requirement to use the ITC missions. Doesn't really mean much, when all it does is attract players who are of the opinion that the ITC missions are superior, and do nothing but show up and ensure that those who do participate fail to have a good time. (*Yes, this has happened on several occasions. These are not the kind of players anyone should want at any event, so the ITC can keep them at theirs.)

Past surveys that Reecius/FLG limited their surveys to those who participated, I believe it was in part because of all the disgruntled players who spam-voted against the system. The tragic outcome of this was the exclusion of those genuinely providing input. Opening it back up was a step in the right direction, but when it initially happened, the comments on several different forums were plagued with pro-ITC players ignoring the fact that Reecius posted the survey on open forums, and insisting that the survey was STILL for those who participated. Unfortunately, the current 2019 survey is still worded that way, but at least Reecius has acknowledged those that have informed him of it. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it.

Regardless. At NO point in time does Reecius ever state that the ITC is superior in any way to the GW missions. COMPROMISE is what the ITC is built on, not INCORPORATING. As a result, the ITC only represents a collected group of players who have some common rules that they choose to ignore. They have a wealth of data to support that, and that they're willing to adapt their format to those who participate is a major factor in it's success. It's also nothing new and goes back to long before the ITC. At one point in time it used to be 'Adepticon' with the Adepticon FAQ being the external source that players referenced and Yakface being the Reecius of the time. So the concept of a player driven environment is nothing new, and won't be going anywhere. That compromise has been found, and each evolution of the ITC should be aimed at introducing an aspect that GW has given us, so that they can find a good compromise to develop the game as a whole.

-----
Back on topic and why ALL of that is relevant. The ITC is currently doing nothing to push players toward playing 40k the way the designers intended. It's more accurate to say that it's a haven for players who don't like certain aspects of the game, which to be clear IS PERFECTLY FINE with me. There is a misconception that I am against the ITC, or it's existence, which is entirely not true. What I am against is players using the ITC as some sort of measuring stick to reflect how good they are at 40k, or that the compromises collectively voted on are somehow improvements on the game as a whole. This might have been true prior to 8th. We have a different GW now. We have GW annually giving us updates on how 40k is to be played. It's not up to the ITC to dictate that. The ITC can't change until their participants also see that, and start voting accordingly. A vote that can't happen until they change their surveys.

A GW TOURNAMENT KIT IN 2020 would address this. Competitive players would finally have a direct resource on how they game is to be run and the ITC community would have to adapt if they want to represent a true 'Competitive 40k' community. If they do NOT want to play 40k, then they will still have that option to do so, and they'll do with with GW support by providing coverage and new releases at their events, and asking them to playtest/feedback developments of their game. A tournament kit would define what competitive 40k should be, and the current competitive community can go back to Labelling/Titling/Advertising their events correctly.

I want to be quite clear, that I would be perfectly okay if GW released a Tournament kit that reflected the ITC, or Alt-40k in general. At least we would know what direction GW wants the game to progress toward, instead of watching each update incorporate changes, only to still be ignored by the ITC community. Just like a Tournament kit that would ignore the ITC format, it would be up to each player to decide what route they want to support. For me personally, it would be the nail in the coffin since that would finally lead to the downfall of 40k, and GW as well. Other great games have fallen when they let a portion of the community dictate how the game progresses before investing their money into it, instead of providing a great system/product for players to participate in.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
same thing i always want. an army builder app by GW that is good and an algorithm that reads match data and adjusts points according to unit performance.

allow users to log in and actually keep track of casualties on the app itself to get all of the performance data. heavily weigh in tournament results over pick up games, but do not ignore pick up games altogether. adjust points for units quarterly based on performance and before to long we would actually have a balanced game. playtesters and rules writers are human, they might be the place to get us the jumping off point but they will always have imperical bias. they may roll bad a few tiems on a unit and decide it is needing to be lower in cost to points, or (and i am assuming it has happened to orks a lot) they may roll hot on say a stompa and decide it is worth the 1k points it currently costs when it just isn't.

This is a terrible idea. Want to buff your army? Submit tons of fake battle reports where all of your units suck and automatically drop their points.

first off there would be the issue of scale with how many people are playing 40k a thousand games would be nothing. second you program in a correction for specific users, you have to factor so that a given user can only influence the score by a determined step outside actual tournament results unit preformance so unless thousands of peopel are underreporting thousands of games and having to do it in real time of a suppossed game. another safeguard would be the requirment of a handshake so both players have to use the ap and link it to a GW set of users. sign in with lists, keep track of casualties on said list and boom its harder to game the system unless you have multiple user accounts, even then if the same users submit to many battlereports back over say 10 per month or so you flag the connection and purge that data out as its either the same person trying to game the system or two players playing against each others list making thus not relevant to the meta as a whole.

I trust a computer a hell of a lot more than I do play testers and rule writers as it stands now. there are jsut so many units that under.over perform for thier points and somebody decided to gset them there/ and adjust based on how they feel vs actual cold honest data

You can build something and refine it forever, but if you allow unverified gaming results to influence game balance, some jerk WILL exploit it. Eg:

Scale: Automate the result submission. Submit 100 billion games saying Eldar suck, and see their points drop like a rock! Have the automation generate new accounts every ~100th submission so they can just trash all your made up data.
Handshake to make sure no cheat: Lol, automate scam this, just make 2 accounts.

You trust a computer.....but these rules for determining what a computer accepts or doesn't is MADE by humans. So you can design a possibly exploitable system that would maybe tune points better.....or spend that time and energy tuning points better. I think you are of the opinion that GW doesn't, or sucks at tuning, so how could you ever expect them to spend the time, money and resources to build something like this....and if they DID, how could you have faith they would get it right? It's just a system on top of a system!

I question if 40K has "designers".

And maelstrom is straight up garbage.

Martel732 wrote:
And maelstrom is straight up garbage.

I could probably get behind a more 'dynamic' objective system, but Maelstrom as it stands is just a complete mess.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
And maelstrom is straight up garbage.

I could probably get behind a more 'dynamic' objective system, but Maelstrom as it stands is just a complete mess.

Agreed. It removes too much player agency.

I like Maelstrom with the cavities of 1d3 are always worth 2 points and discarding 6 cards at the beginning / or the ones you can't accomplish.

But is not a system I would use for tournaments.

My preffered form of play are the combined CA missions that are one Eternal War mission with one Maelstrom One, so you have both the flexibility of Maelstrom but the Eternal War Mission, to gain points with a defined objetive, so you have the best of both worlds, and even better, because the sum is bigger than is parts.

I disagree with some posters that seem a little fixated with ITC and how toxic and bad for 40k is. But I'll also add that theres a TON of ITC elitism. I have seen many posters here and in other forms of social media disregarding all European and UK tournaments, results, and games, just because they aren't ITC so the meta is garbage and isn't proper competitive 40k.

And to be honest that generates that at least in Europe not many people looks at ITC with good eyes. Not the sistem on itselff or his merits, but the "community" that surrounds it.

 Galas wrote:
I like Maelstrom with the caviteis of 1d3 are always worth 2 points and discarding 6 cards at the beginning / or the ones you can't accomplish.

But is not a system I would use for tournaments.

My preffered form of play are the combined CA missions that are one Eternal War mission with one Maelstrom One, so you have both the flexibility of Maelstrom but the Eternal War Mission, to gain points with a defined objetive, so you have the best of both worlds, and even better, because the sum is bigger than is parts.

Oh, ITC combined arms missions are like that. They don't get used, because the maelstrom is still random. I'm assuming that's why.

I honestly don't understand the community's active dislike for certain game formats, be it ITC, Malestrom, etc You would think GW were pointing a gun to people's heads and telling them what they must play! There is room for all of these variants and I don't quite understand people who only play one way (unless they are very limited in times they can play in which case you may want to stick to one variant). I played ITC earlier this year for first time and had no problem with it, I have also played Malestrom, Eternal War, and currently loving some of the missions from the Vigilus books (so narrative play basically). Why on earth would you limit yourself (apart from time) to just playing one way all the time? I would think the game would get stale that way.

For me, I would like to see more campaign books, an overhaul of the Eldar old miniatures and better terrain rules.

 bullyboy wrote:
I honestly don't understand the community's active dislike for certain game formats, be it ITC, Malestrom, etc You would think GW were pointing a gun to people's heads and telling them what they must play!

Because maelstrom is . If GW did hold a gun to my head and order me to play maelstrom I'd tell them to pull the trigger.

 Peregrine wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I honestly don't understand the community's active dislike for certain game formats, be it ITC, Malestrom, etc You would think GW were pointing a gun to people's heads and telling them what they must play!

Because maelstrom is . If GW did hold a gun to my head and order me to play maelstrom I'd tell them to pull the trigger.

Maybe for tournament play? Hmmm, but so far I've not had any issues with the maelstrom decks in my local games. What is the problem with it?

Open War deck balances stuff out with ruse & twist. May be a bit too random for competitive but we've been playing almost exclusively with the deck and have always had an interesting game.

 Togusa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I honestly don't understand the community's active dislike for certain game formats, be it ITC, Malestrom, etc You would think GW were pointing a gun to people's heads and telling them what they must play!

Because maelstrom is . If GW did hold a gun to my head and order me to play maelstrom I'd tell them to pull the trigger.

Maybe for tournament play? Hmmm, but so far I've not had any issues with the maelstrom decks in my local games. What is the problem with it?

Same with me, locally almost everyone defaults to maelstrom. we usually remove impossible objectives (kill a flyer vs admech for example) and make sure that the area denial card cannot be achieved on the first turn.
It makes people bring TAC lists instead of hyperspecialized linear lists. sure you get some bad draws sometimes but it happens on either side of the table.

for tournaments however, our TO usually brings out some ITC missions that we play with no secondaries. that way everyone is even.

 Togusa wrote:
Maybe for tournament play? Hmmm, but so far I've not had any issues with the maelstrom decks in my local games. What is the problem with it?

Maelstrom has three problems:

1) The objectives are nonsensical from a fluff point of view. A 40k game is representing a few minutes of combat at most, and somehow your army's objectives get changed several times during that short amount of time. Capture the objective in the middle of the table, wait, no, kill enemy aircraft, no, forget all of that and just cast as many psychic powers as possible. They would be semi-reasonable if you generated them once at the beginning of the game and that was it, but there's no way to make any kind of coherent story out of a RAW maelstrom game.

2) The extreme randomness removes player agency. Winning is mostly determined by how lucky you get with the objective deck, and which cards you get have absolutely nothing to do with what is going on in the game. It's not like you proceed from A to B to C in any kind of coherent chain of events, scoring objective A gives you a completely random objective B to do next. No more trying to deceive the other player(s) about what your path to victory is, no more having to look at a table full of objectives of equal value and make long-term plans about which one to focus on and how to get there, etc. You just roll dice to kill the enemy and hope that you draw enough VP along the way to win the game. Which is great if you're 10 years old and have no ability to make long-term plans, since you're now on an equal playing field with an experienced veteran. But it's pretty disappointing if you want an interesting strategy game driven by player choices.

3) The specific objectives in the deck are a spectacular example of bad game design. You can get a "kill enemy flyers" objective when your opponent has no flyers in their army. You can get a "cast psychic powers" objective when your faction has no psykers. Your Tau shooting army can get a "kill enemies in melee" objective. You can get a "destroy enemy HQs" objective when you've already killed them (accomplishing the objective from a fluff point of view) but get zero credit for it because you didn't save those kills until after you drew the objective card. Etc. And the difficulty of those objectives is immensely variable. You might get an objective that is virtually impossible to complete, or you might get an objective that rewards you with free VP for doing something you were going to do already ("cast a psychic power" in a psyker-heavy army, etc). Even if you assume that random objectives are good the maelstrom deck is .

Finally, I'll note that it really says a lot when even the strongest maelstrom advocates don't play it straight RAW.

I find that insisting on not allowing free discards for impossible stuff is the easiest way to get someone off maelstrom.

Martel732 wrote:
I find that insisting on not allowing free discards for impossible stuff is the easiest way to get someone off maelstrom.

Let's wait for the inevitable "bUt YoUr'E nOt PlAyInG fOrTy KaY tHeN..." response to those damnable house rules.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I find that insisting on not allowing free discards for impossible stuff is the easiest way to get someone off maelstrom.

Let's wait for the inevitable "bUt YoUr'E nOt PlAyInG fOrTy KaY tHeN..." response to those damnable house rules.

I mean, it is a house rule. The game gives you the chance to discard impossible cards already. I don't see why you feel the need to disparage people for playing by the rules.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I don't see why you feel the need to disparage people for playing by the rules.

Because the rule is utter idiocy and only masochists use it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I don't see why you feel the need to disparage people for playing by the rules.

Because the rule is utter idiocy and only masochists use it.

By that logic so is re-rolls before modifiers and Flamers Hitting Supersonic Aircraft.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
By that logic so is re-rolls before modifiers and Flamers Hitting Supersonic Aircraft.

Now you're starting to get it. But please don't draw this off into another instance of your absurd slippery slope argument where changing one rule means you have to allow every stupid rule anyone can think of. Nobody besides you plays the game the way you describe, and I doubt even you honestly play that way. So nothing you are posting is relevant at all to this conversation.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I find that insisting on not allowing free discards for impossible stuff is the easiest way to get someone off maelstrom.

Let's wait for the inevitable "bUt YoUr'E nOt PlAyInG fOrTy KaY tHeN..." response to those damnable house rules.

Oh yes. And as always, spoken by people who have no idea of what it means to play 40k.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:
I'd like a fully functioning Night Lord WD: Index, just to make mono Night lords Viable.

What? I can dream Harold!!!

Other than that, if I wanted full armies released I would love to new Chaos Armies to the game: Lost and the Damned: Renegade Guard, because I like Basilisks and Leman Russ' and Dark Mechanicum, because I like DOOM! and Warped-up Thallax just sounds good to me.

This is my #1 want's as well honestly. Though I feel like Night Lords even getting a White Dwarf index is unlikely, just update their rules somehow to make them a bit less gimmicky!

Yeah, I'm currently working on an Fan-Supplement, but I hope by the next edition of the Codex it's something that makes NL the dominators of the Morale phase or something more flexible/de-buffing your opponent, like taking away CP to show how NL disrupt the comms of the enemy.

What's the purpose of the game to you? If it's to have fun, why is it a problem to have random elements in a game out of your control, keeps it interesting.
I've had some great Malestrom games, some of my most fun. Now you can discard up to 6 cards at beginning so makes it easier to get rid of cards you can't achieve.

 bullyboy wrote:
What's the purpose of the game to you? If it's to have fun, why is it a problem to have random elements in a game out of your control, keeps it interesting.

Because it takes away player agency, turns the story into a nonsensical mess, and makes the game about what happened with the random D6 tables instead of the choices made by the players. None of these things are fun.