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How much have ITC missions changed since conscript/malefic spam days? Genuine question.

Just thought I'd move this from the other similar thread to this one:

Smellingsalts wrote:
This has been a very loaded thread! Before I put in my two cents let me say that I personally know Reece and consider him a friend. I own a game store and our league uses ITC rules. The problem I see in some peoples' dissatisfaction with the ITC is that it seems that ITC has been made to provide the most balanced game between two equally talented opponents as you can create. This obviously influences the meta. Reece and crew did not approach the tournament scene with the idea of making cool interesting gaming tables with special rules that affect units differently. Nor did they try to create some underlying narrative for each game where objectives are different and may favor some armies over others (although you could say some of that is included in the secondary objectives each player chooses).The problem is in the game design and lore that GW has created. So step one, to make us all special snow flakes, so that my army is different from yours, all armies have strengths and weaknesses. You need this to make armies interesting, otherwise we may as well all play Space Marines. In theory, any given army should be able to play any other and achieve a win. The problem GW inevitably tends to fall into is Soup. As soon as you allow allies, it lets players use another army to compensate for their weaknesses and give them strengths. They have taken care of the problem in AOS but not 40K. Compare the number of lists an Imperial player has to draw upon to, say, a Tyranid. The player with access to the most lists has a powerful advantage because part of creating a tournament list is anticipating/compensating for what you will fight. How do you anticipate the synergy's created by mixing 20 lists? So soup is a major problem that needs to be fixed, Not to mention it is easier for game designers to balance one distinct army from another when allies are not included.

The next issue is scenarios. I personally feel that ITC missions try to include too many objectives all at once. For people who would like some kind of narrative experience in their competitive play (and believe it or not, there are a lot of them) this makes all ITC games feel like Vanilla. It takes some of the fun out of the game. There is a maxim for retailers, but it holds true for any activity where your trying to grow the base of participants. "Don't make them jump through too many hoops." Let's say an ITC mission is 7 hoops. Do you really need 7? Could you get it done with just 4? How many players drop off at hoop 3?; at hoop 6? I remember when GW ran their own tournaments and you couldn't wait to see the scenario pack they would post so you could imagine how you would craft an army that could handle each one. That was fun! Keeping score on ITC missions just feels like homeworking I'm being punished to finish.

Tables are another issue. Terrain rules are not played out of the book because vehicles most of the time can't take cover behind a building. With true line of sight you can see through windows and pop them. So ITC makes the rule that you can't see through the first level of a building. So now the meta favors tanks over infantry. So meta changes and vehicles are popular. What do vehicles have over guys on foot? Mobility and fire power. How do guys on foot fight that? Gunlines and turtling up around objectives. So meta changes and favors gunlines. Meanwhile all of your buildings might as well be square boxes because all they do is block line of sight, so terrain on board becomes less interesting because why model a cool ruin when a square box is what is needed. I remember going to GW tournaments and seeing amazing tables with really cool modeled terrain. Were some of those tables not good for my army? Sure. Did I still want to play on them? Heck yeah!

Finally, ITC minimizes any scoring that is subjective. The problem with that is that if sportsmanship won't make or break you except in extreme cases, sportsmanship is minimized. If painting is not an integral part of your score, the hobby aspect is minimized (and I realize that ITC is trying to make hobby matter by being more strict on what you bring to the table, but really you can do the minimum and win).This all creates a meta where people are looking for the next broken list and making that army, and then discarding it when the next broken list comes out. This leads to borrowhammer, another issue the ITC is wrestling with. So is the future of the ITC netlists and borrowhammer? Is the game going to become so competitive that it drives away potential players (as has Warmachine imho).
My sense is that GW will start to exert control over the ITC and gradually shape it in a way that is more like their old tournaments where soft scores were more important. They will use the heroine that is playtesting, free product and foreknowledge of upcoming products, along with that GW seal of approval to bend the ITC to their will. It's already happening in the new level of painting required. Next you will only be able to use GW models in "official" tournaments." My hope is that Reece and crew can navigate these waters and continue to run these large events, however they may end up.

This. All of this. Exalted.

It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

 puma713 wrote:


It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

As a general competitive game design principle, you have to favor the balanced map. Whether that's "true 40K" or not is subjective, but it's the only way to run a ladder tournament system. If you were to play against the same person for say 5 games straight, yeah, every mission should be quite diverse. But when you are setting up a tourney system of 1 off games, no one wants to be the one going in randomly at a disadvantage. And if you win, does that even prove anything beyond you got the better map side? Look at esports for comparison. Maps are symmetrical so anyone can be tossed in randomly and have a fair game and all games can be compared for balance and for rankings.

All that said, I want GW to be the one releasing the tournament balanced scenarios and good terrain rules, not ITC.

Remember that one player chooses the side and the other one goes first.


The game is designed for asymmetrical maps.

I really would like to see a tournament where they just play a pre-communicated fixed CA2019 eternal war mission and a different one each round. Those mission are really balanced for almost all armies and if you know which mission you are going to play, you can avoid screwing yourself over by building an army that falls flat on its face in one of them.

From the other thread discussing this;

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoiler:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
What ‘house rule’ are you talking about? Do you mean ITC, the most popular way to play 40k competitively? Yes the results are somewhat relevant.

No they're not.

Imagine if every year the rules for soccer were revised, but based only on matches played between LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC. They wouldn't represent a fraction of the league soccer tournaments across the world, yet their results would be reflected in a yearly rules update. That would be absurd.

This is why GW making changes to the game based on ITC is stupid.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Gents it doesn’t matter what any of us believe. GW believe that ITC is most popular, or at the very least there’s a market there. They’re acting on that belief. That is all.

So you've been unable to counter any points made against you, so have resorted to "Well... it just is!".

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
E - I’ve just realised this is all off topic anyways. I’m out.

And then you're going to run away, having got in the last word. Classy.

I think you need to calm down. I don't really care about this discussion, I have no stake one way or another. I've already said my club has transitioned into playing Maelstrom missions instead of ITC.

I'm simply trying to explain to you why GW think balancing around ITC is a sensible thing to do. If you disagree with them, take it up with them.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

An Actual Englishman wrote:GW believe that ITC is most popular

Do they? Even more popular than their own published rules?

I think not. But, if you can give a source...

or at the very least there’s a market there.

There's also a market for people who like more casual games, or only play Narrative/Open play games.

I'm not saying ITC doesn't have a market, or that it's not considerable, but until you've got proof that it's the most popular/common way to play 40k (which, I'm sorry to say, it really probably isn't), you shouldn't be making comments suggesting that it is, and that GW should cater to what is still, at the end of the day, a third party set of rules.


Would you FIFA to rewrite their rules and regulations because of schoolyard football games being played across the world?

You're strawmanning. Read my posts - I have also said I don't believe competitive is the most popular way to play 40k full stop. Not ITC, not ETC or any other mission set.

What I have said is that ITC is the most popular way to play 40k COMPETITIVELY. As to my proof of this I don't have any conclusive proof, obviously, but the largest 40k tournament ever uses ITC rules....

My biggest issue at my LGS is only one other person like the MoW missions. The other 6 or 7 prefer the simple Eternal War.

I like the direction GW has gone with the MoW missions and all other missions that use the random tactical objectives. It adds some excitement to the games rather than just kill everything or park 90 plaguebearers on or near an objective and hold for 5 turns and win because none of my opponents have armies that can shift 90 plaguebearers.

 Jidmah wrote:
I really would like to see a tournament where they just play a pre-communicated fixed CA2019 eternal war mission and a different one each round. Those mission are really balanced for almost all armies and if you know which mission you are going to play, you can avoid screwing yourself over by building an army that falls flat on its face in one of them.

The GW GT final was this. Each of the 6 missions was played once.

Normal GT events only play 5 out of the 6 missions, I guess so that people can get back home on the Sunday. I do not believe they pre-communicate which one they are skipping so you may as well do your list design like you would for the final so you do not risk getting caught out by a mission you did not design for.

My local RTTs use 3 of the missions, the TO will communicate which ones if you bother to ask

 puma713 wrote:
Just thought I'd move this from the other similar thread to this one:

Smellingsalts wrote:
This has been a very loaded thread! Before I put in my two cents let me say that I personally know Reece and consider him a friend. I own a game store and our league uses ITC rules. The problem I see in some peoples' dissatisfaction with the ITC is that it seems that ITC has been made to provide the most balanced game between two equally talented opponents as you can create. This obviously influences the meta. Reece and crew did not approach the tournament scene with the idea of making cool interesting gaming tables with special rules that affect units differently. Nor did they try to create some underlying narrative for each game where objectives are different and may favor some armies over others (although you could say some of that is included in the secondary objectives each player chooses).The problem is in the game design and lore that GW has created. So step one, to make us all special snow flakes, so that my army is different from yours, all armies have strengths and weaknesses. You need this to make armies interesting, otherwise we may as well all play Space Marines. In theory, any given army should be able to play any other and achieve a win. The problem GW inevitably tends to fall into is Soup. As soon as you allow allies, it lets players use another army to compensate for their weaknesses and give them strengths. They have taken care of the problem in AOS but not 40K. Compare the number of lists an Imperial player has to draw upon to, say, a Tyranid. The player with access to the most lists has a powerful advantage because part of creating a tournament list is anticipating/compensating for what you will fight. How do you anticipate the synergy's created by mixing 20 lists? So soup is a major problem that needs to be fixed, Not to mention it is easier for game designers to balance one distinct army from another when allies are not included.

The next issue is scenarios. I personally feel that ITC missions try to include too many objectives all at once. For people who would like some kind of narrative experience in their competitive play (and believe it or not, there are a lot of them) this makes all ITC games feel like Vanilla. It takes some of the fun out of the game. There is a maxim for retailers, but it holds true for any activity where your trying to grow the base of participants. "Don't make them jump through too many hoops." Let's say an ITC mission is 7 hoops. Do you really need 7? Could you get it done with just 4? How many players drop off at hoop 3?; at hoop 6? I remember when GW ran their own tournaments and you couldn't wait to see the scenario pack they would post so you could imagine how you would craft an army that could handle each one. That was fun! Keeping score on ITC missions just feels like homeworking I'm being punished to finish.

Tables are another issue. Terrain rules are not played out of the book because vehicles most of the time can't take cover behind a building. With true line of sight you can see through windows and pop them. So ITC makes the rule that you can't see through the first level of a building. So now the meta favors tanks over infantry. So meta changes and vehicles are popular. What do vehicles have over guys on foot? Mobility and fire power. How do guys on foot fight that? Gunlines and turtling up around objectives. So meta changes and favors gunlines. Meanwhile all of your buildings might as well be square boxes because all they do is block line of sight, so terrain on board becomes less interesting because why model a cool ruin when a square box is what is needed. I remember going to GW tournaments and seeing amazing tables with really cool modeled terrain. Were some of those tables not good for my army? Sure. Did I still want to play on them? Heck yeah!

Finally, ITC minimizes any scoring that is subjective. The problem with that is that if sportsmanship won't make or break you except in extreme cases, sportsmanship is minimized. If painting is not an integral part of your score, the hobby aspect is minimized (and I realize that ITC is trying to make hobby matter by being more strict on what you bring to the table, but really you can do the minimum and win).This all creates a meta where people are looking for the next broken list and making that army, and then discarding it when the next broken list comes out. This leads to borrowhammer, another issue the ITC is wrestling with. So is the future of the ITC netlists and borrowhammer? Is the game going to become so competitive that it drives away potential players (as has Warmachine imho).
My sense is that GW will start to exert control over the ITC and gradually shape it in a way that is more like their old tournaments where soft scores were more important. They will use the heroine that is playtesting, free product and foreknowledge of upcoming products, along with that GW seal of approval to bend the ITC to their will. It's already happening in the new level of painting required. Next you will only be able to use GW models in "official" tournaments." My hope is that Reece and crew can navigate these waters and continue to run these large events, however they may end up.

This. All of this. Exalted.

It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

So in their misguided attempt to make esport out of game that is fool's errand they have managed to...make balance worse. Good job!

You can discuss the merits of the ITC missions, but I think their efforts and the interest they've generated towards the more competitive side of 40k are unquestionable.

 puma713 wrote:
Just thought I'd move this from the other similar thread to this one:

Smellingsalts wrote:


Finally, ITC minimizes any scoring that is subjective. The problem with that is that if sportsmanship won't make or break you except in extreme cases, sportsmanship is minimized. If painting is not an integral part of your score, the hobby aspect is minimized (and I realize that ITC is trying to make hobby matter by being more strict on what you bring to the table, but really you can do the minimum and win).This all creates a meta where people are looking for the next broken list and making that army, and then discarding it when the next broken list comes out. This leads to borrowhammer, another issue the ITC is wrestling with. So is the future of the ITC netlists and borrowhammer? Is the game going to become so competitive that it drives away potential players (as has Warmachine imho).

This. All of this. Exalted.

It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

I agree with about 80% of that which is remarkable on the internet

I just wanted to note something slightly surprising that I have noticed over the past year or so. The move to streaming - and the reaction to visible bad sports and even cheating - has had more of an effect than I expected. There are several of the very top players now who are looking to make this semi-professional and who as a result are making a very real effort to be conspicuous good sports. From what we can see on stream I think it would be a pleasure to be beaten by players like Richard Seigler or Nick Nanavati. This is very different to the situation maybe two years ago when we could all see a lot of unsporting or shady behaviour from top players and the top tables honestly looked like a rather toxic place to be.

The ITC has not directly found a way to address poor sportsmanship but it does look like the spotlight of streaming on top tables is beginning to have the required effect - when being a jerk is so visible and people are willing to call players out on it maybe that is enough of a reason to not be a jerk? Or maybe we have just been lucky with what was on stream this year - I know someone was clocking up yellow cards real fast on the top tables so it is not yet the case that everyone is playing nice.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
From the other thread discussing this;

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoiler:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
What ‘house rule’ are you talking about? Do you mean ITC, the most popular way to play 40k competitively? Yes the results are somewhat relevant.

No they're not.

Imagine if every year the rules for soccer were revised, but based only on matches played between LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC. They wouldn't represent a fraction of the league soccer tournaments across the world, yet their results would be reflected in a yearly rules update. That would be absurd.

This is why GW making changes to the game based on ITC is stupid.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Gents it doesn’t matter what any of us believe. GW believe that ITC is most popular, or at the very least there’s a market there. They’re acting on that belief. That is all.

So you've been unable to counter any points made against you, so have resorted to "Well... it just is!".

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
E - I’ve just realised this is all off topic anyways. I’m out.

And then you're going to run away, having got in the last word. Classy.

I think you need to calm down. I don't really care about this discussion, I have no stake one way or another. I've already said my club has transitioned into playing Maelstrom missions instead of ITC.

I'm simply trying to explain to you why GW think balancing around ITC is a sensible thing to do. If you disagree with them, take it up with them.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

An Actual Englishman wrote:GW believe that ITC is most popular

Do they? Even more popular than their own published rules?

I think not. But, if you can give a source...

or at the very least there’s a market there.

There's also a market for people who like more casual games, or only play Narrative/Open play games.

I'm not saying ITC doesn't have a market, or that it's not considerable, but until you've got proof that it's the most popular/common way to play 40k (which, I'm sorry to say, it really probably isn't), you shouldn't be making comments suggesting that it is, and that GW should cater to what is still, at the end of the day, a third party set of rules.


Would you FIFA to rewrite their rules and regulations because of schoolyard football games being played across the world?

You're strawmanning. Read my posts - I have also said I don't believe competitive is the most popular way to play 40k full stop. Not ITC, not ETC or any other mission set.

What I have said is that ITC is the most popular way to play 40k COMPETITIVELY. As to my proof of this I don't have any conclusive proof, obviously, but the largest 40k tournament ever uses ITC rules....

If you don't care , don't engage to avoid the hostile situations, although I understand why you're trying to show your reasoning for you thinking GW should want to balance around ITC, however you don't know what they're reasoning is and hence all this is subjective at best. The LVO is so big partly due to years of invested effort creating a community, partly because they can actually host that many when many organisers can't, but most importantly the American scene is so ingrained into ITC and this is the big soap box drama showdown for the whole season.

Adepticon looks to not be ITC missions this year and has 310 player capacity, which will hopefully provide some interesting results.

So, my thoughts…
Secondaries in ITC are an issue, though I think the main issue is that there is usually a big advantage to build your list to a) deny your opponent secondaries, and b) setup your list to focus on at least 2 secondaries with multiple options for reliably achieving a 3rd based on your opponent. This therefore means that it becomes a game of list building and secondary scoring, opposed to a game about the actual, primary, mission.
That for me doesn’t help balance in any shape or form and comes down to it being a matchup between those that understand ITC list building and (I feel) the majority that do not. Hence why the entire Brohammer team took exactly the same list to the LVO.

Unfortunately, the only real way for ITC to get around this problem is to scrap secondaries entirely, or, have them randomly decided at the start of each game.

You still have the issue of being able to pre-build your list to do well in x amount of primary missions, but, I feel that this is an area where GW is ahead of the ITC, in that the way that their primaries are scored is sufficiently (or close to) different mission to mission to deny 1 list from being able to stomp through all of them without issue or matchup concern.

I’ve not played the new Maelstrom missions yet, but, some of the most intense competitive games I’ve played have been where the ET missions have been combined with the Maelstrom missions. Now that the issue of randomness has been reduced due to the new deck building rules, I feel like this should be something to go back and look at. It also adds an additional level of list building and planning skill to each player, as they’ll have to decide on whether to double down on the ET mission, or, work on a way to cover off both missions whilst being strong enough to compete.

Now, I include myself in this next comment, but I think it needs to be said.
People enjoy ITC because they know what is going to happen and know what their list can do even in hard counter situations. They might not be able to win, but, they’ll know how to score points to aid their overall placing.
People are scared to move away from this, because the vast majority of people aren’t skilled enough to adapt mid game to score points if something throws a spanner into the works. We’d all rather blame bad dice or “imbalance” for our losses, rather than the idea that our list couldn’t handle a small bit of randomness. Which is also why I personally think some level of randomness SHOULD be strived for in the competitive scene. Independent and quick thinking should be way more valuable than netlisting and practicing with the list a dozen times.

For me, you should win the battle on the day on the tabletop due to skill and decision making, regardless of what random things happen in the game, not 4 weeks beforehand when you build your list.

For those wanting some data on competitive CA19 events, we are unfortunately lacking right now, simply because most stats collators blank any event not on BCP, or not running 2000 points (which includes the GW heats and finals). I get that it can be hard to collect the data, and specifically the lists, but, even when that is known some events just get instantly dismissed because they are run at 1750 points or simply “aren’t ITC”. This isn’t going to change imo.
With that in mind, below is some of the info from the Caledonian event and the GW finals.
Caledonian Uprising –
Top 10
Thousand Sons & un-aligned Daemons soup.
Forces of the Hive Mind.
CSM & Nurgle soup.
Imperial Fists.
Raven Guard & Imperial Fists.
Iron Hands (Astraeus & Repulsors).
GSC.
Blood Angels.
Iron Hands.
Orks.
Full lists can be found here - https://tabletop.to/caledonian-uprising-2020

GW Finals –
Top 10
Iron Hands.
T’au.
Grey Knights & Guard & BA.
Imperial Fists.
Drukhari.
Blood Angels.
Iron Hands.
Orks.
Chaos Soup.
Harlequins.
It is worth noting here, that outside of the 2 placings I’ve listed as soup, I am unable to confirm if the other lists souped or not.
Final standings can be found as pictures on the Warhammer World Events Facebook page.

Now, if we count the GK/Guard/BA list as Marines, we see that over the 2 events, 50% of the top 10’s were Space Marine lists. Whilst this is still higher than we’d all like to see, we can already see the difference between “competitive” diversity between this format and the ITC format. We 100% need more data, but, as both of these events were attended by a lot of the best players in the country, inc some that performed very well at the LVO this year, we can potentially start to draw a bit of information from the results and at least begin to wonder what the possibilities could be.

The final comment I’d like to make is in response to “soft scores” someone mentioned a few pages back. Personally, I think soft scores should remain outside of “best general” rankings. Maybe you can have a separate ranking at the event which includes it, but, it should not affect the rankings on “who played best”. Like it or not, you’re more likely to get awarded a “best game” vote in games where you get absolutely destroyed, than in games where you handily win, unless you are an exceptional person to game with.

ITC has been a fantastic pillar for the scene to stand on and grow from, and the circuit will remain so, regardless of what happens. However, I feel that their format is nearing its end as a requirement now that GW is offering a viable alternative.

An Actual Englishman wrote:What I have said is that ITC is the most popular way to play 40k COMPETITIVELY.

Yes, and that's what I'm disagreeing with.

As to my proof of this I don't have any conclusive proof, obviously, but the largest 40k tournament ever uses ITC rules....

Yes, a tournament - but there's several other factors to consider:
- It's in the US, so that immediately more attractive to the American audience (who seems to be a more competitive bunch anyways - not that I have proof, but that mindset seems more common in my very limited experience)
- Isn't it only once per year? Compared to the competitively run events that GW hold at WHW nearly every weekend, that have pretty nice turnouts? So, for every LVO, there's probably at least a dozen comp events being run with GW's own ruleset in an official capacity.
- That doesn't factor in all the people playing games in hobby stores or at home competitively - which is realistically the largest proportion of competitive players anyways.

Basically, what I'm saying is that while LVO might be the single most populated tournament, is it big enough that the rest of the game should be balanced around a 3rd party ruleset that, as people are discussing in this thread, isn't too much more "balanced" than basic 40k's? From my understanding, what the ITC ruleset does is akin to taking a square, whittling down the corners to make it fit in a circular hole, and still struggling to squeeze it through.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 puma713 wrote:
Just thought I'd move this from the other similar thread to this one:

Smellingsalts wrote:


Finally, ITC minimizes any scoring that is subjective. The problem with that is that if sportsmanship won't make or break you except in extreme cases, sportsmanship is minimized. If painting is not an integral part of your score, the hobby aspect is minimized (and I realize that ITC is trying to make hobby matter by being more strict on what you bring to the table, but really you can do the minimum and win).This all creates a meta where people are looking for the next broken list and making that army, and then discarding it when the next broken list comes out. This leads to borrowhammer, another issue the ITC is wrestling with. So is the future of the ITC netlists and borrowhammer? Is the game going to become so competitive that it drives away potential players (as has Warmachine imho).

This. All of this. Exalted.

It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

I agree with about 80% of that which is remarkable on the internet

I just wanted to note something slightly surprising that I have noticed over the past year or so. The move to streaming - and the reaction to visible bad sports and even cheating - has had more of an effect than I expected. There are several of the very top players now who are looking to make this semi-professional and who as a result are making a very real effort to be conspicuous good sports. From what we can see on stream I think it would be a pleasure to be beaten by players like Richard Seigler or Nick Nanavati. This is very different to the situation maybe two years ago when we could all see a lot of unsporting or shady behaviour from top players and the top tables honestly looked like a rather toxic place to be.

The ITC has not directly found a way to address poor sportsmanship but it does look like the spotlight of streaming on top tables is beginning to have the required effect - when being a jerk is so visible and people are willing to call players out on it maybe that is enough of a reason to not be a jerk? Or maybe we have just been lucky with what was on stream this year - I know someone was clocking up yellow cards real fast on the top tables so it is not yet the case that everyone is playing nice.

Personally, I think the ITC need to hard reset their mentality on discipline enforcement. At times it feels like they will do everything possible to either not card someone, or to not DQ someone for multiple offenses.

The way I see it, initially, is go strict and then ease back until you find the right balance. I’d personally just start with – “If you get a yellow card at any point, then you’re not eligible to enter the final cut regardless of your score”.
For example, if someone gets a yellow due to their list not being submitted on time, but they then go 6-0 at the LVO, they’d not make the finals cut.

It might seem harsh, but it is not going to affect 95%+ of the players that go to events, as they behave and conduct themselves perfectly for the entire event, and if I am being bold, I’d suggest that anyone that was “scared” or “put off” by something like this, I’d have to question why?

All this of course requires the TO teams to be strong and completely impartial, which is a challenge in of itself.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

An Actual Englishman wrote:What I have said is that ITC is the most popular way to play 40k COMPETITIVELY.

Yes, and that's what I'm disagreeing with.

As to my proof of this I don't have any conclusive proof, obviously, but the largest 40k tournament ever uses ITC rules....

Yes, a tournament - but there's several other factors to consider:
- It's in the US, so that immediately more attractive to the American audience (who seems to be a more competitive bunch anyways - not that I have proof, but that mindset seems more common in my very limited experience)
- Isn't it only once per year? Compared to the competitively run events that GW hold at WHW nearly every weekend, that have pretty nice turnouts? So, for every LVO, there's probably at least a dozen comp events being run with GW's own ruleset in an official capacity.
- That doesn't factor in all the people playing games in hobby stores or at home competitively - which is realistically the largest proportion of competitive players anyways.

Basically, what I'm saying is that while LVO might be the single most populated tournament, is it big enough that the rest of the game should be balanced around a 3rd party ruleset that, as people are discussing in this thread, isn't too much more "balanced" than basic 40k's? From my understanding, what the ITC ruleset does is akin to taking a square, whittling down the corners to make it fit in a circular hole, and still struggling to squeeze it through.

The LVO has the highest participation levels of any events in the world for one reason – it is the final event of the ITC season and has the potential to massively change your standing and get you in the running for a prize. It also has the benefit of being well established over multiple years, and it being held in a country with a very strong competitive scene.

If the LVO had decided to run CA19 missions this year, it would still have been the biggest event in the world.

it is the Crown Jewel event of the year and the big finale to a year of hard work. That isn’t going to change just because the missions they use might change.
The ITC is a scene. It is a year long race for points. A mentality and a strive to be the best Warhammer player over the course of the year. The ITC is not a mission set.


I feel like this is something that people have truly lost focus on, and instead only see the ITC as a ruleset.

If each yellow card subtracts -3pts from your game score, they will disappear fast.

Kdash wrote:

Spoiler:

So, my thoughts…
Secondaries in ITC are an issue, though I think the main issue is that there is usually a big advantage to build your list to a) deny your opponent secondaries, and b) setup your list to focus on at least 2 secondaries with multiple options for reliably achieving a 3rd based on your opponent. This therefore means that it becomes a game of list building and secondary scoring, opposed to a game about the actual, primary, mission.
That for me doesn’t help balance in any shape or form and comes down to it being a matchup between those that understand ITC list building and (I feel) the majority that do not. Hence why the entire Brohammer team took exactly the same list to the LVO.

Unfortunately, the only real way for ITC to get around this problem is to scrap secondaries entirely, or, have them randomly decided at the start of each game.

You still have the issue of being able to pre-build your list to do well in x amount of primary missions, but, I feel that this is an area where GW is ahead of the ITC, in that the way that their primaries are scored is sufficiently (or close to) different mission to mission to deny 1 list from being able to stomp through all of them without issue or matchup concern.

I’ve not played the new Maelstrom missions yet, but, some of the most intense competitive games I’ve played have been where the ET missions have been combined with the Maelstrom missions. Now that the issue of randomness has been reduced due to the new deck building rules, I feel like this should be something to go back and look at. It also adds an additional level of list building and planning skill to each player, as they’ll have to decide on whether to double down on the ET mission, or, work on a way to cover off both missions whilst being strong enough to compete.

Now, I include myself in this next comment, but I think it needs to be said.
People enjoy ITC because they know what is going to happen and know what their list can do even in hard counter situations. They might not be able to win, but, they’ll know how to score points to aid their overall placing.
People are scared to move away from this, because the vast majority of people aren’t skilled enough to adapt mid game to score points if something throws a spanner into the works. We’d all rather blame bad dice or “imbalance” for our losses, rather than the idea that our list couldn’t handle a small bit of randomness. Which is also why I personally think some level of randomness SHOULD be strived for in the competitive scene. Independent and quick thinking should be way more valuable than netlisting and practicing with the list a dozen times.

For me, you should win the battle on the day on the tabletop due to skill and decision making, regardless of what random things happen in the game, not 4 weeks beforehand when you build your list.

For those wanting some data on competitive CA19 events, we are unfortunately lacking right now, simply because most stats collators blank any event not on BCP, or not running 2000 points (which includes the GW heats and finals). I get that it can be hard to collect the data, and specifically the lists, but, even when that is known some events just get instantly dismissed because they are run at 1750 points or simply “aren’t ITC”. This isn’t going to change imo.
With that in mind, below is some of the info from the Caledonian event and the GW finals.
Caledonian Uprising –
Top 10
Thousand Sons & un-aligned Daemons soup.
Forces of the Hive Mind.
CSM & Nurgle soup.
Imperial Fists.
Raven Guard & Imperial Fists.
Iron Hands (Astraeus & Repulsors).
GSC.
Blood Angels.
Iron Hands.
Orks.
Full lists can be found here - https://tabletop.to/caledonian-uprising-2020

GW Finals –
Top 10
Iron Hands.
T’au.
Grey Knights & Guard & BA.
Imperial Fists.
Drukhari.
Blood Angels.
Iron Hands.
Orks.
Chaos Soup.
Harlequins.
It is worth noting here, that outside of the 2 placings I’ve listed as soup, I am unable to confirm if the other lists souped or not.
Final standings can be found as pictures on the Warhammer World Events Facebook page.

Now, if we count the GK/Guard/BA list as Marines, we see that over the 2 events, 50% of the top 10’s were Space Marine lists. Whilst this is still higher than we’d all like to see, we can already see the difference between “competitive” diversity between this format and the ITC format. We 100% need more data, but, as both of these events were attended by a lot of the best players in the country, inc some that performed very well at the LVO this year, we can potentially start to draw a bit of information from the results and at least begin to wonder what the possibilities could be.

The final comment I’d like to make is in response to “soft scores” someone mentioned a few pages back. Personally, I think soft scores should remain outside of “best general” rankings. Maybe you can have a separate ranking at the event which includes it, but, it should not affect the rankings on “who played best”. Like it or not, you’re more likely to get awarded a “best game” vote in games where you get absolutely destroyed, than in games where you handily win, unless you are an exceptional person to game with.

ITC has been a fantastic pillar for the scene to stand on and grow from, and the circuit will remain so, regardless of what happens. However, I feel that their format is nearing its end as a requirement now that GW is offering a viable alternative.

So much great stuff written here. Exalted!

Kdash wrote:

it is the Crown Jewel event of the year and the big finale to a year of hard work. That isn’t going to change just because the missions they use might change.
The ITC is a scene. It is a year long race for points. A mentality and a strive to be the best Warhammer player over the course of the year. The ITC is not a mission set.


I feel like this is something that people have truly lost focus on, and instead only see the ITC as a ruleset.

Thats because to most people thats what it is. The ITC is nothing to most people outside America and even then IN America I'd say most 40k players don't care. Outside of America its at most a talking point for other players to go "did you see what happened at the ITC? Why would you subject yourself to that, sounds awful." Just because you revere the ITC as some kind of glorious event doesn't mean anyone else does. It could disappear tomorrow and a majority of the community would say "That sucks" and get on with their life.

I remember when soft scores were an expected part of RTTs and GTs, yes including the dreaded "comp score". But you know what? It made sense for the overall winner to be the person who best represented the hobby as a whole rather than the person who can build the best list. So I think soft scores should remain/come back, but only affect the overall winner. You still have (and had back in the day) the "Best General" for the guy who crushed everyone, but if they had a minimally painted army, was an donkey-cave to play against or clearly didn't give two feths about the background and lore, it was unlikely they would be the overall winner and would have to be content with Best General and not "Champion".

I get the reason for ITC having their missions the way they are, it's like they tried to mimic the Warmahordes Steamroller scenarios. Which, having played Warmahordes a couple of years, had the same effect: They dominated everything as being the "most balanced" way to game (and this went doubly so since Warmahordes was being pushed as a competitive game) and as a result not only were the non-SR missions pretty garbage and uninspiring (and really didn't suit the tone of the game) but you rarely if ever saw anything but Steamroller scenarios played, even in a casual meta, which lent itself towards seeing more and more game nights that were little more than unorganized tournaments which used all of the tournament rules anyways.

Nevermind the IMHO ridiculousness of trying to turn Warhammer, of all games, into a "t-sport" like some people are trying, it just makes for bland gameplay. Some element of randomness/unknown mission is part of the way 40k gets balanced, whether that's good or bad. Removing it by knowing in advance every mission and how to build for it just lets you build a skew list rather than be penalized for going too far into skew if you get that one mission which goes against your list.

Kdash wrote:
So, my thoughts…
Secondaries in ITC are an issue, though I think the main issue is that there is usually a big advantage to build your list to a) deny your opponent secondaries, and b) setup your list to focus on at least 2 secondaries with multiple options for reliably achieving a 3rd based on your opponent. This therefore means that it becomes a game of list building and secondary scoring, opposed to a game about the actual, primary, mission.
That for me doesn’t help balance in any shape or form and comes down to it being a matchup between those that understand ITC list building and (I feel) the majority that do not. Hence why the entire Brohammer team took exactly the same list to the LVO.

The other thing about secondaries is that it skews balance within factions almost more than it skews balance between factions.

For my marine army any concern about secondaries would not affect my list build at all - none of the stuff I want to put in gives away easy secondaries.

For my Tau army it is a nightmare. I really like Piranhas but they are just free VP for any opponent who picks the right secondaries, That means I basically play at a 4VP penalty just for taking units I consider to be good. I really like massed kroot lists for their table control and scoring potential - but they give up Reaper points far too easily in addition to the kill/kill-more VPs. It almost does not matter how much GW reduce the points cost on those units - they are a double liability in ITC due to the secondaries and the kill points. Riptides do not give up secondary points and hardly ever give up kill/kill-more points - guess what you see in almost every T'au ITC list and which even T'au players will agree is really boring? Of course the easiest way out of this is to just never go to ITC format events, its not like I find the missions interesting or fun anyway.

 puma713 wrote:



This. All of this. Exalted.

It seems to want to drive to the point of: if everything was equal - two equal armies, two equal deployments, equal cover, equal LOS blocking terrain, equal objectives - who is the better general? But is that really the test of a great general? And is that really 40k anymore?

I would think the test of an even greater general is navigating the field with shifting terrain, shifting objectives and a diverse opponent pool. Is the ITC really finding the best general? Or is it finding the best person who can build a list that takes advantage of a relatively fixed system?

This is exactly what makes you a good player, as finding the best guy to win maximum number of times per career within a given set of rules. Unless your in it for the sponsorship money, no one cares how you look, what you do, where you do it, and the whole idea of sportsmanship has very little to do with actual sports.

The diverse pool of obsticles ends you with results like triathlon. No one wants to watch it and no one cares, who is the best at doing 3-5 things. When very soon people find out that you don't have to be the best at all 3-5 things, it is enough to be the best at two and somewhere in the upper middle in other things.

And this is sports, where unless you do something REALLY stupid, social aspects don't matter much. Saying that to win an event, how you are liked or how you paint should matter. Is like saying that to win a world cup, it should matter what uniforms you wear and what sponsors you have.

Except that uniforms are not part of the sport. Painting and modeling instead is at least half of what Warhammer is. I except a Warhammer tournament to require a winner to be good at Warhammer, not at a subset of it.

Spoletta wrote:
Except that uniforms are not part of the sport. Painting and modeling instead is at least half of what Warhammer is. I except a Warhammer tournament to require a winner to be good at Warhammer, not at a subset of it.

This. One of the most awful things about Warmachine is that most of the players never paint their models. I once played a guy who hadn't even built his warcaster. He'd just glued him onto the base and called it a day because per the conversion rules it was at least 50% of the original model so therefore legal.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Except that uniforms are not part of the sport. Painting and modeling instead is at least half of what Warhammer is. I except a Warhammer tournament to require a winner to be good at Warhammer, not at a subset of it.

This. One of the most awful things about Warmachine is that most of the players never paint their models. I once played a guy who hadn't even built his warcaster. He'd just glued him onto the base and called it a day because per the conversion rules it was at least 50% of the original model so therefore legal.

Yea that's when you've lost the soul of the game. For all its flaws Warhammer is more engaging - especially because of the people who put so much love into their armies.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Kdash wrote:

it is the Crown Jewel event of the year and the big finale to a year of hard work. That isn’t going to change just because the missions they use might change.
The ITC is a scene. It is a year long race for points. A mentality and a strive to be the best Warhammer player over the course of the year. The ITC is not a mission set.


I feel like this is something that people have truly lost focus on, and instead only see the ITC as a ruleset.

Thats because to most people thats what it is. The ITC is nothing to most people outside America and even then IN America I'd say most 40k players don't care. Outside of America its at most a talking point for other players to go "did you see what happened at the ITC? Why would you subject yourself to that, sounds awful." Just because you revere the ITC as some kind of glorious event doesn't mean anyone else does. It could disappear tomorrow and a majority of the community would say "That sucks" and get on with their life.

Oh, I wouldn’t call it a “glorious” event, not consider myself to “revere” it. I simply tried to make a point about what the ITC actually is, rather than what most people consider it to be, and highlight the fact that if the missions do get replaced, the LVO will still remain the largest event in the world.

For me, at the end of the day it is a curiosity and a ranking system I can check in on from time to time to see how well I am performing here in the UK, or whether I’m doing well in a chosen faction for the year. I’ll likely never go to the LVO or any of the other big NA events as I don’t have several grand spare to do so.

I 100% agree that the whole thing ended tomorrow, people would carry on going to events and someone else would setup some form of circuit, however, in the gap between the ending of the current circuit and the start of a new one, I firmly believe that event participation and frequency would drop substantially.

The ITC gives people a reason to hold, and attend, competitive events around the world.

The rankings are perfectly fine, I don't think most people have an issue with that. It's just the missions/secondaries that are the point of concern. Having a ranking system for Warhammer like what is it called for magic, ELO? That's fine. But they shouldn't change the game and the meta with their own missions and objectives.

Remove that and have ITC standardize on CA missions, and keep the ranking an everything else, and that would work great. It works great for AOS, so why not 40k?

Wayniac wrote:
I remember when soft scores were an expected part of RTTs and GTs, yes including the dreaded "comp score". But you know what? It made sense for the overall winner to be the person who best represented the hobby as a whole rather than the person who can build the best list. So I think soft scores should remain/come back, but only affect the overall winner. You still have (and had back in the day) the "Best General" for the guy who crushed everyone, but if they had a minimally painted army, was an donkey-cave to play against or clearly didn't give two feths about the background and lore, it was unlikely they would be the overall winner and would have to be content with Best General and not "Champion".

I get the reason for ITC having their missions the way they are, it's like they tried to mimic the Warmahordes Steamroller scenarios. Which, having played Warmahordes a couple of years, had the same effect: They dominated everything as being the "most balanced" way to game (and this went doubly so since Warmahordes was being pushed as a competitive game) and as a result not only were the non-SR missions pretty garbage and uninspiring (and really didn't suit the tone of the game) but you rarely if ever saw anything but Steamroller scenarios played, even in a casual meta, which lent itself towards seeing more and more game nights that were little more than unorganized tournaments which used all of the tournament rules anyways.

Nevermind the IMHO ridiculousness of trying to turn Warhammer, of all games, into a "t-sport" like some people are trying, it just makes for bland gameplay. Some element of randomness/unknown mission is part of the way 40k gets balanced, whether that's good or bad. Removing it by knowing in advance every mission and how to build for it just lets you build a skew list rather than be penalized for going too far into skew if you get that one mission which goes against your list.

Absolutely not. Soft Scores have nothing to do with the game itself. You should just have a nice army because you wanted go work on a nice army.

Not that I'm in favor of soft scores, but whether soft scores are part of the game itself or not depends on what you mean by the game itself.

So you've got an argument that's thoroughly damning to anyone who already believed it, yet thoroughly a crackpot to anyone who didn't already believe it.

Soft scores are stupid.

Make a Painting Tournament and the Gaming Tournament. Then give sportmanship points that don't influence the Gaming Tournament rankings. Have a winner for both tournaments and then a "Man of the century" or something like that for the guy with the highest points in every category of the tournaments you are running + Spormantship points.

IMO Soft scores done right are a very good thing - before one of the GWs here closed, they used to give separate prices for best general, best painter and best sportsman.