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 Laughing Man wrote:
So you don't see any conflict between "There's a minority of players that drive the balance of 40K" and "I am in a minority of players who are upset we aren't allowed to drive the balance of 40K"?

I wondered how many more leading questions you were going to ask before you got to your actual point. Thanks for sparing us the wait.

Thankfully, aside from "I don't think anyone's actually arguing that", someone got to it before me, so I'll just quote them:

 Platuan4th wrote:
No, what he's saying is that most players don't want to put in the effort to actually try something new because they've been told it's not worth it and most people want to travel the path of least resistance and just play "normal 40K", something which is being dictated by tournament players in most stores.

 Blackie wrote:

The only argument behind people arguing about bringing templates back is realism/immersion. Nothing else.

the last argument/thread I have seen here on dakka was about the problem that blast/barrage weapons working against "hordes" while being useless against the same amount of models in the same area that are from different units (a 6x5 models in an objektive vs 1x30 models)

and I agree with that, from a simple gameplay perspektive, we are missing the option to hit multiple units with an anti-horde weapon, as having 90 models is still a horde and not an elite army just because those are 18 units instead of 3

using templates is the easiest solution to htis problem, there are other solutions as well, but with those would not work with how GW write rules

TO ME, the issue with 9th edition is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be...well, at least beyond a vehicle to sell models. Yes, clearly tournament considerations are driving various aspects of the game. But on the other hand, the faction rules aren't at all what any designer in their right mind would create in order to craft a balanced wargame for tournament play and tournament timeframes. But if more narrative-focused players are enjoying Crusade, and more competitive gamers are enjoying everything that's happening on that side, and GW is selling models like crazy, who am I to criticize? *shrug*

GW should keep this the faux sport stuff away from Specialist Games, though. Like far away.

 gorgon wrote:
GW should keep this the faux sport stuff away from Specialist Games, though. Like far away.

Surely Blood Bowl would be a natural fit, though?

 kodos wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

The only argument behind people arguing about bringing templates back is realism/immersion. Nothing else.

the last argument/thread I have seen here on dakka was about the problem that blast/barrage weapons working against "hordes" while being useless against the same amount of models in the same area that are from different units (a 6x5 models in an objektive vs 1x30 models)

and I agree with that, from a simple gameplay perspektive, we are missing the option to hit multiple units with an anti-horde weapon, as having 90 models is still a horde and not an elite army just because those are 18 units instead of 3

using templates is the easiest solution to htis problem, there are other solutions as well, but with those would not work with how GW write rules

From a gameplay perspective that's not even a problem in my opinion. Because as I pointed out earlier it's just an arbitrary concept that barrage weapons should be able to hit multiple units and weapons with high rate of fire, which are also anti horde weapons, shouldn't. A concept I disagree with.

The mechanic that allows a single weapon to hit multiple targets should be either avoided completely for semplicity or granted to all kinds of weapons that in real life cover a large area when they fire, not only by an explosion but also by a massive amount of bullets.

Not to mention that shifting hordes from objectives isn't an actual issue in 9th.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
GW should keep this the faux sport stuff away from Specialist Games, though. Like far away.

Surely Blood Bowl would be a natural fit, though?

Okay...MAYBE that one. It's closer to chess than a traditional wargame anyway. Certainly Underworlds is built for more competitive play, although I don't know if that's technically SG. But for the rest, no rankings and points and such please.

drbored wrote:

GW + ITC = most tournaments. You want GW support? You want a GW shop at your tournament and the exclusive GW con/event-exclusive models to be sold at your event? You gotta follow our rules. Not just for gaming, but for modeling and other things.

Brandt explicitly stated that independent tournaments would not be forced into GW only models.

 Blackie wrote:
From a gameplay perspective that's not even a problem in my opinion. Because as I pointed out earlier it's just an arbitrary concept that barrage weapons should be able to hit multiple units and weapons with high rate of fire, which are also anti horde weapons, shouldn't. A concept I disagree with.

The mechanic that allows a single weapon to hit multiple targets should be either avoided completely for semplicity or granted to all kinds of weapons that in real life cover a large area when they fire, not only by an explosion but also by a massive amount of bullets.

Not to mention that shifting hordes from objectives isn't an actual issue in 9th.

if it is a heavy bolter that can do it or a blast weapon makes no difference, it is just something that is missing (same as a pinning mechanic instead of the moral rules we have now)
that it is not a real issue because horde MSU is not "meta" does not mean it should not be there, just that most people are not missing it by now which can change as soon as GW comes up with a crazy new idea for the next Codex

I like the idea of using feedback from top players to balance out lists. GW's internal testing has always been lackluster, and they miss obvious things that anyone can figure out with a few minutes and some math.

That being said, 8th and later increasingly are not about the models themselves, but about all the extra stuff on the side. At some point you could replace units with cards and make it a CCG and it would play the same.

Auras, strategims, objectives, all these things that are not obvious on the models, and are just stacked on top of things to the point you really can't tell what is going on just looking at the board anymore. There was value in 3rd edition's simplicity of "here's a marine statline, and the only differentiating thing is the obvious wargear."

chaos0xomega wrote:
So 5000 players, about 1.1% of the games total playerbase (I'm guessing that theres probably another 500k+ individuals who aren't counted in the reddit subs who just don't use social media or reddit, etc. so that number might really be more like 0.5%) is essentially dictating the terms of the game to the remaining 98.9% (or 99.5%).

I have collected the BCP data through 2018 for 8+ player tournaments.

There are 39,000+ distinct players ( across all years ). Nearly 88,000 games were played across 18,000 unique players in 2021 ( 2019 was 69,000 and 2018 was 41,000 ).

and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

 jeff white wrote:
I started with 2nd. Wargear cards and contemporary 9th are worlds apart in this regard imho...

And no, I do not play card games... last card game that I enjoyed was about vampire clans, can't remember that actual name of the game but I think that it changed after its first iteration. That would have been around 1994 maybe...

If you played 2nd, then you should remember that the Psychic phase literally stopped the game to have you play a card game.

 oni wrote:
Am I supposed to feel sympathy for someone who cannot ‘switch it off’?
Seems a bit condescending to me.

Assuming you're referencing me/my tale of the friend who can't figure out what casual means, you've completely misunderstood both the point and the substance of the story. The point isn't to generate sympathy for him, its to illustrate that the conceptions of what a casual list looks like to a competitive player is different than what it looks like to a casual player. Its not that he can't "turn it off", its that he doesnt know what "off" looks like, because his experience with the game is almost 100% competitive gameplay and the idea of playing a list where your listbuilding decisions are dictated 100% by fluff completely divorced from anything to do with a units performance or rules is alien to him.

Incidentally, the reverse is also true and it cuts both ways. I hung up my competitive stirrups about 10 years back, recently when I was asked by another friend to help him practice for an upcoming tournament, I showed up with what i conceptualized as a "competitive" list based on my past experience, and - well, it was nothing like what actual competitive lists look like today. Completely different meta, might as well be a different game.

 Laughing Man wrote:

So what you're saying is that players like you are the vast minority, since nobody wants to play the way you do?

Did you completely miss the part in one of my previous posts where I calculate the competitive playerbase to be at most 5% of the player popuation? Take a look back, its in bold red text, can't miss it.

 Laughing Man wrote:

So you don't see any conflict between "There's a minority of players that drive the balance of 40K" and "I am in a minority of players who are upset we aren't allowed to drive the balance of 40K"?

Referring to anywhere from 95-99.5% of the games playerbase (i.e. the casuals) as a "minority" is certainly a hot take. I am, in fact, part of the "majority" of players. The fact that a large segment of that majority has been influenced by an actual minority of players to perceive "real 40k" as having a very narrow and specific interpetation doesn't suddenly shift them into the majority and me into the minority. There is no reason for the more than 90% of players who will never play in a tournament to play using tournament gameplay standards 100% of the time. The only reason they do so is because those who advocate for that style of play are, essentially, the sole public voices in discourse about the game.

 kodos wrote:
and yet templates are still the easiest solution to weapons that should hit multiple units (aka being a counter to dense packed multiple small units blocking the objective)

You can accomplish the same thing more quickly and easily by adding a single sentence to a given weapons "Abilities" section (as opposed to the half page of rules necessary to make templates work within the construct of the rules) that says that you do X additional attacks to y many units within z inches of the target unit, without creating an incentive for anal retentive players to precisely measure the spacing between each and every model in their army or introducing the various issues that come with holding a template with shaky hands and trying to determine what is/isn't rightfully under the area of effect, etc.

just looking at Bolt Action, which is based on 40k, and removed templates with 1st Edi as an improvment over the original rules
and brought them back with 2nd edition

Might be that the removing was driven by the tournament crowed, but not because it is hard to use or open to arguments, but it was a hard counter to certain lists and competitive players want as less hard counters as possible in their game

Removal was driven by an effort to streamline gameplay and limit arguments and issues associated with the templates. The reason they were added back in was because there was no incentive for models to spread out and instead they ended up clumping up in and around objectives and terrain, increasing the value of blast templates (the spamming of which became essential to playing the game) and decreasing the value of regular weapons, and leading to a generally static game.

There are numerous ways that this issue could have been addressed, but they chose what was arguably the lowest effort solution which was to make blast weapons templates instead of randomized hits, so that players would space out their models more, thus devaluing blast templates and increasing the value of non-blast weapons in the process. In other words, they added blast templates into 2nd Edition to intentionally make blast weapons worse so that they would be less popular than they were in 1st Edition. IMO that says a lot about blast templates, and not much of it is good.

 Blackie wrote:

 kodos wrote:
and yet templates are still the easiest solution to weapons that should hit multiple units (aka being a counter to dense packed multiple small units blocking the objective)

Why are flamers and blast weapons supposed to hit multiple units and weapons that spray countless bullets aren't? A dakkajet firing 42 shots or a 9 man squad of warbikes firing 108 shots should definitely be appropriate examples of units that have the chance to hit multiple units, much more than a guy wielding a flamer or firing a missile.

There are wargames that do this. Chain of Command for example, most ranged attacks (not just explosive/blast weapons) spread from the target team to other teams within 4", rationale being that the guys doing the shooting don't really know or care about how the enemy teams/squads/units, etc. are organized and will fire on basically any enemy forces in a certain direction/area of the battlefield regardless of how they are organized/administratively segregated.

Machine gun style weapons clearly need arc of fire templates to represent their accurate method of usage. Don't just bring back templates, introduce MORE templates.

The old Warhammer Historicals World War 1 game (amongst others) did this. You can do this without templates though, as some games already do. If you have things like firing/line of sight arcs incorporating into the rules and gameplay, creating weapons that hit everyting within range within a given arc isn't really that difficult. The aforementioned Chain of Command solution is even simpler though, simply allow the weapon to cause additional attacks to adjacent units and you've achieved the same outcome sans template.

 jeff white wrote:
Templates disappearing coincided with less emphasis on the table, scale and placement of models, and generally a reduction in 'realism' imho to suit a mindset corrupted (again, imho) by CCG and video game mechanics.

There are many, many, many CCGs where card placement/position matters and effects/abilities can have adjacency and impact cards next to others. Trying to put the blame on a "corrupted mindset" and influence from other styles of games in this case says more about your own lack of knowledge/experience with these games than it does about the 40k design team/philosophy.

Sure, scatter was a problem and sure, some arses maxed their coherencies to minimise template effectiveness, in my relatively limited experience, but (again imho) the best strategy there was to just not hang out with those people anymore, if it was an option.

The last bit is the important part there. For many its not really an option, in my own extensive experience the "problem players" you are describing basically covers the majority of the US playerbase. The fact of the matter is that if you weren't spreading out your minis to some extent you were handing your opponent free victory points. Even the most casual players would, at various points during the game where victory or defeat came down to certian key units/situations, take the time to spread their minis to improve their resiliency. There was no getting around it.

why not a photo of the table with scatter done on the phone?Or, why not blast markers like dice with little lasers inside that point in the direction of the scatter? GW could make them.

Overwhelmingly the playerbase is against the use of apps/technology being a requirement for gameplay. Many prefer this being an analogue experience played out with commonly available tools as opposed to something that requires extensive investment into bespoke gadgets and tech in order to do something that can be achieved far more simply via other means. Heres a pretty big hint - if you need an app or a custom laser tool to get it to work, maybe its not a good mechanic and you shouldn't use it.

barring low-intellects who abused it...

You sound a lot like someone who never really played the editions of the game that used templates.

The Black Adder wrote:
I tried logging on to the ITC results page to see who the likely group of players are who might be involved in this, but the site is down at the moment due to the LVO. My impression in the past has been that the ITC is essentially a US thing. Am I wrong?

Yes and no. It started in the US but a bit under half (lets call it somewhere around 40-45%) of the players registered in ITC are international, with Europe being about 25% of total registrations and Canada being another 20% on its own, so definitely heavily weighted towards the US but not being exclusively "a US thing". I suspect though, that a disproportionate number of the European registrants are UK based rather than continental/EU. From what I gather, Australia has its own separate ITC-like system and they don't really make use of it there. There is also BCP, which is some kind of an ITC off-shoot for score-tracking and ranking, but without otherwise following the ITC "format". All ITC registrations are on BCP, but not all BCP registrations are on ITC. Like ITC, about half of registrations in BCP are American, but Europe makes up about 32% and Canada only 8%, with the remainder being Asia/Australia/Rest of World (though again Australia is underrepresented as they don't use ITC and whatever they use also fills the roll of BCP).

 Blackie wrote:

The only argument behind people arguing about bringing templates back is realism/immersion. Nothing else.
I agree about the game not being a simulation, and that's why I don't miss templates at all.

Basically this. As I pointed out in another thread this past week, templates actually aren't very realistic, so its really more about immersion and (perceived) realism than anything else.

When it comes to flamethrowers, for example, putting the narrow end in base contact with the firing weapon isn't really the best representation of how they work as they weren't usually used as a "point" weapon to fire in a narrow cone - the "inferno" method (or whatever it was called) used by the hellhound would be a slightly more accurate representation, as they were generally used in broad sweeping motions to cover a rather large area of real estate.

When it comes to blasts, perhaps the biggest mistake there is the assumption that an explosive blast is circular - at best they are more of an elliptical shape, and more careful study of them will show you that their area of effect is often extremely irregular as the concussive blast effect and the fragmentation effect are essentially two semi-independent variables that can produce lethality in two completely different directions/orientations - picture a venn diagram, but instead of circles you have ovals, and depending on the design of the weapon you might have multiple ovals as a result of multiple blast charges and fragmentation sleeves, etc, and some of those ovals may or may not be overlapping, or oriented along completely different axes, etc. In some cases, the old flamer tempalte is a better depiction of the area of effect of an explosive blast than the actual circular blast templates are, though depending on the weapon you might need to place multiple such templates, each potentially scattering in a slightly different direction and orientation from the others, to properly approximate the lethal area of an actual explosion.

Perhaps the next biggest mistake is the assumption that these weapons are consistent in their area of effect - they aren't. Depending on a huge number of variables, the lethal area of an explosive weapon can vary wildly from one use to another. Chuck a grenade towards the enemy and it might have a "lethal radius" (i.e. the distance at which it has a 90% probability of killing someone) of 50 meters because it landed in a nice flat and heavily exposed location, chuck a second one and it might only have a lethal radius of 15 meters because it landed in a ditch/crater, etc. and most of the lethal effects are absorbed by the ground. This is true of basically every such weapon, and it gets even wonkier once you account for things like variable fuzing (time-delay fuzing, airbursting, etc.) and the intended effect/usage of the weapon, variable yield ("dial-a-nuke" but increasingly being used on smaller and smaller conventional weapons, including hand grenades), and the layout of terrain within the blast area which could potentially create "shadows" where someone standing a few feet from the source of the explosion is unaffected but someone 50 feet away is shredded to a bloody pulp.

The other thing though, is that there isn't a hard line at which the effects of a blast simply end. The lethality of a blast or an explosion exists on a gradient/spectrum. In generalized/idealized terms, the closer you are to the epicenter, the more likely you are to die. The "lethal radius" (i.e. 90% probability of death) of the typical fragmentation grenade is about 5 meters and the "severe injury radius" (i.e. 90% of severe wounds/non-lethal casualty) is about 15m... but they can still potentially kill you from 200-250m away under ideal conditions (i.e. flat terrain, no cover, optimal detonation height at full yield). These gradients can vary wildly from weapon to weapon based on size but also, again, fuzing effects as well as how the weapon is intended to kill you (concussive blast vs fragmentation, etc.). If we wanted to be "realistic", every time you fired the weapon you would be rolling for a different template/a different blast radius, etc.

 jeff white wrote:
Yeah, if I wanted to play a card game, I would play a card game. Realism means that the table and the models and the scale and the space of the board matters. Dice only data slate driven CCG inspired mechanics gets around all of this, so that people can put huge models on a kitchen table and pretend they are not playing a card game. Sad, imho, when "list building" (which is really just deck building by another name) "metas" (which is really just gaming the game instead of using the game to moderate something more like an RPG with a small army) are more important than a model based hobby with realistic terrain features and something like a battlefield dynamic in mind. With current iterations, the models themselves are only placeholders for what might as well be cards, and a card game is much more suited to a kitchen table sized table than models in the first place... makes me wonder why people who don't want "realism" in the game don't just play with cards instead. But oh well, I suppose I am a voice from the margins, here, as the people who cheer ITC secondaries and so on and CPs and model scale creep and chasing the "meta" all seem too point of fact, as if they are the voices of reason that "realism doesn't belong in the game" and so on, when again, i don't understand why they don't just play with cards on their mom's kitchen table trying to get a half dozen games in before dinner, instead...
Besides that, to me it seems obvious that the problem with templates and so on is less with the actual mechanic than the attitudes of people who abuse them, so why people will call template use the "argument phase" and so on. And again, my solution is to simply not hang out with people of such a attitude.

Removed - rule #1 I think you'll find that many of the players in this thread arguing againgst templates are the same people who are against the ITC/GW partnership, so on that basis your entire thesis about who is championing not using templates is 100% wrong.

Perhaps the greatest irony in all this is that you are complaining that you want the position and spacing of the models on the table to matter, and that blast templates are the vehicle by which this is achieved, but then saying that is ontly argumentatitve donkey-caves with a bad attitude that would actually bother to position and space their models in response to blast templates. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

 Blackie wrote:

the last argument/thread I have seen here on dakka was about the problem that blast/barrage weapons working against "hordes" while being useless against the same amount of models in the same area that are from different units (a 6x5 models in an objektive vs 1x30 models)
and I agree with that, from a simple gameplay perspektive, we are missing the option to hit multiple units with an anti-horde weapon, as having 90 models is still a horde and not an elite army just because those are 18 units instead of 3
using templates is the easiest solution to htis problem, there are other solutions as well, but with those would not work with how GW write rules

From a gameplay perspective that's not even a problem in my opinion. Because as I pointed out earlier it's just an arbitrary concept that barrage weapons should be able to hit multiple units and weapons with high rate of fire, which are also anti horde weapons, shouldn't. A concept I disagree with.
The mechanic that allows a single weapon to hit multiple targets should be either avoided completely for semplicity or granted to all kinds of weapons that in real life cover a large area when they fire, not only by an explosion but also by a massive amount of bullets.
Not to mention that shifting hordes from objectives isn't an actual issue in 9th.

 kodos wrote:
and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

I'm loading the tournaments with less than 8 players now to see if there's any tip of iceberg effect ( I doubt it ). There's a lot of fuzziness with the stupid TTS games logged, which I think I can remove most of those from consideration.

Without TTS about 56% played just one tournament. The other 8,000 have an average of 4.5 and median of 3.

This is the guy who played the most tournaments:



And this is Richard Siegler ( excludes LVO at the moment ):

There are more casual players than competitive players but who actually play more games? Also the data being collected from a casual game compared to a competitive game data is different right.

 kodos wrote:
and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

Well, last time that random mess of data came up, 90%+ only played in those tournaments once ever and it was deemed that they shouldn't be considered for any kind of statistical data, and were considered 'fallen out of the gaming side of the hobby'
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/803002.page

 Platuan4th wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I started with 2nd. Wargear cards and contemporary 9th are worlds apart in this regard imho...

And no, I do not play card games... last card game that I enjoyed was about vampire clans, can't remember that actual name of the game but I think that it changed after its first iteration. That would have been around 1994 maybe...

If you played 2nd, then you should remember that the Psychic phase literally stopped the game to have you play a card game.

Iirc we paid points for powers that worked as if weapons. Often we didn’t use psykers depending on the players involved. And I dunno if I am not clear or others are not thinking through or just looking for something to argue about or acting in bad faith… but the problem is not using actual physical cards so much as ethos turning the hobby into a deck building as of might as well be a card based game.

I am familiar with these card game mechanics, having played such games in the past.

Just because you think that most US players acted that way doesn’t matter.

I do not believe that you can speak for any majority of playerbase re apps and tech generally.

Flagged for the unnecessary insult.

But also, why do casual players care if the tournament side is getting love?
Casual players, showing you dont care about units performance and just play fluffy lists(Whatever that means lol) shouldnt care because you will just play what you want whether is broken busted or UP or OP.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But also, why do casual players care if the tournament side is getting love?
Casual players, showing you dont care about units performance and just play fluffy lists(Whatever that means lol) shouldnt care because you will just play what you want whether is broken busted or UP or OP.

Because nobody wants to play their version of the game with them, because apparently tournament players exude a hypnotic aura that convert all who see them.

 jeff white wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I started with 2nd. Wargear cards and contemporary 9th are worlds apart in this regard imho...

And no, I do not play card games... last card game that I enjoyed was about vampire clans, can't remember that actual name of the game but I think that it changed after its first iteration. That would have been around 1994 maybe...

If you played 2nd, then you should remember that the Psychic phase literally stopped the game to have you play a card game.

Iirc we paid points for powers that worked as if weapons. Often we didn’t use psykers depending on the players involved. And I dunno if I am not clear or others are not thinking through or just looking for something to argue about or acting in bad faith… but the problem is not using actual physical cards so much as ethos turning the hobby into a deck building as of might as well be a card based game.

The "Powers that worked like weapons" was 3rd. 2nd, you bought psyker levels, then drew random Powers from a deck of Powers for each psyker up to their level(except Tyranids who DID spend points to buy specific powers). Each Psychic Phase, you drew from a deck of power cards(that also contained a card that let you cast irresistibly, a card that let you dispel automatically, cards that let you destroy Powers, etc.) that you used to power your Powers and/or dispel opponent Powers(in a bidding fashion. Certain items let you store cards so there was a deck building element depending on how you built your characters and their purchased gear.

Deleted cuz can’t figure out how to quote that tldr without formatting probs…

 Daedalus81 wrote:

drbored wrote:

GW + ITC = most tournaments. You want GW support? You want a GW shop at your tournament and the exclusive GW con/event-exclusive models to be sold at your event? You gotta follow our rules. Not just for gaming, but for modeling and other things.

Brandt explicitly stated that independent tournaments would not be forced into GW only models.

Sure, for now, until policy among GW higher-ups changes. ITC's given away the keys to the car here, and now just has to hope that GW drives it sensibly. Historical precedent suggests that's a gamble.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I started with 2nd. Wargear cards and contemporary 9th are worlds apart in this regard imho...

And no, I do not play card games... last card game that I enjoyed was about vampire clans, can't remember that actual name of the game but I think that it changed after its first iteration. That would have been around 1994 maybe...

If you played 2nd, then you should remember that the Psychic phase literally stopped the game to have you play a card game.

Iirc we paid points for powers that worked as if weapons. Often we didn’t use psykers depending on the players involved. And I dunno if I am not clear or others are not thinking through or just looking for something to argue about or acting in bad faith… but the problem is not using actual physical cards so much as ethos turning the hobby into a deck building as of might as well be a card based game.

The "Powers that worked like weapons" was 3rd. 2nd, you bought psyker levels, then drew random Powers from a deck of Powers for each psyker up to their level(except Tyranids who DID spend points to buy specific powers). Each Psychic Phase, you drew from a deck of power cards(that also contained a card that let you cast irresistibly, a card that let you dispel automatically, cards that let you destroy Powers, etc.) that you used to power your Powers and/or dispel opponent Powers(in a bidding fashion. Certain items let you store cards so there was a deck building element depending on how you built your characters and their purchased gear.

Thanks for that. Yeah… remembering that now. Apologies… been a long time. Did play some nids back then. And sure, not my fav part of the game now that you remind me, guess why third is resonating best with me recently…

Voss wrote:

 kodos wrote:
and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

Well, last time that random mess of data came up, 90%+ only played in those tournaments once ever and it was deemed that they shouldn't be considered for any kind of statistical data, and were considered 'fallen out of the gaming side of the hobby'
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/803002.page

I've included far more of the tournaments than the initial data set had ( and put everything into a structured DB ). And the actual statement was "but they either just don't play often and in the case are extremely unlikely to switch or they just fell out of the gaming side of the hobby"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Sure, for now, until policy among GW higher-ups changes. ITC's given away the keys to the car here, and now just has to hope that GW drives it sensibly. Historical precedent suggests that's a gamble.

Absolutely - we shouldn't rest easy there, but there is little chance GW could effectively police the vast majority of tournaments. You'd basically only be concerned about the high profile ones like NOVA, LVO, US Opens, etc.

Oh boy, I sure do love calculating 5 different types of points scoring after every player turn and again at the game turn. I hope it doesn't cut too much into my "reviewing list of 400 stratagems that might be relevant at a given moment" time!

 ph34r wrote:
Oh boy, I sure do love calculating 5 different types of points scoring after every player turn and again at the game turn. I hope it doesn't cut too much into my "reviewing list of 400 stratagems that might be relevant at a given moment" time!

You can build a list and pick out the strats you focus on in a game until you get used to them and then expand. It wouldn't hurt to see restrictions from GW like one strat per unit per phase though.

Scoring is absolutely not laborious at all.

Catulle wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
There is indeed risk of a "bad actor", but having more voices is better.

The ITC has a nasty habit of protecting bad actors.

kodos wrote:so GW finally realized that the best way to grow the US market is to invest into the tournament scene

with the Edition all people are telling me, is not the tournament edition but the narrative one, at that tournament play has never had any affect on the casual player in the US

wait and see how this will work out

BrotherGecko wrote:How are people complaining that casual isn't getting enough attention? There is a new crusade book like every 3 months. There is an entire version of the game for narrative casual play called Crusade. There is a alternative point system for casual play called power level.

9th if anything has had more focus on casual/narrative play than any edition since 2nd.

I am absolutely convinced most the people complaining here do not play the game, at all. And if they do, they are still mad about that Eldar player that beat them in 4th edition the one time they tried a tournament.

BrotherGecko wrote:

Voss wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
How are people complaining that casual isn't getting enough attention? There is a new crusade book like every 3 months. There is an entire version of the game for narrative casual play called Crusade. There is a alternative point system for casual play called power level.

9th if anything has had more focus on casual/narrative play than any edition since 2nd.

I am absolutely convinced most the people complaining here do not play the game, at all. And if they do, they are still mad about that Eldar player that beat them in 4th edition the one time they tried a tournament.

Are you talking about yourself not playing the game? Because Crusade isn't casual. Crusade is a lot of extra work, both in terms of book-keeping and keeping the group together.
It can be fun with the right group, but its not what most people mean when they say 'casual'

Casual just means wandering into to the shop/club/venue, having a game and hanging out, maybe having another game.

Generic crusade is pick up games. Its about as casual as you can get. Crusade campaigns are an extra layer to crusade that isn't about pick up games. And there is still power levels, non-matched play, narrative play, etc.

Problem casual players have is other casual players. Competitive players are out there playing competitive games not "clubbing baby seals" at the local shop, that is a casual player doing that. People not playing competitive games at tournaments are casual players no matter how WAAC their style or list is.

Public enemy number one of the casual 40k fan is other casual 40k fans who play casual differently. The dude taking top spot at the LVO isn't anyone but other competitive players problem, the dude taking the top spot's list and strolling up to LGS to play exclusively pick up games is the guy you have issues with. And that dude is a casual player.

jeff white wrote:I started with 2nd. Wargear cards and contemporary 9th are worlds apart in this regard imho...

And no, I do not play card games... last card game that I enjoyed was about vampire clans, can't remember that actual name of the game but I think that it changed after its first iteration. That would have been around 1994 maybe...

I'd rather play poker for money than a CCG for free.

Daedalus81 wrote:

drbored wrote:

GW + ITC = most tournaments. You want GW support? You want a GW shop at your tournament and the exclusive GW con/event-exclusive models to be sold at your event? You gotta follow our rules. Not just for gaming, but for modeling and other things.

Brandt explicitly stated that independent tournaments would not be forced into GW only models.

Cuz if Mike says it, it must be true.

hotsauceman1 wrote:But also, why do casual players care if the tournament side is getting love?
Casual players, showing you dont care about units performance and just play fluffy lists(Whatever that means lol) shouldnt care because you will just play what you want whether is broken busted or UP or OP.

If the core design philosophy is strictly for tourneys...umm I don't know how to put it to you.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Cuz if Mike says it, it must be true.

Actually that's kind of how it works considering he's an official representative of the company.

chaos0xomega wrote: a lot of text

agree, my problem is simply, if GW would use the style of rules that CoC used, each weapon would be different just for the sake of being different, with Marine Rocket Launcher being 6" spread, and Orks being 2" while heavy Bolters having 4" but other similar weapons none
the need of a template would prevend that up to a point

and that Warlord Games took the easiest way, well people call WG the GW of historical games for a reason

40k could also just remove the horde stuff for blast as I don't see a point for it without going after the "many models in one place" instead of "too many models in 1 unit"

Voss wrote:

 kodos wrote:
and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

Well, last time that random mess of data came up, 90%+ only played in those tournaments once ever and it was deemed that they shouldn't be considered for any kind of statistical data, and were considered 'fallen out of the gaming side of the hobby'
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/803002.page

I see this very simple, for someone to be competitive, they need to play a lot and not just training battles but tournaments and people who only play events once, or just those that are local (LVO is such a big event, playing it once for fun without any other tournament that year does not make you a competitive gamer but a casual one who likes social events and meeting other gamers or just wanted to be there once)

competitive player is something different than (casual) tournament/event player, than store/club/garage only player

Daedalus81 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
and how many of those are competitive players (as playing tournaments on a regular bases) and how many are casuals playing events (as once or twice a year)?

I'm loading the tournaments with less than 8 players now to see if there's any tip of iceberg effect ( I doubt it ). There's a lot of fuzziness with the stupid TTS games logged, which I think I can remove most of those from consideration.

Without TTS about 56% played just one tournament. The other 8,000 have an average of 4.5 and median of 3.

This is the guy who played the most tournaments:



And this is Richard Siegler ( excludes LVO at the moment ):

ok, 8.000 is not that far off the assumed 5.000 and it looks like you can say those are the competitive part of the playerbase