GW drops GT army size to 1750 points

[Crabstuffed Mushrooms]

If you guys take this to a logical extreme: One answer is to keep streamlining the game (the core rules are already an impressive 8 pages). Do we think it's possible to streamline more? Make additional tweaks, etc.? One of the things that slows people down is referencing the rules, maybe we can make that easier?

[klisof]

 

 

 

 

Sportsmanship metrics are terrible because they are highly, and abusively, subjective. It demands a level of honor that has no place in a tournament where the ends justify the means.

I have to agree with this, in my experience with scoring the worse you lost the better your sports score.

 

As far as game clocks go I don't see it as a great solution. We are playing a table top game with a lot of rules and interactions that aren't clearly defined. If some ones strategy is to stall and try make a game only last 3 turns, they'll be able to.

 

I think we need to move away from all the emphasis on best general style awards, and start to promote other aspects of the hobby. Have awards for best theme, for display boards, and shift the prize support towards participation awards.

I don’t think you understand game clocks. The time is split evenly among both players. If you stall and waste your time ... and I have time left over ... I get to keep playing once your time is up.

15 minute turns, plus deployment, plus setting up terrain, discussing what terrain is, plus calling over judges (which if you get a penalty for that creates a whole lot of other issues). So yeah I think people can still stall with game clocks.

Plus you opponent gets to roll saving throws, attack in the fight phase, deny the witch etc in your turn. 'that guy' could really eat into your 15min with slow rolling and deny you the chance to act with all your units.

[Bluflash]

I get the feeling lots of people have never played with chess clocks. If you have an opponent who is truly being a slow player while taking actions on your turn, you have the right to swap the clock to them while they complete their actions. In normal play, that shouldn't be necessary, but you always have the option. I'm a fan of the idea personally. I think a set block of time for the game is a better choice than setting 15 15 10 10 minute turns. Its okay to frontload your time because you have lots of units, but you risk getting stuck and unable to act. 

[Aothaine]

Yeah this is becoming a mess. I don't even know if I want to play in tournaments anymore. Too many people trying to win at all costs and not there to enjoy the game. Really disappointing imho.

[Raven1]

If you guys take this to a logical extreme: One answer is to keep streamlining the game (the core rules are already an impressive 8 pages). Do we think it's possible to streamline more? Make additional tweaks, etc.? One of the things that slows people down is referencing the rules, maybe we can make that easier?

8 pages and multiple over 100 page books. The core book, codex(s), and chapter approved...oh and of course the pages and pages of FAQ.

 

On topic though. I dont think 250 points will do much to speed up the game but it certainly will change tactics. I suppose we will see if actually effects the meta. It looks like it will effect elite armies more than horde.

[Plaguecaster]

I wonder if bringing back movement trays for larger units like they did with fantasy originally would work or at the very least help with hoard armies I remember playing Skaven back in fantasy and most of my units were all 30+ strong yet since I had movement trays for every unit it was so easier to move the entire unit around no hassle

[Bat33.1]

I wonder if bringing back movement trays for larger units like they did with fantasy originally would work or at the very least help with hoard armies I remember playing Skaven back in fantasy and most of my units were all 30+ strong yet since I had movement trays for every unit it was so easier to move the entire unit around no hassle

Most players running horde units in 40k want to spread those units as far as possible for board control, blocking deep strikers, objective holding, and screening their expensive units. It’s not the number of models that is the problem, but taking 120+ does slow the game down some, it’s the minority of players who want to slow the game down for their own advantage and prevent opponents finishing 6 full turns.

 

It’s not about somebody playing slowly because of a large army and unsure of rules or still learning the game, this is a tactic to gain advantage in a tournament setting with fixed time limits and no penalties for not playing 6 full turns. It’s the football team defending a 1-0 advantage and deliberately taking as long as possible over every stoppage to deny the other team the time to score.

[Aothaine]

 

Most players running horde units in 40k want to spread those units as far as possible for board control, blocking deep strikers, objective holding, and screening their expensive units. It’s not the number of models that is the problem, but taking 120+ does slow the game down some, it’s the minority of players who want to slow the game down for their own advantage and prevent opponents finishing 6 full turns.

 

It’s not about somebody playing slowly because of a large army and unsure of rules or still learning the game, this is a tactic to gain advantage in a tournament setting with fixed time limits and no penalties for not playing 6 full turns. It’s the football team defending a 1-0 advantage and deliberately taking as long as possible over every stoppage to deny the other team the time to score.

 

 

How you fix this is that you don't put time limits on games and just setup tournaments to cover multiple days.

[toaae]

 

 

How you fix this is that you don't put time limits on games and just setup tournaments to cover multiple days.

 

But you'd then be limited by the number of rounds your tournament could have. That is no solution for any event bigger than 4 rounds.

[Aothaine]

 

 

But you'd then be limited by the number of rounds your tournament could have. That is no solution for any event bigger than 4 rounds.

 

 

Maybe reducing the rounds is necessary then? Forcing a player to limit the amount of time he has to move 120+ models is bad play imho. People intentionally drawing out games should be disqualified for poor sportsmanship. These guys are not winning $100,000. They need to get their heads out of their butts and remember that this game is supposed to be enjoyable. Now, I say that, but at the same time I know there are competitive players that enjoy that part of the game. So I am biased in that regard I guess. I used to think I wanted to play competitively but now... it just doesn't fit who I am. I need to play the game like a movie or story I'm reading over a pint.

 

The more and more I look into competitive play the less and less I like it. It breeds horrible people. But I appreciate the events because it brings people together to just have a good time on the side as well. I need to start looking into the rules for the LVO Friendly 2019. That is what I'm aiming at participating in next year.

[antique_nova]

I'm not convinced that GW have dropped the points limit because of slow play, maybe they just want to mix it up a bit?

Most tournaments are now 2000pts ETC/ITC style events. Maybe the GW just want a tournament that is a different points size?.....I know I do 

 

As for slow play, I think awarding two Tournament Points for every round played in a game (capping at round 5) would work. It gives players an incentive to play quickly and should be achievable for everyone to get an additional 50TP's.

 

Gaining points for each extra round played. Now that I like! Because if someone is winning games by turn 3 because of slow play, then they cannot win is someone is winning but taking it to 5 turns each game (regardless of when the opponent was tabled).

[antique_nova]

 

 

Most players running horde units in 40k want to spread those units as far as possible for board control, blocking deep strikers, objective holding, and screening their expensive units. It’s not the number of models that is the problem, but taking 120+ does slow the game down some, it’s the minority of players who want to slow the game down for their own advantage and prevent opponents finishing 6 full turns.

 

It’s not about somebody playing slowly because of a large army and unsure of rules or still learning the game, this is a tactic to gain advantage in a tournament setting with fixed time limits and no penalties for not playing 6 full turns. It’s the football team defending a 1-0 advantage and deliberately taking as long as possible over every stoppage to deny the other team the time to score.

 

 

How you fix this is that you don't put time limits on games and just setup tournaments to cover multiple days.

 

 

I'm not sure if you've ever been to a GT, but they're normally split with 5 games over 2 days. That is more than enough, a 3rd day doesn't work, because most if not all GTs are designed for weekends, when they know that that is when most players can attend.

[toaae]

 

 Maybe reducing the rounds is necessary then? Forcing a player to limit the amount of time he has to move 120+ models is bad play imho. 

 

There isn't a perfect solution, as a casual view of this thread can attest. But for large events, limiting rounds would probably be worse, overall, than some slow players. People that play fast would have lots of downtime between rounds, and you wouldn't get a 100% undefeated winner, which is the draw for a lot of people.

[Deathwalker]

 

 

 

But you'd then be limited by the number of rounds your tournament could have. That is no solution for any event bigger than 4 rounds.

 

 

Maybe reducing the rounds is necessary then? Forcing a player to limit the amount of time he has to move 120+ models is bad play imho. People intentionally drawing out games should be disqualified for poor sportsmanship. These guys are not winning $100,000. They need to get their heads out of their butts and remember that this game is supposed to be enjoyable. Now, I say that, but at the same time I know there are competitive players that enjoy that part of the game. So I am biased in that regard I guess. I used to think I wanted to play competitively but now... it just doesn't fit who I am. I need to play the game like a movie or story I'm reading over a pint.

 

The more and more I look into competitive play the less and less I like it. It breeds horrible people. But I appreciate the events because it brings people together to just have a good time on the side as well. I need to start looking into the rules for the LVO Friendly 2019. That is what I'm aiming at participating in next year.

 

Question 1:

Did the player with 120 models -CHOOSE- to have that kind of army?

The -CHOICE- to run a low model count army is a choice, but not bound by any kind of rules mechanic, same with a high model list. Timing rounds gives a high model count army a real mechanic to deal with, and I think that's pretty fair.

 

Question 2:

Do you play chess for fun?

Competition players don't have their heads up their butts, they have merely examined the possible outcomes and go with the most likely way to WIN, because as much as friendly players see the objective as having fun, the tournament player see's winning as the fun, testing their skills against other people who want to win.

Flip the situation around.

Do friendly players see a WAAC player in a friendly as an intrusion into their "fun"?

Of course they do, and that's a legitimate gripe.

So is the competition players gripe about "fun gamers" being an intrusion into "their fun"

If I slogged from Aus, to the LVO, paying thousands of dollars to get there, don't I have a real reason for being annoyed with the local fun player "with their head up their arse"?

What constitutes "fun" is different for all players, and if I made that trip, I would probably like to stay beyond the tournament, hook up with local gamers and have some fun games as well, cause, I like having fun as well.

 

Finally, I would push back on this notion that competition breeds "horrible people", it breeds a different mindset of play, yes, but different is not horrible, it's just different. Lets not bring tribalism into a game, be it friendly, or competitive.   

[ERJAK]

 

 

 

But you'd then be limited by the number of rounds your tournament could have. That is no solution for any event bigger than 4 rounds.

 

 

Maybe reducing the rounds is necessary then? Forcing a player to limit the amount of time he has to move 120+ models is bad play imho. People intentionally drawing out games should be disqualified for poor sportsmanship. These guys are not winning $100,000. They need to get their heads out of their butts and remember that this game is supposed to be enjoyable. Now, I say that, but at the same time I know there are competitive players that enjoy that part of the game. So I am biased in that regard I guess. I used to think I wanted to play competitively but now... it just doesn't fit who I am. I need to play the game like a movie or story I'm reading over a pint.

 

The more and more I look into competitive play the less and less I like it. It breeds horrible people. But I appreciate the events because it brings people together to just have a good time on the side as well. I need to start looking into the rules for the LVO Friendly 2019. That is what I'm aiming at participating in next year.

 

This attitude always baffles me, I NEVER have problems at tournaments. NEVER, but I get massive headaches from casual games(and gamers) all the time. People more focused on the 'beer and pretzels' or 'narrative' games tend to have VERY STRONG OPINIONS on how the game should be played and get set off by things as small as a good round of shooting.

 

I had a game against a beer and pretzels player where I brought a doubled up primaris dark vengeance box-set using index rules and NOTHING else. He spent 4 turn berating me over how broken and OP my stuff was and how things like 'hellblasters' RUINED 40k and were so stupid and implied that only bad people would bring something THAT cheesy...and then I got tabled. 

[Brother Carpenter]

Wow 1750 points. Id love to have played in tournaments with that amount of points.

I was always stuck with 1500 points back in the old bad 4th ed days.

[Ishagu]

Stopped reading when you mentioned point values in 4th edition.

 

People need to stop talking about the game in prior editions as it's not comparable.

[Vel'Cona]

Abandoning the past is not how we improve the future, brother.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Indeed, otherwise we repeat it.

 

Also, I will point out that Falcongek made a few good points about sportsmanship scores and sportsmanship in general.

[Finkmilkana]

One thing I have been wondering about chess clocks, wouldn't they open the door to 'abuse' (in the broadest sense) in the other direction?

Even without anyone playing slow and with normal army sizes (i.e. neither 140 model hordes nor 5-10 model superelite armies), 8th edition games often just take too long to finish all turns on time unless at least one side is either way close to being tabled.

So wouldn't a chess clock that allows a player to keep playing his turns after the enemy used up the time just incentivize players to play completely stupid lists whose only goal is to finish his turns fast while potentially slowing down the oponent ( for example by not killing much of his models) but stopping him from scoring. Something like 3 Demon Princes, hordes uppon hordes of nurglings (who are not supposed to do much besides confining the opponent in his deployment zone and getting shot at, so they might not even move) and maybe a few more big models/strong characters.

 

Even without anything specific like this, it seems a strict time limit would greatly favor large ranged units with the same weapon (so 30 termagants etc) that can quickly be rolled at once without too many rerolls. It would instead punish MSU squads with many different weapons and rerolls (like tactical marines with combi and special weapon as well as both reroll auras), as all those weapons have to be rolled on their own, taking a lot of time. Meele units would have it even worse, having to spend time on a least another phase that contains a lot of movement (charge). I fear a strict time limit would only lead to a lot of mostly static gunlines that try to roll as few different weapons profiles as possible to save time.

 

Note that this is very different from for example chess, where inherently every player should take about the same time. It also would not be a problem if every "normal" army could usually finish the game on time (so that it only punishes extrem slow play/full on hordes), but that is not the case currently.

[Lysere]

One thing I have been wondering about chess clocks, wouldn't they open the door to 'abuse' (in the broadest sense) in the other direction?

Even without anyone playing slow and with normal army sizes (i.e. neither 140 model hordes nor 5-10 model superelite armies), 8th edition games often just take too long to finish all turns on time unless at least one side is either way close to being tabled.

So wouldn't a chess clock that allows a player to keep playing his turns after the enemy used up the time just incentivize players to play completely stupid lists whose only goal is to finish his turns fast while potentially slowing down the oponent ( for example by not killing much of his models) but stopping him from scoring. Something like 3 Demon Princes, hordes uppon hordes of nurglings (who are not supposed to do much besides confining the opponent in his deployment zone and getting shot at, so they might not even move) and maybe a few more big models/strong characters.

 

Even without anything specific like this, it seems a strict time limit would greatly favor large ranged units with the same weapon (so 30 termagants etc) that can quickly be rolled at once without too many rerolls. It would instead punish MSU squads with many different weapons and rerolls (like tactical marines with combi and special weapon as well as both reroll auras), as all those weapons have to be rolled on their own, taking a lot of time. Meele units would have it even worse, having to spend time on a least another phase that contains a lot of movement (charge). I fear a strict time limit would only lead to a lot of mostly static gunlines that try to roll as few different weapons profiles as possible to save time.

 

Note that this is very different from for example chess, where inherently every player should take about the same time. It also would not be a problem if every "normal" army could usually finish the game on time (so that it only punishes extrem slow play/full on hordes), but that is not the case currently.

 

If it leads to more diverse lists and less massive hordes that take too long to play then I'm perfectly fine with people trying to do the reverse. With the fixed 5 rounds the only way someone will run out of time and give the opponent plenty of time to finish up the game is if they play a list that they can't play fast enough anyway. If your list doesn't have lots of smaller units then it'll be very easy to determine where to put all of your shooting anyway so it'll speed up your opponents game play as well.

 

I was at the LVO this year and lost my first two games because we only had two full rounds and part of a third, and my opponents weren't trying to slow play they just clearly hadn't played their army as much as some people had. With the use of a chess clock I'd have had the time needed to get one more set of objectives and win the game.

[Beams]

Every army can finish on time. I've played 2000v2000 games where I'm playing Sisters on foot with a ton of imagifiers and basically taking two turns a round and my oppent is playing guard in two hours. If you can't play a normal game with a horde list, don't bring one, and if you can't play one with a normal army composition, you need to either stop playing tournaments or learn to speed up your movements. Think about what you want to do during your opponents turn, get dice ready before you fire, know your rules.

[Panzer]

Honestly, I'm recently looking at AoS and was surprised how tiny whole armies there are regardless of having huge center pieces or not. It seems much more manageable to finish games in time there. I like that but I doubt GW will ever increase the point costs of 40k units to get on the same level.

[taikishi]

Honestly? I wouldn't mind seeing a return to 2E points levels where units are more expensive. Maybe not 30ppm for a Space Marine, 10ppm for a Guardsman, 28 for a Sister, 11 for a Guardian (though I'd love to see T4, I4 baseline on Sisters again >.>) but definitely something more scaled up compared to where we are now -- while possibly retaining vehicles around the same points cost or slightly cheaper than they are now. Won't happen, though, because it means people need to buy less for an army.

[Deathwalker]

Honestly? I wouldn't mind seeing a return to 2E points levels where units are more expensive. Maybe not 30ppm for a Space Marine, 10ppm for a Guardsman, 28 for a Sister, 11 for a Guardian (though I'd love to see T4, I4 baseline on Sisters again >.>) but definitely something more scaled up compared to where we are now -- while possibly retaining vehicles around the same points cost or slightly cheaper than they are now. Won't happen, though, because it means people need to buy less for an army.

For that to work, all you need to do is go back to 3K points being the standard game.

Many of the objections fall under the rubric of scaling, and higher points and better gradients can help with that.