How will the new GW tourney system affect the tourney meta

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

For a long long long time it was just ITC 247 but now there’s a new kid on the block. I think it’s good to not have a monopoly deciding everything. Love it or hate it how do you think geedub will affect the tourney meta?

Note this is not the place to take cheap shots at geedub or discuss your issues with them. Keep it clean.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Black Blow Fly

[PeteySödes]

=][=  Keep in mind this is a tourney META only discussion. Given the N&R thread it is being watched carefully. Proceed with the Emperor's caution...  =][=

Edited June 16, 2021 by PeteySödes

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Thank you brother Petey your diligence is appreciated.

[AenarIT]

If they were smart they would:

- slowly cannibalize the tournament scene, by directly organizing all the largest tournaments in each country. It requires a lot of money and manpower, but the subsequent profits could warrant it;

- improve their app to phase out Best Coast Pairings (and similar apps) and force you to use it to create the list, submit it and track your tournament progress;
- improve their app to incentivize you to use it to track your games every time you play, be it casual games or crusade games as well;
- provide a small incentive to track the result of each game in the app, like virtual achievements and so on;

- collect all the data the players now input in the app;
- balance the game and define sales strategies also based on the data collected in this way.

 

Eg:

Lots of players create lists with a particular unit? -> Produce more of that kit as there will be high demand for it.

A unit is NEVER taken in lists after a new ruleset is released? -> it may be an indication that sales will dip for that kit, some buffs may be needed. 
And so on...

This would have a massive impact on the tournament meta (and the general 40K meta as well).

Will they do it? Maybe, but I doubt they have the skilled professionals able to build such an app and they are apparently allergic to hire other firms to do these kind of jobs. 

-----

 

Remaining on the current news, an official infopack for tournaments is likely to be adopted by a portion of independent tournaments as well. 

As for the guidelines on tables and terrain, it's certainly nice to see how the game designers think that the game should be played (because it's supposedly being balanced this way). 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Xenith
OT removed.

[Xenith]

Large tourneys have already started using GW's tourney packs, right?

 

If they're all playing with GW's FAQ's and missions, things will probably homogenise. Might be interesteing to see other tourney formats arise, other than standard 2000pts. 

[MegaVolt87]

Large tourneys have already started using GW's tourney packs, right?

 

If they're all playing with GW's FAQ's and missions, things will probably homogenise. Might be interesteing to see other tourney formats arise, other than standard 2000pts.

 

In earlier editions I was always a fan of 1750 pts, felt like just enough and forces hard choices, with a gap still. 1500pts felt too small. 2k pts you run away with the cookie jar basically. 8th-9th seem designed around 2k pts as standard though.

[Rik Lightstar]

After such a long absence from the Tournament Scene especially in the US I don't think the GW rules pack will seriously impact the way most other tournaments are run.

 

The rules pack will serve as a "boiler plate" from which other tournaments will develop their packs and that in itself is fine as long as TOs get in the habit of marking their changes to it otherwise people will gloss over the entire document and could get caught out.

 

If GW decide to start offering some level of prize support or they set up their own "ranking" system which people like and they make the "Official Rules Pack" a requirement for events to qualify for these things then I could see it starting to have an effect on things.

 

Even if this does happen though, GW aren't going to be setting up their own Inquisition teams to investigate 20 person tournaments with the sole purpose of enacting the Emperor's Judgement on Heretical models and players.

 

Straight up, it won't happen.

 

If it's a LARGE event with a GW presence then that is a different case.

 

The real deciding factor is if TOs are prepared to put in work to 1) deviate from the rules pack, or 2) enforce the bits about models/painting. I'd expect if they're not prepared to do 1, they also won't do 2.

 

Rik

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

For a long long long time it was just ITC 247 but now there’s a new kid on the block. I think it’s good to not have a monopoly deciding everything. Love it or hate it how do you think geedub will affect the tourney meta?

 

Note this is not the place to take cheap shots at geedub or discuss your issues with them. Keep it clean.

 

The short answer is that GW running their own tournaments won't affect the meta. ITC is using the chapter approved mission pack, and Mike Brandt who ran nova is the head of the GW event team. So there isn't a third party event making widely played alternative missions until maybe the next Adepticon*. Different events may make rulings on issues that need a faq which may shake things up at individual events but that's it. 

 

In my opinion the current chapter approved missions are fun, but I think if anything there is more of a monopoly on competitive missions now then there was before. I'm also a bit disappointed that GW didn't do something with the Incursion. 1000 point games have been a fun format so far in my experience and it would be nice to see them push it. 

 

*I do hope adepticon tones down their deployments, they have a fascination with unique deployments which is cool but in a timed tournament can be frustrating. Either way I'll be at the next one barring a crisis lol. If it were up to me they'd use the mission packs but replace the mission specific secondary objectives with custom ones.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jorin Helm-splitter

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Flg always puts a fly in the ointment.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Flg always puts a fly in the ointment.

 

FLG are just using the chapter approved missions, and their FAQ section is a link to the GW FAQ site. I'm not sure how they can fit a  "fly in the ointment" with those directions. I'd actually be surprised if they weren't heavily involved in designing the new chapter approved. So to be brutally honest maybe FLG did win, and GW are the ones putting flies in their ointment (codex secondary objectives).

 

I can understand having a bias against them because their rules were helpful in 7th when the game was a mess, but it lead to 8th edition's eternal war and maelstrom being ignored. Which is probably my main gripe with 9th, I think maelstrom was a lot of fun if you a regular opponent with one army because what you needed to do would change. I worry that in another 10 months most of these missions will feel stale, but there always is crusade .

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I think is good to have FLG and Geedub both.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I think is good to have FLG and Geedub both.

Do you mean on the same page or as different options?

 

Personally I liked having the ability to just look tournament packs and play their missions. So I kinda miss that, but I do really like 9th.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

It’s better to have two so there are options. They both use the same missions.

[Pandaemonium]

Based on the boards shown in the pack and with the assumption GW will want to use GW terrain at the event, I feel bad for Knights players. So many windows and arches on obscuring buildings. Terrible line of sight for them, but great line of sight for their opponent to fire on them.

[Gorgoff]

Where can I find those new tournament rules?

[Closet Skeleton]

Based on the boards shown in the pack and with the assumption GW will want to use GW terrain at the event, I feel bad for Knights players. So many windows and arches on obscuring buildings. Terrible line of sight for them, but great line of sight for their opponent to fire on them.

Terrain isn't the best at Warhammer World events but most of it there is pretty old.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Xenith
OT removed

[Lord_Ikka]

I think there are really two issues at stake here- GW running their own tournament series (for the first time in the US in a while I believe) and GW putting out their own tournament pack (rather than using alternative created tournament rules like ITC, ETC, Adepticon, etc...).

 

As far as GW doing their own tournament series, I find it fairly weak and bland. Choosing three Southern locals rather than spreading it across the country is a mistake, it should have been more diverse in its distribution so that you get a really good look at various players from across the country. I'm not saying that the South has bad players or anything like that, but I know that quite a few players are going to be able to attend at least the Florida and Louisiana tournaments both just because they are within convenient driving distance from each other (relatively speaking of course). Three tournaments for a country the size of the US is also a pretty poor decision- there are a lot of 40k players in the US so I don't see how just running three tournaments will really promote the hobby or scratch the itch for players. 

     Something that I didn't see an answer to was whether GW was actually putting together and managing these events themselves or are they hiring a professional events company to do it? I know that the last X-wing Regional tourneys I went to were contracted out, which was great because you have a company that knows how to set up and run a large tournament venue- things like crowd management, food/water access, and professional scheduling were all taken care of by the events company that was hired to do just that.

 

The tournament pack seemed like a good idea when it first came out in 2020, and I've been using that one for a while now to good effect. It isn't as interesting as the ITC pack is, but for a first go of it I like the variety of missions and most of the Secondaries. The 2021 pack is actually a very mixed bag for me- the changes to the Secondaries are welcome, as some that were pretty bad are now actually viable and some of the wording/scoring has been updated to make the Secondaries overall better. The fact that they didn't choose to change or add any new Missions is crap though, and charging money for what could have been a FAQ due to only changing Secondaries pisses me off. Overall though, I do like the GW Tournament Pack rules, I think they are fairly easy to learn and adapt to and have had a positive effect on the meta.

[Xenith]

+++This discussion is on the effect of GW stepping into the Tournament scene on overall Tournament Meta, not the rules concerning modelling. There has already been one Mod warning regarding this. I've cleaned up off-topic posts. Stay on-topic. +++

Edited June 17, 2021 by Xenith

[sairence]

I don't think them doing "only" three tournaments is a big problem, considering they are just starting them up. The likely result of the events working well is that the US is going to see more of these in future. And good for them. More tournaments is generally better than less, because it allows choices and space for running events with different focuses. If it works really well, it'll possibly get expanded to other countries too.

 

I assume logistics will have played a part in the locations, but no way to know really.

 

Overall I can't see many downsides here. GW is already working with exisiting TOs for their mission packs and FAQs, this just gives them another more direct venue to gather information on how their game is actually played. That can only be a good thing.

[tychobi]

It will not have any effect on the meta. GW has had access to quality data from across the globe of thousands of competative games for years. This data has been roundly ignored. A run away victor at one of the events that rely on some obvious loophole may result in a knee jerk errata but 3 midsize events are not statistically significant in any way.

 

The GW tournament rules just chase off the creatives. They do not change the game.

[sairence]

I don't know how anyone can claim GW has been ignoring tournament data the last few years, considering the regular cycle of FAQs, Erratas and point adjustments.

 

The worst you can accuse them off is that they tend to be several months behind the curve with most of their updates and too unwilling to reverse overcorrections, but the only way to really address that would be more frequent updates, which comes with a whole other list of issues that are not desirable.

Edited June 17, 2021 by sairence

[Gorgoff]

Where can I find those new tournament rules?

[INKS]

The only thing for me is that I'll never paint my models to be a specific anything. I wouldn't want to paint Ultramarines and then want to run white scar rules for example. It's better to just have unnamed chapter #4567 and then use whatever rules you want for the tournament. 

 

This is also true for Nids, Tau, Imperial Guard, etc. Any army really. I don't have a problem with that rule as it makes sense but it does mean I need to be a little more careful when painting.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Where can I find those new tournament rules?

 

For the tournament rules they are just using the chapter approved 2021 missions and secondary objectives. The tournament pack is on the war hammer community website.

[Blurf]

For a long long long time it was just ITC 247 but now there’s a new kid on the block. I think it’s good to not have a monopoly deciding everything. Love it or hate it how do you think geedub will affect the tourney meta?

 

Note this is not the place to take cheap shots at geedub or discuss your issues with them. Keep it clean.

They already had these events previously. Most people just ignored the results because the rules pack is so hobby focused. Also because their poor TOing allowed an Orc Player to win through slow playing so they had to reduce points to 1750. But that's neither here nor there.

If they were smart they would:

- slowly cannibalize the tournament scene, by directly organizing all the largest tournaments in each country. It requires a lot of money and manpower, but the subsequent profits could warrant it;

- improve their app to phase out Best Coast Pairings (and similar apps) and force you to use it to create the list, submit it and track your tournament progress;

- improve their app to incentivize you to use it to track your games every time you play, be it casual games or crusade games as well;

- provide a small incentive to track the result of each game in the app, like virtual achievements and so on;

- collect all the data the players now input in the app;

- balance the game and define sales strategies also based on the data collected in this way.

 

Eg:

Lots of players create lists with a particular unit? -> Produce more of that kit as there will be high demand for it.

A unit is NEVER taken in lists after a new ruleset is released? -> it may be an indication that sales will dip for that kit, some buffs may be needed. 

And so on...

 

This would have a massive impact on the tournament meta (and the general 40K meta as well).

Will they do it? Maybe, but I doubt they have the skilled professionals able to build such an app and they are apparently allergic to hire other firms to do these kind of jobs. 

 

-----

 

Remaining on the current news, an official infopack for tournaments is likely to be adopted by a portion of independent tournaments as well. 

As for the guidelines on tables and terrain, it's certainly nice to see how the game designers think that the game should be played (because it's supposedly being balanced this way). 

This is about the most dystopian thing I can imagine.