Several of you have touched on a problem which is currently hurting the hobby, power/tournament style gaming. Most of the Warhammer fantasy players where I live powergame and only to tournament rules. The resulting games are no fun and even seem more like working than the enjoyable hobby I think warhammer should be. I currently am in a weekly campaign tournament and am playng dwarfs because chaos dwarfs are not being allowed. It sucks that things are that way but as a gamer what can you do but roll with the punches.
I stopped by my local game store today whilst out in the town and i (may have) discovered a terrible truth!
Apparently, chaos dwarfs are NOT a legitimate army that are usable in the stores OR tournaments, is this right! Please tell me it ain't so!
Is it true and if so every time you use Chaos dwarfs in a tourney is counts as regular dwarfs? Please i need to know!
Lord maklai
Well maybe you could point your local WFB to this website. I live in a college town where we have both shops and a couple of miniature gaming clubs and we allow any army that has compatible rules. For CD's we can use the RH list or the new Indy GT rules. We have no GW stores nearby instead we have several independent hobby stores including 3 Hobby Towns USA , so theres no need of anyone quoting GW official stuff. Sometimes some of us veteran players use 3rd edition rules and do a big Frankenhammer battle for the newbys. For the players around here its not so much about official GW tournaments but just painting/modeling and battles.
power/tournament style gaming. Most of the Warhammer fantasy players where I live powergame and only to tournament rules. The resulting games are no fun and even seem more like working than the enjoyable hobby I think warhammer should be.
speedygogo
That sucks dude, I know the problem. But I dont get them I really dont. Winning is only part of the game and taking 12 power dice/ dispel dice along a nasty HtH army (or something equally sucky) isnt fun to play with or against. and it still isnt a grantee for a win.
Personally I get more satisfaction of winning if I play a friendly themed list and out manufactured/smarted my opponent.
As soon as you post something for free download on the net you can never really take it back.
BilboBaggins
Of course, but this is beside the point, isn't it?
Because, GW are the ones who took it down from their site, so they're the ones who don't want it to be available any more. So, naturally enough, their employees would follow the company line in that regard.
If a GW employee told you you couldn't use your Chaos Dwarfs in a store/at a tournament because you can't get the rules anywhere, would you really expect him to back down if you showed him a printed off PDF that he knew perfectly well came from another website hosting it? Do you think that someone working for the very company that considers that kind of thing a violation of their IP (rightly or wrongly) would be on your side in this debate?
Doesn't matter who's right. Doesn't matter what's fair. Their company: their rules. You can't get the rules legally under their definition of "legal" and they don't sell the models, so what do they have to gain from letting you use either at their events or stores?
Of course, but this is beside the point, isn't it?
Because, GW are the ones who took it down from their site, so they're the ones who don't want it to be available any more. So, naturally enough, their employees would follow the company line in that regard.
If a GW employee told you you couldn't use your Chaos Dwarfs in a store/at a tournament because you can't get the rules anywhere, would you really expect him to back down if you showed him a printed off PDF that he knew perfectly well came from another website hosting it? Do you think that someone working for the very company that considers that kind of thing a violation of their IP (rightly or wrongly) would be on your side in this debate?
Doesn't matter who's right. Doesn't matter what's fair. Their company: their rules. You can't get the rules legally under their definition of "legal" and they don't sell the models, so what do they have to gain from letting you use either at their events or stores?
Thommy H
Actually I have the Ravening Hordes book to show them, not just the pdfs. But even with the pdfs he could not prove that I didn't download it from GW USA for the several weeks that it was available on page one of the website, or years before it was up on the site. Because I did download it from the site and I have been playing them for a few years even before the the decree from GW not to allow them in GW sponsored tournaments.
Actually I have an FAQ I downloaded directly from GW US that states that the Storm of Chaos armies would be tournament legal even after the Storm of Chaos was over.
I cannot see reasoning (other than they don't sell the actual models) for the Chaos Dwarfs to be banned from the gaming tables at GW stores. People can buy Dwarf and greenskin models and convert them to CD so they are not losing sales. Heck, I have Night Goblins as Hobgoblin archers and Gnoblars Hobgoblins with handweapon and shield.
Yes it would be benficial for GW to release a CD book and have models for it, there are fans out there, but even if they release the book without releasing models they would get sales of models to be converted. Don't tell me that they don't do that, SOC had units in armies that were never released and other books had units that aren't released until months after the book is released.
It happend in all their games. In Lord of the Rings I used a converted Cave Troll, I gave him green stuff armour, as a Mordor Troll Chieftan for months until it was released as a model. I called him Tiny.
I cannot see reasoning (other than they don't sell the actual models)
That would be reason enough, wouldn't it? People see your figures, they start asking questions, and it leads to awkwardness when the staff member has to say that they're not something you can easily get any more. "Google the pdf and scour eBay" is not a good answer when you're in the business of presenting the image of being a unified hobby experience with everything under one roof.
Again, I'm not saying it's right or fair, just that I can see the logic of their argument. It doesn't look good when someone shows up with Squats or something either. You can see why they'd want to keep these models and armies away from curious eyes and the difficult questions that follow..
The more I think about it the more it gets on my nerve actually. and I think its a slippery slope if you dis allow your own models/rules. I mean whats next? I cant bring my 4dr edition dwarf hammerers to the table cos people might not recognize the models, or the 3rd edition flamethrower gets banned cos its to small. next you’ll have to show the recepts on a tournament showing that it was you who bought the models in a GW store and not from ebay.
I really should dig up my copy of the ravening hordes list, it should be somewere between all the old GW stuff.
That was actually GW policy in the mid-late 90s (the notorious “red period”) so they’ve actually relaxed their rules in that regard. You could probably show up with Chaos Dwarf models for a proxy list (Dwarfs or Chaos Warriors) and they’d just say it was cool, but playing with OOP models for an OOP army list is a slightly different situation. It may seem paradoxical, but they just don’t want to promote an army they can’t sell to people. Conversions and old models are just personal touches - a whole “personal army” is a different kettle of fish.
If a GW employee told you you couldn't use your Chaos Dwarfs in a store/at a tournament because you can't get the rules anywhere, would you really expect him to back down if you showed him a printed off PDF that he knew perfectly well came from another website hosting it? Do you think that someone working for the very company that considers that kind of thing a violation of their IP (rightly or wrongly) would be on your side in this debate?
Doesn't matter who's right. Doesn't matter what's fair. Their company: their rules. You can't get the rules legally under their definition of "legal" and they don't sell the models, so what do they have to gain from letting you use either at their events or stores?
I have happened to study english contract law, and idea of right of possesion is important there.
If GW at a point allowed certain data to print, (namely RH list) and then you bring it to the store, the actual list belongs to person who printed it. Gw has nothing to say about it, cos they have no way of proving you that you didnt print it 4 years ago.
I had a friend who used his Squats in a 40k tournament, he used them as Imperial Guard but he used them. I know proves point of using them as other army.
People using older models isn’t really a problem in GW stores, it’s just when they don’t sell a current version. But with the CD they do sell models with a little conversion can be used.
I have happened to study english contract law, and idea of right of possesion is important there.
If GW at a point allowed certain data to print, (namely RH list) and then you bring it to the store, the actual list belongs to person who printed it. Gw has nothing to say about it, cos they have no way of proving you that you didnt print it 4 years ago.
Gar Shadowfame
What? What could that possibly have to do with using the list in their stores? I'm not saying they'd take it away from you - I'm just saying you couldn't use the thing. If I print out a copy of some rules I wrote and take them into a GW store asking to use them to play with my figures, they'll quite rightly tell me to take a hike - just because I own them doesn't mean I can use their resources to play with them. Ownership is totally immaterial.
Actually there was a time that GW not only allowed people to make their own rules for armies but encouraged it.
I’m not saying they don’t have the right to stop people from playing in the store with rules that GW created for armies they sold. I’m saying that it’s short sighted for them to do so, because these people are loyal customers and are likely to buy models for other armies, or to convert for the older armies.
They still encourage people to do those things, but there’s a world of difference between saying “it’s your game and you and your friends should do what you want with it” and "please come to our stores and events and play with stuff we don’t even sell."
That’s my point. GW, as a company, are allowed to enforce their corporate policy at places they own and events they’re throwing - but that has no bearing on anything you do in your own time, nor should it. Arguing about it is silly, because they can enforce whatever policies they want. If they say “no armies except Space Marines”, then that’s their call. Their stores, their rules. It would be grossly unfair, of course, and my argument is that this particular ruling on Chaos Dwarfs (such as it is - no one from GW head office has issued some missive to saying Chaos Dwarfs aren’t “legal” any more) is not grossly unfair.
I did read the entire post… but am posting to the OP of post.
I think that what you have to do is the same thing I did.
My local store decided that Chaos Dwarfs wouldn’t be allowed at tournaments long in the past… (Mainly due to one player abusing the list and the fact that it was difficult to do the whole check and balances on the list) I successfully pointed out that in the Ravening Hordes it states that all the rules inside are to be considered fully legal until such time as the specific lists are written and released. I also had a physical copy of it. and used the fact that the US GT had given them specific errata as a point to their continued legality in the game. Fast forward a few years… the topic came up again. I again pointed out the RH statement as brought in a list of Independent GTs (which in the US are the only GTs minus Masters) We have a large number of tournament goers and I pointed out that by not having CD legal in the store they only served to keep the Tournament players who attend ill prepared to face a CD opponent in a GT.
What most of the anecdotal evidence in this thread actually goes to show is that there is no “GW ruling” about this issue and that, as ever, store managers and tournament organisers will set their own rules about what is and isn’t allowed on their watch.
4 editions!?!? Now that would have been impressive if they had written it that long ago.
You’re right Thommy, we’re in the same position we’ve been in since RH. Never totally ‘illegal’, but not fully supported and unlikely ever to be made officially illegal.
Yeah, Grim - it exists, like most GW rules outside of the books they’re selling right at any given moment, in a nebulous area of quasi-legality. It’s weird to me how people always act like GW keeps a close eye on what’s “legal” and what’s not; like they’re carefully tweaking the metagame every month and using tournaments to define how they’d like they’re game played. There was never a message from HQ saying “that’s it: no more Chaos Dwarfs”, there was never any official word on Ravening Hordes - the pdf just disappeared when they redesigned the site. It’s like old Armies books and Codecies: they just get replaced by something new. There’s never anything official to say “you’re not allowed to use these ones any more”, it’s just a common convention amongst gamers.
So people need to not get hung up on whether they can use Chaos Dwarfs or not because, ultimately, it’s up to whoever you’re playing with. If you’re at a tournament, the organisers decide. If you’re at a GW store, the manager decides. If you’re playing a friendly game, your opponent decides. “Legal” is just a state of mind.
I know proves point of using them as other army.