But please, don't level this issue at GW. It's nothing to do with them.
Thommy H
So a GW-run tournament on GW premises using GW rules for a GW system, excludes an "official" army from a GW subsidiary - and it's nothing to do with GW?
I have to disagree with your conclusion, there.
I mean ultimately, I'm really not getting upset about this - I never enter tournaments, our gaming group is more than happy to use Chaos Dwarfs and indeed other FW/WF stuff, this literally does not affect me at all; and of course in the general case, any given tournament organiser has a total right to impose whatever rules he feels inclined to - if you don't like the rules, don't enter the tournament, simples. So yeah, from my point of view, I'm really not bothered in the least.
But I still think, from as objective a viewpoint as possible, that it's a pretty poor business decision for one part of the business to declare something "official" while another part of the business refuses to recognise, because there will be customers who are adversely affected by it; not to mention that other tournaments worldwide often take a lead from what GW allow/disallow. I am well aware of the intra-office politics between FW and the main GW studio; I just don't really see why their customers (some of whom will have spent huge sums of money collecting an army) have to suffer for that. (Even though it's not me personally who is suffering).
Yes, by all means those of us CD players who do enter tournaments, it's probably a good idea to petition for their acceptance; no arguments there at all. I just don't see why in any sane world that should be necessary.
The reason is because Tamurkhan is NOT an Army Book.
Regardless of the fact that it has an army list in it, it isn’t an army book. In the same sense as Badab War has an army list in it, it isn’t a Codex and isn’t usuable in most tournaments (to my knowledge).
Exclusive of the above, it nowhere states that it is an Army Book, the rules specifically state you can only use current Army Books, it’s always up to the Tournament Organisers AND they have said that because so many people are asking, they are considering changing it for future events.
The bottom line is that they ultimately didn’t think about it to begin with, didn’t realise how popular the army would be and aren’t able to change it because tickets have already been sold and the rules have been produced - to change it now would be deemed unfair. On top of that, if people keep asking about it, they are more likely to include it in the future (which they are already considering).
Therefore, rather than complaining it’s not usable today (which is because they can’t change the rules after people have bought into it and been told they aren’t changing), why not enjoy the real exciting bit of information that they are potentially going to be usable tomorrow and then jump on the unasked request of contacting them to ask if you can use them to give them more incentive to allow them tomorrow?
Summary: No complain about what can’t be changed, instead phone and say you want to play them at tournaments, then you’ll be allowed next time around!
The reason is because Tamurkhan is NOT an Army Book.
Regardless of the fact that it has an army list in it, it isn't an army book. In the same sense as Badab War has an army list in it, it isn't a Codex and isn't usuable in most tournaments (to my knowledge).
Exclusive of the above, it nowhere states that it is an Army Book, the rules specifically state you can only use current Army Books, it's always up to the Tournament Organisers AND they have said that because so many people are asking, they are considering changing it for future events.
Hashut's Blessing
To clarify: The IA books do not use the word "official" like Throne of Tamurkhan does. It is my firm belief they included the wod "Official" for a very specific purpose.
Thommy H has an excellent post somewhere though regarding the word "official" in relation to GW products.
And I agree, if you want to use them in GW tournaments, then get mailing. That's what I did.
The reason is because Tamurkhan is NOT an Army Book.
Hashut's Blessing
The Storm of Chaos book wasn't an army book either. It was a book that contained a lot of alternative army lists such as the Dwarf Slayer and Dark Elf Cult of Slaanesh lists. These lists were all "allowed" at the Games Workshop Grand Tournaments back in the day. Tournaments that are actually ran by Games Workshop are non-existant in the States anymore. They hold a single, end of year tournament for those that finished in the top 2 spots at all the various Indy GT's that are held across the country. So far, as far as I know, every Indy GT that's been scheduled since the release of the Tamurkhan book "is" allowing the LOA list. Having said that, my local gaming store holds a yearly Contest of Champions tournament series (a single day tournament of 3 games, held every other month). You get prizes for each tournament but you accumlate tournament points and at the end of the year, the person with the most tourney points get a big prize. He's not allowing LOA, but is allowing RH. His reasoning is the same as most others that aren't allowing it. He thinks getting the book is prohibative. I've tried explaining to him that that train of thought is only valid if you truly believe every player goes out and buys every army book, which simply isn't the case. Even back in the days when they were $20, I never bought every book. I've been playing for 20 years and in that time I've never owned a Dwarf, Empire, High Elf, Wood Elf, Brettonian, Ogre, Skaven or Orc & Goblin book and I've managed just fine.
I guess that’s bad luck then. But, again, responsibility rests solely at the feet of the tournament organisers. Warhammer is not a tournament game, and tournaments don’t determine legality in the 99% of games that don’t take place at one. A tournament is just a particular event with its own particular rules.
Nonetheless, I think HB’s point is that the burden of proof does rest on players who want to use the Tamurkhan rules: it’s not unreasonable to expect to have to ask to use them in an environment where people are that concerned about what’s balanced and fair. FW rules don’t normally get a pass, and while this is an unusual situation - how else do you use your army in that kind of setting? - I think the issues of availability, of it being an unknown quantity, of it originating outside the main GW studio, of it being contained within a volume of elaborate campaign rules clearly not intended for competitive play and of legitimate concerns about balance and complexity (how exactly does an Iron Daemon work again…?) make being ambivalent about it a pretty valid position for tournament organisers.
Come on, everyone: did you really think a FW army was going to be as accepted in this environment as one with an actual Army book? Is anyone actually surprised about this kind of thing?
Come on, everyone: did you really think a FW army was going to be as accepted in this environment as one with an actual Army book? Is anyone actually surprised about this kind of thing?
Thommy H
I guess I shouldn't be, but was hoping that after playing a "fringe" army list since 1994, that we'd finally have something that is considered a normal, legal, official list even if produced by Warhammer Forge. I'm primarly a tournament player, so this really matters to me. It's not that I'm ultra competitive or anything, it simply comes down to my availability. I find scheduling 3 to 5 tournaments a year (even if I have to travel 3000 miles) is a good way to get in a weekend of gaming with a bunch of friends that are from far away places that I only get to see when I go to these events. What's wierd is that I got to play my RH Chaos Dwarf list at GW Grand Tournaments up until 2008 when they finally said, no more CD's or Dogs of War (I even placed 2nd overall at Baltimore and 3rd overall at Seattle back in 2003). Luckily, it seems that the majority (if not all) of the the tournaments I'll be attending are allowing LOA. I hope that once we get a full tournament season under our belts with the LOA being allowed at a good number of events, the others will come around and realize the list is fine and allow them as well. If we're really lucky, players that never thought of playing the army will see them at these events and get motivated to start a CD army of their own.
After re-reading an earlier thread I started regarding fairness (and the legality) of LoA Chaos Dwarves, I figured it was time to actually ASK someone at FW if they intended it to be an “official” army book, which should be allowable at tournaments.
Here’s my e-mail to ForgeWorld:
Feb 28 (10 days ago)
to forgeworld
A debate is emerging among Warhammer Fantasy gamersregarding the option to incorporate Chaos Dwarves units into a Warriors of Chaos army as specifically mentioned in your recent Throne of Tamurkhan book comprises an “official” list. Some have used the reference on page 105 that says “As well as all this, also included in this section is a Chaos Dwarf ar my list for the grim Legion of Azgorh. This should be considered an official army list for Warhammer.” Is the last sentence in this quote to mean that the joint WoC/CD list not an official list?
Thanks,
Jason Brown
And here’s the (rather abbreviated) response I received:
Hi,
Thank you for your email. All the army lists in the Tamurkhan book are official lists.
Thanks,
Simon Kirkham
Forgeworld
So if both the combined WoC/CD and the LoA CD lists are considered “official”, why shouldn’t they be allowed at tournaments?
Because tournaments can set whatever rules they like. They aren’t the arbiters of Warhammer, nor are they bound to abide by the rules and army lists as written.
As said - it is not the writers of books that determine what is legal at a tournament, only the tournament organiser.
What this means is that whoever organises the tournament (Warhammer World Events team) chooses the army lists that will be legal (all Army Books, not Tamurkhan - it’s not an Army Book and it’s been asked by multiple people and clarified as no) and chose for Tamurkhan to not be allowed.
Regardless of it being official, it is not legal. These are two different things - official means it is endorsed by the rules of the game and legal means allowed in that particular setting.
I’m not sure when the difficulty in believing this lies, lol. Why not ask for it to be usable in tournaments if it bothers you? In which case, it will be in the next set of tournaments and you’ll be appeased
I think it might be funny to run a tournament and ban the new Vampire counts army because nobody would be familiar with the rules yet, and I’m TO so what I say goes. Might just ban Bretonians too just for the hell of it.
I do find it odd, Tommy, that you seem to have no problem accepting this tournament ruling, when you commented relatively harshly on the ETC ruleset, and their “retarded” ruleset.
Not that I’m in favour of ETC - far from it - but I don’t find much of a difference between banning item combinations/giving extra points to armies, and banning a legitimate warhammer army. As you said in that thread, Warhammer already has an internal balance structure built into it. When a community as generally vocal as we have been in the past simply rolls over and says, “fine, the only list we’ve been given in twelve years is illegal. We’ll go play by ourselves.” whenever an organiser bans the armylist, it is effectively condoning the action. At a time like this, with so much momentum behind us {Warhammer Forge still releasing miniatures for us, etc}, we should be uniting as a group and organising efforts to convince tournament organisers across Canada, the US and Europe.
That last part isn’t to imply we should be jerks to people, but rather attempt to inform as many organisers as possible as to the ruleset, other tournaments that have allowed the list in the past without hitch, etc.
We didn’t give up when we didn’t have a list, I don’t expect we should give up when we finally have one.
I think regardless of past efforts and such by the cd community as a whole, this is the best era for CD players to gain acceptance among the broader community.
I neither agree nor disagree with any tournament ruling, because I don’t play in any tournaments. But I a) respect the rights of tournament organisers to twist Warhammer into whatever shape they see fit and b) can still have an objective opinion on whether that twisting is a good idea or not.
The ETC guys have a hypothesis, which is that Warhammer is broken and they need to fix it. That’s what I have an issue with. If they were just making a tournament ruleset that represented, say, a particular campaign or other scenario (so multiple Hydrae have some kind of fluff reason for not being allowed, for example) I’d probably be okay with it. But, explicitly, their aim is to push their weird powergamey agenda.
No one is leaving LoA out of their tourneys because it breaks the game - they’re just a bit cagey about FW rules, which is perfectly understandable.
See how insidious their nonsense is? Warhammer is fine. 99% of players use the rules as written and have a perfectly fun time. The posters on Warseer and the like are a vocal minority who have enough of a chip on their shoulder about their toys that they have to constantly complain about it on the internet. They aren’t an accurate cross-section: they’re just noisy.
1)See how insidious their nonsense is? Warhammer is fine.
2)99% of players use the rules as written and have a perfectly fun time.
Thommy H
1)I will have to disagree.
the game is not balanced. if it where,we would not have expressions such as top-mid-low tier armies and we would see more armies in tournaments.
2) tell that to beastmen,wood elf, brettons and Tomb kings players that face armies like daemons and dark elves. plus i believe that the players of such armies are more than 1%...
I’ve never heard those terms used anywhere outside of the exact kind of crowd I’m talking about. Look around this forum - do you see them being used? We have people playing all kinds of armies, including several successful tournament gamers, and yet that kind of discourse just doesn’t get thrown around because it’s got more to do with the prevailing culture of debate than any objective facts. If the received wisdom is that Warhammer is broken, people pick up on that.
Here is the thing: Warhammer is not such a finely-honed system that you can read much of anything into individual results. Do Wood Elves get beaten by Dark Elves? Sometimes. But it probably goes the other way much of the time too. There are no figures for that, nor should there be, because the game is often governed by random chance and, this may come as a surprise to you, but some players are just better than others. Sometimes it’s not about which army you picked. Isn’t that the whole point of tournaments anyway?
My wife plays Wood Elves, one of the armies you just cited, and a few weeks ago we played a game. I was Vampire Counts, the newest army in the game. It was a massacre in my favour. So are VC broken? Or, perhaps, did it have more to do with the fact that I am much more familiar with and invested in the game than she is, know way more about my army than she does hers and am just generally a more experienced general?
I’ve said this over one billion times now: Warhammer is a game not a sport. The aim of the game is to win, but the aim of the overall endeavour is to have fun. Games in which both players have an equal chance of achieving that first aim best satisfy the second one (although not always), and I’d argue that that’s the case 99% of the time.
It is almost never a foregone conclusion which army will win a given battle until the dice start rolling. That’s all you can ask for.
