Method:
Good post thommy.
I will say however (at least here in the mid atlantic usa) that i have never met warhammer or 40k players than arent involved in the tourny scene regardless where i have lived.
at the very least every wargammer i have met over the past 15 years plays in store run rtts.
The game is more tourny focused than people realize.
the players make it that way (at least in my region)
Thommy H:
I think that’s an American thing. You guys are crazy for that stuff, it seems.
JMR:
I will say however (at least here in the mid atlantic usa) that i have never met warhammer or 40k players than arent involved in the tourny scene regardless where i have lived.I've never met anyone who plays in tournaments or plays in a GW store even.
at the very least every wargammer i have met over the past 15 years plays in store run rtts.
The game is more tourny focused than people realize.
the players make it that way (at least in my region)
Method
Bitterman:
No-one in our gaming group (of 8 or so) plays in tournaments; but the guy who plays Wood Elves hasn’t won with them in three years, but he has won with his High Elves. My Bretonnians haven’t even scraped a draw in as long as I remember, but my Dark Elves and Chaos Warriors more than hold their own. And so on.
(Of course, a side effect of this is that those Wood Elves, and my Bretonnians, rarely get taken any more; which, granted, means it’s unlikely they’ll win a game if they’re not being used, but who wants to play a game knowing they’re going to get spanked? None of us decided, “Warseer says army X is crap so I won’t use them any more”; amazingly we have minds of our own, and realised, “I haven’t won a game with army X in over a year and they’re clearly inferior in every possible way to army Y; I really don’t feel inclined to use army X”. Lucky we have other armies to fall back on really, I can easily envisage people with only one army just giving up playing).
It’s not just tournament players who care about balance; and Warhammer’s balance is a bad joke, intentionally, by design. It seems bizarre for anyone to claim otherwise, and even more bizarre to confidently claim that 99% of people they’ve never spoken to must agree with them.
Thommy H:
And yet here I am! You just said yourself that the guys with those armies never bother to use them. How many times has the Wood Elf player even used them in the last three years? Enough to have played the newer armies several times in order to adapt to their tricks? Or did he perhaps have a couple of games with his old list, get annihilated and decide therefore that his army was underpowered and not worth using any more?
Maybe I’m wrong: maybe you guys have had the time to comprehensively test every possible combination of armies and units against one another and have concluded, after plotting all the data onto a graph and using various standard deviation techniques to smooth the anomalous results out, that it can be categorically stated that all possible Wood Elf armies will lose to all possible other armies more than 50% of the time.
I’d be interested in seeing that data if you have. It would settle a lot of stupid internet argument like this one.
Bitterman:
This is exactly my point, though. The Wood Elf player has no desire whatsoever to play every possible combination of WE army against every other possible army in the game just to “prove” to your satisfaction that the army is underpowered, because playing with an army that is so self-evidently underpowered is no fun and he wants to enjoy his games. Hence, balance matters even to non-tournament gamers, QED.
I’m not sure how you can make claims about the 99% silent majority to whom you ascribe whatever opinions you feel like, then criticise me for not providing mathematically sound evidence and statistics! But, whatever…
Thommy H:
Well I was being facetious - I’m really saying that the burden of proof is on you to say that something is wrong with a game that seems to be fairly popular as written.
Hashut’s Blessing:
To solve the debate I will point out that my fiancee has played her Wood Elves against my vampire Counts and trounced me every time - she was still learning, I wasn’t going easy on her, no particularly good/bad luck and I’ve been playing for 12 years. Bottom line, all armies are viable. She wasn’t powergaming and I was underpowering my list, so clearly the Wood Elf player was still using old lists/tactics and wasn’t adapting to the change in playstyle through sheer obstination - I’m not saying test everything out, but if you find something never works against something else, why not change the variables: I.E. switch a unit here or there, change an approach of attack, change the magic items on things, etc.
Before this gets any further off course, I’m going to say clearly: If this does not return to the Legion of Azgorh list not yet being usable in tournaments, but if we pressure GW enough they will be usable in tournaments discussion, then I will lock this thread.
Samanos:
Before this gets any further off course, I'm going to say clearly: If this does not return to the Legion of Azgorh list not yet being usable in tournaments, but if we pressure GW enough they will be usable in tournaments discussion, then I will lock this thread.Well personally i dont worry about that. ETC has allowed them and since i play ETC i'm ok. I believe its only a matter of time before more tournaments allow them. of course we have to do our best and ask them to allow them to show that there is an interest to this army by the public.
Hashut's Blessing
tvandyke:
Well personally i dont worry about that. ETC has allowed them and since i play ETC i'm ok. I believe its only a matter of time before more tournaments allow them. of course we have to do our best and ask them to allow them to show that there is an interest to this army by the public.Like I said earlier, I know of about 10 or so tournaments that have already occurred or signups for them are happening now that "are" allowing the LOA. These are tournaments in the US and Europe. I've only heard of 2 or 3 tournaments so far that "haven't" or "aren't" allowing them. If that trend continues then I think those of us that play in tournaments and play Chaos Dwarfs will be just fine. I don't want to get off topic by commenting on the whole balance thing, but I'll say this, Games Workshop is a company that makes it's money selling miniatures. Their rules and marketing are geared towards that goal first. Game balance is an afterthought. If they think that giving a model or unit really cool rules will sell models, they'll do it. They don't care if game balance gets thrown out of whack as a result (they playtest and if they find something is really out of whack they'll adjust it, but not as much as you'd think). Sit down and talk to some of the game designers if you get a chance and you'll know what I'm talking about. They're really not looking at how a particular army will perform in a tournament setting. They're looking at designing what they think is a cool, fun army to play and hopefully sell a bunch of miniatures. Then it's off to the next project.
Samanos
Method:
Good Summary tvandyke.
I do think in regards to tournys, the momentum is on LOA’s side.
As far as TO’s and GT’s and tourny players go, typically the smaller GT’s match up with the greater consensus of the Tourny players by-large and what restictions and such of the larger GT’s.
With ETC and Adepticon now using the LOA, i truly believe, now it’s just a matter of time, for 90% of the other GT’s to follow suit. (in fact all the SE state’s GT’s are know allowing LOA)
khedyarl:
Is Adepticon officially using LoA? If so, that’s great news, a massive american and European tourney using the ruleset is a hell of a good start.
tvandyke:
Is Adepticon officially using LoA? If so, that's great news, a massive american and European tourney using the ruleset is a hell of a good start.Yep, it's the only CD list they're allowing which seems to be the trend at 9 out of every 10 events I'm seeing. Looks like the amended the original rules packed to include LOA. Here's a rules packet link:
khedyarl
Da Crusha:
since I saw all the talk about woode elfs I just thought I add a bit. recently at Bay area GT, a wood elf player went 4 wins and a tie I believe, in a tournament of 40 or so. his army was primarily based around points denial. he had a bunch of fast cav units that shot arrows and fled whenever charged. they would concentrate there fire to wipe out units.
fattdex:
Tourney gaming is huge in Australia, but regular club gaming is bigger. There are a lot of inter club friendly rivalries that go into tournament grudge match setups and many state/national champs that attract ~100 players. Anyhow, if Legion is accepted at ETC and Adepticon, I hope the flow down effect will hit everything else on the way down.