[Insane Psychopath]

Hi everone

Just spoted the ToS tournament pack up, which cover WFB, 40k & W/LotR, yep no more single one for each game set up, just one & all set up

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1240205a_ToS_Rules_Pack.pdf

By a quick read it seem to me

- No more 1st, 2nd & 3rd?? Simple the top of each race now. Also there somthing about those who take the one & only race, take Chaos Daemon as a mere exsample of one army through out that whole event, it will get some auto points.
But overall this area of the pack is confuseing me (I have a disabilty with reading, writeing, fourm of desxlyia/asperger) & it not help that it late that night/tired.

But right now it dose come across :read::dunno:

So............which 40k army rarely get taken then

- Favrout army, after round 5 you put a vote for one of your five oppents who have a army you like. By this it down to the overall army, how well it done in game, who nicely painted & the overall look of the force & also if the oppent attuide match this cool army, basicly being a sporting player & not a nob head.

- By the way it read, you need to reg your self in on the Fri night for the GT, instead of the usely Sat moring that 9am.

- With the loss of the extra round.........well my worry was you;d have a long wait from round 4 to 5 like before the 2004 era. But it seem the TpS will rap up by 4.30pm, though I'd like to see the extra round stay in, I can see this would help people who have flights, trains or to drive back home.
But still...........extra game of our favrout hobby.
For me mean be home by 10.30pm instead of Middnight.

- Mission are basicly from the rule book, though a bit random that WFB will stick with pitch battle. Just the new rule book has a lot of mission & last year GT they had a lot of mission try out. Just from what I have read in 8th Ed, I not came across any pitch battle mission (then again I been looking that the model/painted area more). Just thinking more for someone who has just started the hobby or not played since 5th ed & return to the GW hobby.

IP

 

[Lash Machine]

Just read the pack and whist it is an interesting idea, it does not grab me enough to spend the money to go to Warhammer World for one of these events. On the other hand it does open up the event for all armys to play on almost an equal footing but you could get a rather odd overall champion. The example they gave of 4 Elf players and four skaven players skirted the statisitcal possibbilities of the army group doing less well overall but with it's top player getting a better than average difference yet scoring less than the the top Elf player.

The Example did not take into effect the actual numbers invovled at the event unless they expect teh new pack to only generate 8 sales.:laugh: I presume they looked at all the stats from the recent GTs and applied the new system over it to see what would have occured. If they had then I would have presumed that looking at the recent GT final the overall champion wuld have been the necron player who placed in the top 10 due to the large numbers of Eldar, Wolves, marine, Ork and chaos armies present would have decemated the average difference for all the other top armies. Comnine this with probably only a couple of Necron lists there and them probabaly not having a great day and thus he would get a big difference.

Of course this cuts the other way and say there is only one other necron player present who also does well, say placing in the top 40, and they would not get anywhere near taking overall champion. If I had the time I would download the results sheet and apply the new system to it to see how it would have panned out, but I have to go to work.

Will the throne of skulls still sell out? Probabaly.

Will the same old faces still go? Probably not. Winning all your games will not guarantee victory at all. It would be possible to win three out of five and finish top overall.

Is this a good or bad thing?

I'm not sure. It theoretically means you could turn up with any army and win which you could anyway to an extent but it is an attempt to level the playing field. It is essentially a handicap system for less popular armies which will only work for them whilst there are low numbers of them attending. Seeing as no other tournament will probabaly pick up this style it is unlikely to change competative players to fielding less competative armies.

 

[Stormbrow II]

I shuddered when I saw that Jervis' picture appeared. And the appearance of Favourite Army votes or 'I'm voting for my friend' system being introduced simply confirmed my suspicion that it was going to be dicked. They then decide that in the event of a tie-break if you haven't won the popularity contest the judges decide which is the best army roster? Subjectivity replaces transparency? Colour me fucking impressed.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Bad thing.

If someone plays 5 games and wins 5 games and no-one else does he should win the tournament. Simple. If GW spent more time on getting army books out rather than doing stupid expansions (Apocalypse, Spearhead etc) then they wouldn't have to worry about game balance (because all the armies would be 5th ed armies) and punishing players for taking 'good' armies.

I fail to see how they can please a person that turns up to a competition with an army he has spent months buying and finessing and is then penalised because another couple of lads arrive with the same army but they're shite players and are only there for a laugh. The guy who wins 5 can lose out on 1st because of the other group of lads dragging the army score down.

GW are trying too hard to please everyone. If they're trying to claim this as the pinnacle of gaming tournaments they should let it be that - a tournament.

 

[WarlordKaptainGrishnak]

I noticed this is it from a quick browse:

Warhammer 40,000: 1,500 points chosen from any army list in anin-printWarhammer 40,000 Codex

What does that mean for WH/DH armies? As GW technically said that the codex isnt in print anymore, hence the PDF version on their website? just a query...

anywho good luck to anyone participating in the tournie.

Grish

 

[Someguy]

Well stormbrow I don't think it works like that. If the other people playing your army are useless, it makes you get scored better because it looks like you have a difficult army to play.

Trouble is, this is like GW saying "We know we can't design balanced books so we give up". His ignores the fact that balance also matters outside of tournaments. A kid walking into the shop should be able to pick any army he likes and have an ok chance with it.

I don't know if I'll bother. I suppose it could be fun to use my Tau again, if not many others are taking them, but then that just seems to add a lot of randomness. If there was one other tau player I would be massively reliant on how he did, and hoping he did as badly as possible, which is bizarre.

 

[Lash Machine]

This is what I feel is the problem with it. If you want to have a good chance of winnong you need to find a non top tier army, come up with some sort of competative build to allow you to win as many games as possible, then hope that a few other people enter with the same race and do very badly.

Job done.

 

[Someguy]

I suppose a better option might be to take an army loads of people take, which tends to do badly. That way, rather than having to watch what the one or two other necron/tau/wh players are up to you could rely on the kids with smurphs to lose for you. That should reliably push the average down and give you a good opportunity to succeed.

That said I haven't seen the pack yet so I'm not entirely sure how it's calculated. If it's something other than the overall average, ignore this.

 

[nocturnalK]

lol, this is not really the best solution. I agree that they should of updated all the codex’s by now and that some armys have a pure advantage over others due to the codex’s not been level.
But this is a tournament and should not be based on list configuration or model standards but actual game play as long as the army is within the rules.
This method of reliance on the other players performance is not really sensible, if they wanted to get around the fact that at the moment the codex’s are not aligned then they should bring in a handy cap (HC).
For an example Race#A 1500pts vrs Race#B 1500pts
If it is an already know fact that RaceB has a substantial disadvantage in combating RaceA due to the current rules not being aligned or amendments pending the RaceB should be given a pre-assigned handy cap in Pts like HC 1 = 50 pts, 2 = 100 pts. These points can be assigned to the player of RaceB to spend as he wishes.
Before the tournament all they would have to issue would be the handicap table so that players can predefine what additional units to take with them in case they draw a particular race.
Then it should be played as a straight out completion of gaming ability, this alone will prove or disprove the adaptability of your army list

 

[Lash Machine]

That is a good idea in principle but totally unpracticle at a tournament. You could always give more points for winning for army B and less for winning with army A but it would be hard to adjuducate or unfair to give it a blanket scoring system as with most armies you can get some kind of competative build.

Army composition scores used at some tournaments go some way to try and balance things but they are not perfect. The use of troops as they only scoring units was brought in to try and balance the armies more which to a certain extent has helped but until GW take a good hard look at how they release their products and how to balance lists and to properly play test rules then we will always have a slightly unbalanced set of codexes. I feel that the books all released in 5th Edition have been reasonably balanced compared with each other but GW is the MacDonalds of the gaming industry and have for the past 15 to 20 years looked at sales and product verses content.

I love playing 40K but I find their attitude towards selling stuff as opposed to improving the hobby is rather frustrating to say the least. The new throne of skulls pack is essentially another way to attempt to increase sales of other products as well as maxing out on the profitabilility of the events that they run.

 

[Someguy]

Well, I'm not sure about a handycap. For one thing, ho would set it? You would never find two people with the same opinion of handycap values.

The system they are using is odd, but at least it will reflect how people actually on the day.

Personally I don't know why they are bothering. Every decent tournament player is going to pick the best army we can. If that means we don't play a particular army much, so what? F I go, I'd be more inclined to take a good army and actually win my games, rather than taking something unusual and gambling on other people.

 

[Lash Machine]

It's not as if the system encourages players to pick different army lists. If you want a competative chaos marine army you are sadly restricted to twin lash with obliterators. If I were to go I would take whatever army I would be running at the time and aim to be best of my pile.

Winning overall would then come down to luck of the draw. You do need a bit a luck to win a tournament normally but this new system relies on people playing games which you have absoloutely no influence over.

 

[Someguy]

I've now had a look at the pack. Hmm.

Coring is 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. You can get 1, 3 or 5 bonus points if people pick you s the best opponent 1, 2 or 3 times. 18 points on offer in total.

There's a prize for the best player with each army, so potential for prizes for doing "less badly than the other DH player".

Overall winner is determined by looking at the gap between the average score for an army and you final score. I'd expect the average with 5 games to be between 8 and 10, and there won't often be an 18 so a score of +7-8 should win it.

Looking at this, i don't think it's a very responsive system anyway. I think basically all armies will be close to the average score, and only deviate a point or two in either direction. Eople could take the piss and turn up with 5 patsies to boost a 6th player but I don't really see any point in doing so, other than to illustrate the pointlessness of the system. Otherwise, winning games and getting your mates to vote for you is the way to go.

 

[Lash Machine]

Just flicking through the pack again and I noticed that in each round your opponenet will be randomly selected so that unlike the swiss system that pairs players with equal tournament points against each other from round 2 onwards each opponenet will be totally random.

If you are lucky you could fight 5 poor opponenets with bad lists and totally trounce each one compared with another player who may end up playing some really good players and end up with a mixed bag.

This all means that the overall champion will probably not have fought many hard games to claim the tournament.

 

[OddJob]

Absolutely pathetic.

Why did anyone feel the need to mess with the system that sold out in a couple of days last year? It was popular and worked. Now it's another campaign weekend. Don't they already have three or four of them in the year? I used to go to the GTs for a few tough games. Now I'm not even guaranteed that thanks to random draw, and the notion of an overall winner is ludicrous.

I can't believe I'm actually angry about this (I'm generally not prone to nerd rage). I was looking forward to attending a couple of decent tournaments in WHW after missing out last year (and to building another very expensive fully converted army). Very much doubt I'll bother now.

 

[Someguy]

I do think it massively weakens the event. It's supposed to be the throne of skulls. There should not be four of them. The person who gets to sit on it should be there because they won, not because they did fairly well and other people using their army did badly. What's the benefit of saying "I got this prize that 3 other people got that year, when actually lots of other people were better than any of us". It means nothing.

Given that, I don't think people are going to bother coming from around the world to take part in the GT. I'm not sure it's worth the hassle of coming up from London. Currently, the winner of the UKGT is the nearest thing tobeing officially the best player in the world that year. They rightly earn the hatred, envy and grudging respect of their peers. Winning a prize for being the best player of an army that hardly anyone uses at an event that comes every 3 months anyway would just be embarassing.

"Bench of skulls" would be more appropriate and better reflect that 50+ people each year would get prizes. "Throne" suggests some kind of status or importance.

 

[Frank]

"Bench of skulls" would be more appropriate and better reflect that 50+ people each year would get prizes. "Throne" suggests some kind of status or importance.

The 'Throne' is what I call my daughter's potty and I think it sums up quite accurately what the GT has become - full of crap!

I've said it before and untold people all agree - the GT should be a hardcore tournament about finding out the best general in a fun atmosphere - which it has been since I've been attending since 2002! People come from around the world to attend and I completely agree with the statement mentioned above that winning a GT is like being the best in the world.

I can only hope that someone of influence from GW actually reads these forums as so many gamers agree and actually heed our requests and bring back the old style GT. To quote an old phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

[humakt]

What a disappointing set of rules. I've been going to GT's since GT2, only missing a couple in the whole time, and this is by far the worst rules pack I've seen.

If you wanted to win a GT to you had to expect a hardcore list and have to play some hardcore players, that made sense.

Over the years they have greatly improved, removing army painting scores (I did well in these but did not mourn its loss), the knowledge quiz (I once got 14 out of 20 by using a D4 to select my random answer) and best opponent (which entailed making sure you spoke to all you previous opponenet so they remembered who the hell you were when they came to choose at the end of the 2nd day).

Even after all these years of going I dont recognise the events as Jervis describes them, some kind of old boys gaming reunion. I recognise some of the people who go, but I'm damn certain none of the events team know or even care who I am, and I have probably been going to them longer than they have.

Random opponent? Just massivly shocked at this. As a general rule people knew by the second day what sort of games they were going to get (fun in the lower half of the table or nail knashers if you were near the top). Its what was expected, and if it wasn't fun why did the tickets sell out in 2 days every year. In fact when there was only a single GT a year you had to get a ticket in the first hour to have a chance of going.

Best painted army was also awesome. The judges didnt always get it right when they picked the 5 or 6 top armies, but the players would normally make sure one of the best was picked and there was real kudos for the winner. Now what do they have?

The UK had the best GT in the world, but I think we have lost that accolade if these rules stand (which I dont see changing).

 

[Wolf_Lord_Skoll]

Hehe, I've been in a comp-scored, sportsmanship-scored tournament that would more likely pick the best player better than that

 

[humakt]

They have made a clarification to how opponents are matched up. Its not completly random. Here is the relevant details from the online FAQ for 2010 ToS

Q: How are opponents selected each round?
A: In the first round you will be matched against a completely
randomly selected opponent. In subsequent rounds, the top
players are randomly matched against each other on the top
tables, and then everyone else is matched against a random
opponent in the rest of the hall. To be counted as a top player
you must have won all of your matches in the first three rounds.
In rounds four and five the top players must have won all but
one of their matches.

 

[Insane Psychopath]

FQA

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1260041a_ToS_FAQ_02Jul10_WW.pdf

Witch/Daemon Hunter ARE allowed (there was worry with them being in PDF fourm)

Random oppents are not so random after all.

IP