Hi guys,
With 5th in our sweaty little hands, I wanted to turn your thoughts for a second to tournaments. Now I'm not taling about the huge crazy organized ones like The Big Waaagh, or Adepticon. Those guys have plenty of staff to create pretty much whatever they want to do to keep participants busy.
I'm talking about the smaller tourneys that you play in regularly in LGSs around the world. 5th edition is a very different beast, and we have now heard Allessio's thoughts on why he made the changes he did to the core rules.
With such an emphasis on fun, the job of the tournament organizer has gotten a tad more difficult and I would like to get your opinions on what the biggest challenges are going to be and how you would deal with them in a standardized set of tournament rules. Let get the ball rolling with some obvious issues:
Real LoS: This seems like it can lead to all sort of arguments once folks start to get into the higher tourmanent tiers, and some method of quick and clean resolution will be needed that will keep both players feeling that they were not taken advantage of.
Competitive Modeling: From crawling carnifexes, to oversized ork battlewagons, to very-high flying hammerheads, folks are going to try to pull crazy stuff to gain advantage on the modeling side of things. How do you keep a tourney going and resolve compaints from players who find themselves faced with potentially abusive models.
Kill Points: As written, some armies will routinely be fielding 2-3 times the Killpoints of opposing armies (IG in particular). What can be done to balance this out?
~I'm sure you guys can come up with a ton of other examples, but I wanted to get you talking and thinking about this issue. Local tourneys can be a great way to bring together a playgroup and enhance the hobby, but we are all going to have to overcome some 5th edition hurdles first. BoLS is considering organizing all of our community's thoughts into a 5th Edition Tournament Packet that anyone can download to help get us on the road to fun tournaments. So lets hear from you guys, the designer's chair is open.
106 comments:
I have to say that I really don't see how real LOS will lead to arguments. It should do the opposite, i think.
Kill points are easy to substitute out for victory points if you think it is necessary (I don't but I can see why some people might).
Not sure if this is even relevant to this discussion, but I was thinking of a really fun way to play with TLOS. Have a random number of smoking buildings/wrecks/volcanos etc... on the table that belch out so much smoke it can block LOS. At the start of each turn players could roll a D6 and scatter die. Multiply the D6x2 for wind speed (i.e. distance of the smoke trail) and use the scatter die to show direction. This will provide completely random LOS on the table and should make things very interesting.
I see no reason why tournaments could not use victory points to help calculate margin of victory. I do, however, like that the 5th Ed. rules encourage the use of many troop squads. I would not like to see this go away. If tournament games were objective-based, the winner is clearly the one who complete objectives, while the margin of victory in these cases could be tabulated through differences in VP. In flat-out kill-em-all games, VP should be used instead of kill points.
I'm running two "Intro to 5th Ed. Doubles" Tourneys in Orlando and Kissimmee.
See also:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/213717.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/213979.page
We plan on just using the standard random 9 with the book. I'll post findings and comments after their done.
If only I were able to game more often, I would be very concerned about the imbalance you've presented with 'kill points' in Guard armies: it's potentially very problematic!
I noticed it in the leaked pdf file, and figured GW would put in a more balanced system - evidently not.
Could it be replaced by rounded-up (or down) victory points maybe?
Hmmm...
- Drax.
[who is also concerned about how easily his tanks can be prised open now, but otherwise very happy with 5th Ed.]
Real line of sight while "fun" is a tournament killer- there are a few people in my local gaming club that I will not play with now 100% since they argue everything to the letter- with area terrain it was one thing, true LOS another.
What about that crawling wraithlord? Since it is not a "standard" model can I request not to play it? Either kill my sportsman rating, or maybe loose the game to it.
Personally, I like the kill points idea- IG are dominating in 5th and 3 bassies, soon to be up to 9 in the new IG codex needs to balance out somehow.
Real LoS: laser pointers should solve most of the problems here.
Competitive Modeling: My advice? If in doubt, the model has the same dimentions as the standard citadel model (battlewagons not withstanding). Either that, of if you think someone is gaming the rules with creative modeling, it is the tournament organizers call to allow the model to play or not.
Kill Points: Kill points suck for armies with lots of units. On the flip side, objective missions suck for armies with few units. I see absolutely no problem with kill points the way they are. IG gets a huge boost in objective missions, but the opposite in kill point missions. It is balance. and this is coming from someone who plays an army with lots of units.
Voodoo Formation !]
I imagine the Kill Point problem with regard to IG will be resolved in the new codex. Probably one Kill Point per platoon, not one kill point per squad (since there are 3-6 squads per platoon).
actually I'm really worried about the competitive modeling bit. I think TLOS can be solved with a laser pointer, but I'm not sure how to handle the modeling portion.
I'm about to assemble my chaos daemons (what, a whole army sitting unassembled in boxes?!), and I can't help but think I will be getting creative with posturing to take maximum advantage of the new rules. It feels chincy as hell. I suppose it works both ways though- think of SM snipers, some models are crouching, others standing. Sure the crouching models are easily concealed behind a low barricade, but they also don't get to shoot over that type of terrain either.
As far as kill points go, I think it really screws armies that specialize in a large number of small squads. Victory points seem like a much better way to handle it. Another solution might be to reduce kill points to a common denominator for both armies, and score victories in terms of percentage of kill points available. After all, you deserve more credit for wiping out a squad of 10 terminators than you do for a squad of 8 gaunts. Sigh...
The back of the BRB (pg. 300) does indicate that you can use Victory Points for situations like tournaments, so I don't see why that would go away for competitive tournaments.
More friendly competitions could use KPs or some home-brew hybrid for KP missions.
Would your booklet include pre-official FAQ solutions for 5th questions that arise (since I am sure there are going to be a lot as people sort through 5th edition on a massive scale).
-Jim (AMM realgenius)
Patrick said...
I have to say that I really don't see how real LOS will lead to arguments. It should do the opposite, i think.
Then you never played Necromunda. Some of the worst gaming arguments I've ever had were in that game with its TLOS system.
One person insists its half covered, then other insists its not. Voices get raised. Its brutal.
My gaming group is really chill for the most part so it shouldn't be a problem at home, but in tournaments its going to be hell.
When discussing terrain I'll probably ask that all tournament terrain on bases is area terrain and everything small like barrels and barricades are TLOS.
Kill points is a terrible system. Should have done it where there are, like, 3 designated units per side that the other team has to kill, choose the winner like in Apoc. I dunno, maybe you pick two, opponent picks one, or something.
@patrick
If you can't see how true LOS will lead to arguments, your memory is too short. There was a reason they got rid of it the first time round.
I've played two games with TLOS so far and although everything else in 5th. Ed. is great and fluid TLOS is just silly. The terrain in my gaming club just isnt meant for it and most of the game time was spent waving that stupid laser around to see if it actually paints the target. Then there were still arguments because in most cases the laser is not actually where the model is (you cant litterally replace the model's head with the laser) and that small difference in point of view makes ALL the difference.
The problem with dropping KP all together for tournements is that Mech Eldar are still on top with victory points. They can simply do VP denial and then even if they just kill a few of your units, they'll win, since they have 1k points tied up in unkillable falcons.
TLoS should work itself out. Worst case, a laser pointer should settle things.
KPs I don't understand the bellyaching over. Yes, it screws over armies with lots of small units (like IG). Those same armies, though, benefit greatly in the other missions. In 2/3rds of them games, it'll work really well. In 1/3rd it'll suck. That's close enough to balance for me until the new codex.
Competitive modeling is the one I'm worried about. Shy of telling someone they're an asshole and sending them away (my first inclination), I'm not sure.
The TLOS "arguments" are stupid to the extreme.
4th ed was still largely built around true LOS. Cover saves were still dependant upon actually seeing the enemies. The exceptions were area terrain, models that weren’t in combat (didn’t block any LOS), and models that were in combat (blocked LOS by abstracted model size).
Hell, most of the broken stuff people are bitching about for 5th ed were possible in 4th ed.
i've found that core-shooting armies are way, way powerful in 5th with all the games that i've played. they can really smash most armies if used correctly. however, kill point-based missions balance this out and almost guarantee that they lose. if you want to take an IG list that has 180 models in it to an event, then you should be prepared to run the gauntlet and risk losing a game to kill points. that's just the way it will have to work unless someone wants to tinker with the rules (which i don't recommend).
Easy, bring sport back into tournaments:
Increase the points allocation you can gain via good sportsmanship. Even if a few unsporting players give you a low score (for no real reason) those sporting players there will give you a high enough score to rectify this. Basically, rules abuse/unsportsmanlike/un-fun behaviour occurs not because it is a competitetive tourney but because too many points are directed solely at winning.
Tournaments are the fuel that drive competitive doucbebag players. If room exists for abuse (and TLOS provides plenty of room), you can expect unsporting players to make the tournament scene even more of a pain in the ass.
Coming soon in Codex: Space Marines - low riding Predators and Rhino's! "For the Emperor, esse!"
The competitive modeling is where the problem is going to be. As it was somewhat in the Rogue Trader and Battle Manual era. The solution, as I see it, is going to rest with the individuals running the event. They will have to walk around through out the day to see what people are playing with, or respond to player comments, and impose a punishment in the form of negative points to models that are widely non-standard—whatever that is.
I really like the multiple victory conditions with primary, seconday and tertiary.
For a tournament I would run each of the 3 mission types as the primary. I'm thinking victory points as the secondary. And something related to the primary as the tertiary.
Usually the secondary and tertiary add up to the primary so something like. 8 5 3
For example:
Game #1
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Highest cost enemy hq destroyed
Deployment: Dawn of War
Game #2
Primary: Forget what it's called but the 2 objective scenario, where there is one in each deployment zone.
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Have more units in your opponents deployment zone than he has in yours.
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Game #3
Primary: Objectives
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Control more table quarters.
Deployment: Spearhead
This gives a good mix and no army would get hosed for all three objectives in a game. Plus for multiple different tournaments you just mix up the deployment rules and the objective rules.
I think most tournaments will have to hava caveat such as:
"Modelling done for excessive in-game benefit will be penalized. All judgements passed by the judging staff is final."
Either that or I like the if in doubt look at the standard gw model for the fig.
When it comes to KP, I think the simple solution is to change how Kill Points are counted.
Right now we just count up the total destroyed units, including transports and ICs, with whoever kills more wins. Perhaps instead we count up the total and see what percentage of the opponent force you killed, basically, simplified VP.
So for sake of argument you have guard with say 60 KP on the table versus marines with 15. If the guard kills 10kp of marines. The marines would have to kill greater than 40kp for the win. For those nay sayers simply remember ho quickly guard KP will add up every command section of 4 dudes, ever junior officer etc.
-Mike
In 4 years of going to Adepticon, the only argument/discussion/rules clarification we had with EVERY other team we played was terrain. Everyone played it differently, everyone had different definitions of what was area terrain, what height it was, how that stuff worked, etc. It was a MASSIVE pain.
I think TLOS is a boon, not a burden, to the tourney scene. Yes, there will be arguments about whether a vehicle is 50% obscured or not, but as someone already pointed out, that same situation existed in 4th.
" 1/3rd it'll suck. " What an AWESOME sentiment! Would anyone want to even play the match if they know they've lost at the onset. Team A has 13 potential KPs, Team B has 5? Team A can annihilate the enemy down to one man standing and still lose?
And the argument that races that don't have troops are hampered in some mission types are hampered because they choose not to field troops - aka. screwed by choice, not by rules.
quote...
Then you never played Necromunda. Some of the worst gaming arguments I've ever had were in that game with its TLOS system.
end quote...
I have played necromunda. Also 4th edition where true los was supposed to be used the majority of the time. It isn't a problem, if there is a disagreement just knock one off the cover save and move on.
If someone has so much of their self esteem tied up in winning a game with toy soldiers then it doesn't really matter how explicit the rules are - they will find something to exploit and make the game unfun.
I would rather have it be fast to move on to the next, and believe me, i have played in some crazy competitive leagues here in Southern California.
I think it is really only more of a problem in theory than in practice.
For those who believe that IG have a huge advantage over other, smaller armies in objective missions, obviously have never played guard. Smaller armies are much more durable than large, ponderous guard armies. Guardsmen can be wiped out by the squad by any concentrated anti-infantry fire. A large meq unit can easily hold an objective longer than a guard platoon.
Kill points should not be used because the system is so one sided. a minimum guard army has 7 units. guard armies rely on many weak units to overwhelm their opponents.
just my 2 cents
-eddie
Re: Kill points
To all of you who are worried about wiping out the other side but losing because you lost more kill points than the other guy, remember if you wipe out the other side completely, YOU WIN PERIOD. If you lost 50 kill points of guys and completely wiped out his force of 5 kill points, you still win.
KP are good as they are. they suck for some armies but its those armies that benefit from the other missions most.
shure if you play 180 guardsmen it is easy for your oponent to get killpoints but on the other hand its damnc razy hard to kill every single one of them to get them off of mission points.
on the other hand you have tau gun drones for vehicles. cheesy 2 drones give 1 Killpoint but on the other hand those unit you ahve to spend a whole shooting phase/assoult phase on to kill could mean your 20 marines dont count for shit on a mission objective.
if ppl design their armies around killpoints as well as mission objectives it is good game. if they take the gamble and lean heavy against one of them its good as well (just take an old 4.edition army and battle it in killpoints mission against a new 5. edition army which is tinekred to take objectives. it will be a slayfest for the old list as it is more suited to kill!).
"Team A can annihilate the enemy down to one man standing and still lose?"
Tournament scenarios will likely be more complex, with multiple objectives. In a friendly game, who cares who wins if both players have a good time?
Oh, and as for Voodoo Formation, I've already said that that's not a legal interpretation at our tournament.
The biggest issues to me are Kill Points and the relative cookie-cutterness of lists I've seen since 5th ed Preview books came out.
Kill Points were a terrible design decision that really is biased against armies like IG and DE for no good reason.
However, the other big issue stems from two things, Defensive Weapons as S4 and Troops Only as scoring.
As a result, I see very few heavy bolter equipped tanks or vehicles that relied on multiple S5/S6 weapons for their use. I haven't seen a single Predator since 5th Ed's release.
With these two major changes, many armies are forced into very cookie-cutter builds, with tanks being very rarely fielded as anything other than ordnance platforms or the like, and armies just spamming large Troops squadrons, which favors some armies over others again.
Also KP's further aid in cookie cutter army building. Units that were rarely seen in 4th are nonexistent in 5th.
Honestly, Tournaments can look forward to one or two lists for each army playing each other over and over. That's what I've seen so far and that's what it looks like its going to stay as.
The problem with "competitive modeling" is that sometimes it's not competitive in nature at all. My Necron Flayers are all converted to look like they're coming out of the ground, because it's characterful. Will I now be accused of "competetive modeling" because many of them are shorter and thus easier to hide?
Kill Points should be per FOC slot, scored as All-or-Nothing. So IG Platoons are worth 1 KP. Lesser Daemons (which don't take a slot" don't give up KPs.
That solves the "balance" issue because it makes potential KPs much more similar across armies.
Kill
Points
SUCK
They can be "ok" for casual games, when you can see if the armies are comparable before you decide to use killpoints, but are unacceptably unbalanced for tournament play.
As for the argument that the armies with a massive killpoint disadvantage will be superior in objective based games, I doubt it.
For starters, the only KP-Disadvantaged army that is likely to have a glut of troops is guard, and their troops arent very durable. I would much rather sit a unit of plague-marines on an objective than a guard platoon. The plague marines are at least as hard to kill, if not more so, and are worth ONE KP, as opposed to the Platoon's FOUR. (Two of which are tied up in five models)
Also, as I said above, the other majorly KP-disadvantaged army is Tau. Their major KP-disad is that the drones off of their vehicles count as separate units. Not only are they not nessesarily going to have alot more infantry troops than anyone else, firewarriors really arent very good at holding objectives.
Kill points are bad, and using them for a tournament is an extremely poor choice.
Also, Nob Biker army. 5 KP's that will kill your army.
another problem with kill points and IG is that a command platoon is worth 2 point.
5 Guardsmen= more value than a 10 man death company.
something wrong with that
First off, I've not actually played a game yet, so take these comments with a grain of salt, but I do see some problems with TLOS. I've been organizing and running local tournaments for the past 10 years or so, and I'm still continually amazed by what people will find to argue about. Where should the laser pointer be placed? Centered on the firing model? Off to the side as long as it's still over the base? Will players sit and jiggle the pointer for countless minutes in order to get that last shot out of their squads? Will one player jump to the other side of the table to see if the opposing player can "really see that model"? Yes to all of the above. That being said, I don't think it'll result in an appreciable increase in the number of arguments than what's been seen before; they'll just be of a different sort.
The way I see it, there are two good solutions to this. First, if you're a tournament organizer, work to be as fair as you possibly can in determining the outcomes of such situations, and second, make sure the players understand that once you've heard arguments, read the relevant rules (this is really key; make your decision on the basis of the rules, and not the fluff in the codex, etc.), and rendered a decision, it's final for that game. And finally, if as a tournament organizer/judge, you screw up a ruling, admit it.
Those three guidelines tend to result in several different outcomes. First, people realize that you're not playing favorites, and you're not out to screw anyone, so long as you apply the rules fairly to players whether you like them personally or not. Second, it tends to weed out the assclowns who'll argue such points anyway.
That said, there are tournaments that I personally won't play in because I know that the organizers/judges don't follow those guidelines. I suppose that could be their way of getting me the assclown not to play in their tournaments, but hopefully you get the point :)
Point 1 is a little tricky, but even if it means pulling out the laser pointers, true LoS is ultimately completely objective, and can be derived as such. Not that this will stop arguments of course.
Point 2 is much more subjective. People may have little tweaks here and there, but i guess if someone complains, then perhaps a council of 3 or so referees can make a judgement on whether non-standard models have been changed for artistic reasons or purely for competitive gain, and act accordingly.
Point 3 is simple - kill points exist only because the design team thought VPs took too long. Well, this is tournament play we're talking about, so you'll damn well take the time and do it properly. Else you'll have to patch in all sorts of caveats, especially dealing with Guard.
while true los is ok, i liked the more abstract method that 4th ed had. it made games a heck of a lot faster, with less arguing in most cases. (assuming of course terrain is figured out before the game starts).
I play necromunda. the true LOS they use is sometimes a pain in the behind, which is balanced since there are typically only a handful of guys on the board period. in 40k, you won't see an army of less than 20 guys. granted, a 40k board won't look like a underhive area though.
quick question, from the way i've been reading the 5th ed book, a squad counts as a kill point and its transport counts as an additional kill point. not only that, but the transport doesn't even have to deploy at the same time as the squad?
is this correct?
I think for kill points perhaps a percentage could be used. Sure you got 10 kill points out of my 100 possible you could have got, 10%. But I got 3 kill points out of your possible 10 I could get, 30%. Three to ten, I win anyway.
Ooooh! It's so nice to see the poor ugly damn footsloggers of the guard getting so much attention showered on them!
Frankly, I'm with John (3:24) - allocate kill points per FOC slot and it should ease a lot of the pain...but then I'm only familiar with a small handful of armies: would this actually work?
@ Mark (3:44) - nice use of "assclown"! I like it - I think I'll try to use it more often in conversation!
@ anyone - What's a "voodoo formation"?
- Drax
True line of sight is easy. Get a damn markerlight.
its the simplest thing to use. Tournaments should have a couple of them.
as for "creative" modelling, simple rule. if the model is positioned in such a way it is at half its optimum height when glued directly on the base, its either not used, or counted as being twice as tall.
The very inclusion of the VP section tagged onto the back of rulebook demonstrates how pathetic the new mission system is.
REVERT BACK TO 4TH!!!
Kill points are awful.
Remember guys, lets keep it civil.
I'm also curious as to how killpoints are being recieved in your local groups. Over here, we are already seeing lots of friendly re-rolls of the mission dice if killpoints comes up and both sides are widely disparate.
Basicly folks only have so much time to spare playing a game, and if they are going to lose unless they wipe the opposing army to a man, they would rather just play another mission, or find a new opponent.
the true line of sight MAY be a problem for people who aren't used to it, but we have spent years playing with it in the earlier editions. So there really is no drama with it.
Any arguments about cover? roll a d6 or get an impartial person to decide.
Modelling wise, you can have a crawling wraithlord, but the wraithlord has to be able to see the enemy it is shooting at, so it works both ways.
(think small mirror periscope for these issues and you should be fine)
But the laser marker will cover most of the issues as well if you have one.
KP could be a problem in tournaments, but you may see custom tournament set ups to cover off this problem. Otherwise there will be NO chance of me fielding an IG army in a tournament.
Yeah, kill points are ridiculous as written, both from a rules prespective and from what makes sense in the game universe. It is nonsensical to think that a player should be rewarded equally for wiping out a 50 point grot & slaver squad as compared to an upgraded Nobz biker unit clocking in around 500-800 points. VPs were a pain to add up sometimes but at least they were somewhat fair. Fighting just to kill the enemy makes for a more boring and less strategic game in my opinion.
New missions are needed to add to the two objective based ones in the book. These could be a rehash of the dozens of mission variants that floated around tournaments a while back. I liked the points system variants that rewarded more than one thing.
Here's my proposal for a generic mission:
+1 point per HQ killed
+1 point per claimed objective (troops only in keeping with 5th)
+1 point if the enemy's most expensive unit is destroyed or broken (choose if there is a tie)
+1 point if you end the game with at least one intact unit or undamaged vehicle in the opponent's deployment zone
+2 extra points if you annihilate the enemy / auto victory
This system allows for multiple, more realistic goals within a game and also shows you degrees of victory. So, in a tourny you can just add up total points instead of a simple win or lose system. I think that this would be a lot more fun.
You could also bring back emmissarys / messengers / mobile objectives and watch them bounce around like a football.
I like kill points; but I think
for tournament use they should be
slightly devalued. Might look like this:
For every fourth kill point one of the forces overlaps the other, the overlapping army recieves one additional kill point for free at the end of the game.
Doesn't brake the idea behind the kill point rule, just softens it a little. I don't know if every fourth is the way to go but it can
easily be adjusted if needed.
Having just come from Astronomi-con I'm totally not worried about this.
Check out http://www.astronomi-con.com and see how to run a tournament. They keep them fun but they are majorly challenging because each table has a unique mission. These include multiple objectives. Only one of my games had victory points and that was the only one I won funnily enough.
I just didn't have enough scoring units in my all Nurgle Chaos Spacemarine army. I like the change to scoring units as my 750 points worth of troops was tough to kill but only was 3 scoring units in 4th edition.
I'm not worried about kill points because the tournaments I play in tend to have unique scenarios that don't always reward the killiest army especially when army composition and sportsmanship are factored in.
Kill points are a terrible idea IMO. As has been said before, (for example) a 180 model guard army is hindered by the ease in which squads can be mowed down. Some argue that if the enemy is wiped out then its all academic but #1 its still a 1500 point guard army playing another 1500 point list, the guard get no bonus and #2 its not exactly hard to reduce a inf-guard army for a few turns, kill an even ammount of units to how many you have then turbo boost a landspeeder around for the rest of the game.
However, this is completely overshadowed by the TLoS rules which is literally one of the worst rules to have come into effect. It is bad enough for games where only a handful of models are in use but when squad after squad has to deal with this and having to the same for models all over the board is just unreasonable. And on cityfight terrain, give me a break. A few friends got together to try out TLoS on a cityfight board and literally gave up after 2 turns. The worst part of it is when you have a good 50% of your lovingly converted tourney army is now effectively unusable. And i have only played against a few good friends using these rules. i dread to think what happens when coming up against the catagory of more competitive players who lets face it, generally are the better skilled players who actually turn up to club nights with aesthically pleasing armies and a healthy knowledge of the rules instead of 3 duo-chromatic rhinos standing in for a chaos baneblade.
All in all, i think it will cause many more problems than it will heal. In search of realism i think GW have gone too far. Much prefer the old half base to half base method combined with area terrain system and will probably end up staying with it outside of tournament venues.
Ever since I've seen some last few surviving Hormagaunts hiding in the back to avoid becoming a kill point, instead of fulfilling their strategic role within the army, I know for sure what I only suspected before - Kill Points are a very stupid idea.
Not only do they unneccessarily unbalance certain kinds of armies (which were in no way abusive constellations that needed to be nerfed) and produce ridiculous results (it won't feel good or right to win by kill points, if three quarters of your army were shot to pieces) - no, the KP rule produces the worst possible result as it forces people away from interesting tactical options and in-game realism towards exploiting game mechanics more directly than any other rule I can think of.
- Some armies have mechanics that rely on taking losses into account. But sacrificing a pawn or setting up a trap in a KP game now? - Too risky, since there are no expendable units anymore.
- Trying to hurt that important command unit or going for the easy but fluffwise totally unimportant clean-up kill? No brainer.
- Using deathcult assassins ever again? Maybe even firing those biovores? - Are you crazy, that's like giving away free KPs!
A good rule is one that leads to more realism regarding what the game is meant to represent, more tactical challenge, more diversity, a fairer evaluation of a game's outcome and overall more fun for the players. Kill Points contradict all of these requirements and are therefore a bad rule.
I'm fine with kill points as is. They should not be set to FOC slots, that'll encourage IG to take stealth and hide a unit in a 3+ cover save fortification so you can't get any kill points unless you dig it out, never mind that you took out the other 5 platoons in their 1 FOC slot. Sorry IG, you don't get to take up to 6 times the number of different 'units' to have to divide fire amongst, and clear off objectives, and 6 heavy weapons per Troop choice, without some form of drawback to go with them. And with those objectives showing up in terrain, it means that one unit shooting at each platoon isn't necessarily going to wipe it out in one round.
Kill points are fine.
Page 300 of the new rulebook has a section on victory points and actual says these are meant to help tournament play, so I see little or no problem.
Players that are obviously taking liberties with modeling with the sole purpose of taking advantage of TLOS rules should be penalized. Most tournaments I've seen take "army presentation" and "player friendliness" into account in some way. The player who does this would likely lose way out in both.
A lot of the complaints about Kill Points and stuff come from the fact people are just running 4th edition lists in 5th edition.
It is a new game. So start from scratch. It'll take a little time and probably the first couple of tournaments will be very lopsided until people figure out what works and what doesn't now. People need to use new lists. What i mean is that you can't run only 2 min sized troops choices in 1500 points anymore and expect to do well. And Visa Versa.
It is new game people. Use new lists. You shouldn't expect the undefeatable-list-of-doom from 4th edition to be the same as in 5th.
It'll also even out as people make 5th edition terrain.
Competitive modeling could be a problem for tournaments. A lot of problems. Maybe tournaments will have to have some check on reasonableness. Or some parameters the model has to fit in.
My 2 cents
Me and my friends prefer to play our games more realisticly, weve been playing true line of site since we started in 4th edition.
If people are going to be idiots about making crawling wraithlords and silly things like that then they need to grow up.
no this is how it works
u measure form the gun always
if the person makes the gun longer than it should be illegal model non tournament leagal
true line of sight means measure down up left right so on so fourth
some douchebag makes his speeder 37 inches in the air it can not shoot is assultcannon
some body make a crawiling carnifex its guns wont ever see the light of day
true line of sight can not be argued...laser pointer even GW thought of that
people dont realize measure from the gin not the base
there is no arguing modelling because i participate in it
for the tournament discusion my local hobbyshop has ripped powergaming douchebags a new one
5th edition helped but now playing is only 1/3 or the game
painting/modelling 1/3
sportsmanship 1/3
it is how it should be the fun balances with the hobby aspect balances with the actual game
-Competitive Modeling
Personally I see this as the biggest issue.
I think the rule should be:
Any model that's been modified or not in a full up right position, can be replaced by one that is for LOS purposes.
If a replacement model is not around and the conversion deviates to far from the norm then it can't be used.
I personally hope GW adds that to the FAQ to stop people from even trying to do wacky conversions to gain a competitive advantage.
PS: It'll also stop people from getting a bunch of models that are kneeling or prone.
The vague pinning rule is going to cause some problems. See the discussion here for more.
See the biggest problem I see, is th at if you make a rule saying something along the lines of "Any model that's been modified or not in a full up right position, can be replaced by one that is for LOS purposes." Or "any kneeling model counts as twice as big" Or something along those lines, then thats an abstraction and your not really using TLOS after all, your still using a "sorta" TLOS system.
I mean while I am worried (a lot) about creative modeling, it also seems silly to use a sorta abstract system for models, yet not one for terrain, also what if there is no model for the unit yet? How do you work this out? All in all seems like a problem.
Also kill points suck.
There's nothing competitive about "competitive modeling". If your models can't be seen, they also can't see to do any shooting themselves (or cast spells, etc.) and I doubt if a head on a base or a 1/10th normal height monstrous creature will be allowed in tournaments. As for friendly games, don't expect to find any if you're pulling manure like that.
While many are using the "if I can't be seen, I can't shoot" mantra to dismiss competitive modeling, you are overlookings its most simplistic tactic... making assault units difficult to see.
If I have a squad of Berzerkers, or a maxed out assault Carnifex, the plan will be for it to never shoot anyway.
For Assault armies the goal with vehicles would be to make small cheap ones as large as possible to block LoS to the rest of the assualt army that is moving up to engage the foe.
Thats the kind of stuff to watch out for. If you don't think it will happen...it already has.
this is my first post ever at BOLS . and i had to voice my opinion . i don't mind the modeled crouching crawling models . in fact i would encourage it just as long as there's a model that replaces it when it stands up to shoot or fight . WYSYWIG game play . if one has a whole army crawling i expect also an army modeled standing up . also when the model is crawling i would suppose it's pinned . it may not shoot , nor can it assault that turn . i can't wait for someone to do 3 variations . one version representing the model dead
There is always something, usually several things, that get abused in every version of 40K. There's nothing new about this, only the specific "thing to abuse du jour" has changed. I don't play in tournaments, never have, never will. Too much rot.
There's a section in the back of the new Apocalypse Reload book full of fun ideas using story-driven gaming and creativity. This has always been my approach since the Rogue Trader days. I build my models to maximize how they look, not pervert the spirit of the rules. That is and always has been the hobby for me. I'll leave the tournaments to the rotters and those willing to put up with them.
I'm afraid that one basic issue has me confused- on which page do the rules allow prohibition of non-standard models? Page three, column one, paragraph three is about non-standard bases, and that is all that I have found alluding to the topic.
Can someone either post here the answer or email me the reference?
I'll be playing my third 5th Ed. game on Sunday, this time with a 1750 point all foot IG army- RR as my fast attack choices..
""I'm fine with kill points as is. They should not be set to FOC slots, that'll encourage IG to take stealth and hide a unit in a 3+ cover save fortification so you can't get any kill points unless you dig it out, never mind that you took out the other 5 platoons in their 1 FOC slot."" close combat will still kill them as quickly as ever, that 3+ cover won't help them against half the armies in the game.
"" Sorry IG, you don't get to take up to 6 times the number of different 'units' to have to divide fire amongst, and clear off objectives, and 6 heavy weapons per Troop choice, without some form of drawback to go with them."" You mean the terrible ballistic skill, terrible CC ability, low morale, overcosted troopers and exorbitantly costed heavy weapons?
Are you ****ing kidding me? Also, you seem to be expecting people to play with a 180 Chamelioline Guardsmen packed with heavy weapons. What about a Grenadier army that has 20KP's but only 3 scoring units? There are tons of different Imperial Guard armies possible, far more variations than you would see in a Marine codex and much harder to switch between as well. Just because IG have the potential to be hard to kill through shooting (if adequate cover is available) and can have a lot of scoring units doesn't mean every IG army will or can.
Also, you seem to think that IG will have an easy time claiming objectives. When the hell have IG been known as the objective army in the past? The army as a whole is very static and immobile, even in 5th compared to other armies, and other armies can still contest objectives very easily. The benefit you think you see for objective games simply *does not* equate to the detriment in annihilation games.
""Kill points are fine.""
Says the poster who very obviously has no experience playing Imperial Guard.
yes i totaly agree ive had 1 battle using 5th and already weve ran into several issues
my opponent was using his orks (which he likes to heavily convert) which confused the situation even further than it usualy would have been
for example his custom dread- (which gw used to encourage ork players to build)- which was much smaller than a usual dread- but much wider- luckily were not the arguig type but if we were it could have got very heated- i hate to imagine what would happen if it was at a touramant
and there was the kill points issue- but luckily his mobs are quite big so it didnt make that much of a difference (i was playing marines)
TLOS shouldn't raise any problem, if it does then applying the "+1 cover save" rule to the targeted model(s) should do the trick quite nicely (and make you earn a few sportmanship points ;) )
I can't see that situation arise but in one particular situation: when a single model from a unit is visible only partially... In which case granting a better cover save seems reasonnable.
Competitive modeling shouldn't be a problem if the tournie organizers do their job correctly (i.e. smack down on the obvious attempts at cheating, like crawling wraithlords...) and there's always the solution to substitute the "problematic model" for a classic one as soon as someone's checking LOS.
As far as "bigger than usual" models is concerned: that's fine by me! you get better LOS but I'll do too... And you'll have trouble getting that "hull down" save, which is fine by me too.
I don't think the kill point "problem" is really a problem actually...
Two out of the three standard missions don't use kill points. Thus, a player with more troops will be at an advantage to capture/contest objectives 2/3rd of the time while he'll be at a disadvantage (conceding more kill points) the remaining time... I personnaly think it balances itself quite correctly.
Imperial Guard has always been hard to play. You don't see that many Guard lists in tournaments as it is, and there's a reason for that. Yet they remain 40ks most popular army. What does that tell you about competitive tournament play?
For my money, one of the problems with a competitive game is what I call 'the distortion effect'. When a mission is based on some form of victory conditions, what looks like a massacred army can be the victors on paper. Any form of adjudicating 'the winner' of a game is subject to this. Now, in my head, it seems to me that kill points will make this problem worse, but I'd have to play a few games in 5th to be sure.
My Guard army currently has about 15 KPs (1500 points). How about others?
For the many people using the argument for the use of KPs that armies with lots of kill points have advantages in objective taking:
A marine squad worth of Guardsmen squads does not necessarily claim objectives more easily then the marine squad itself.
Also, why is it acceptable for missions to be unbalanced? Shouldn't they all be equal and fair? Is it fun to say 'Oh well, we rolled a KP mission, there goes my chance at placing in the tournament. Maybe next time I'll get lucky* and only play objective missions.'
* Tournaments should have as much luck removed from them as possible to make it fair and tactical. You can't have a whole game rest on a D3!
I played a 5th ed tourni last weekend and it was fun.
However our army was designed for the objective style missions and with every roll off it was an annihilation game with the exception of 1 which had 2 objectives and predictably ended in a draw.
I see no problem with True LoS, it worked fine for me in 2nd edition. The laser marker will help settle those people who try to be awkward.
I don’t however like the new way of calculating victories. If they wanted a higher concentration of troops in the game then why not use the army selection criteria from Warhammer. Which I think is nicely balanced.
If they wanted more emphasis on objective play while still retaining some level of micro management for the veterans among us they should, IMHO, made the objectives worth a certain percentage of the army size. IE in a 2000pt game with 4 objectives, each objective would be worth 500pts in addition to the normal victory point conditions.
That’s my 2 cents.
I think it's strange but here in Italy the BBB was out 10 days earlier than in UK. Maybe it's because Cavatore is Italian...
Anyway here's my thought:
LOS: real LOS is argument, but a laser pointer resolve many problems. There's no much to complain: if the red dot touch the model body(no weapon, no flag, etc...) that target is in view. I played some games with 5th ed rules and LOs wasn't a problem at all
Crawling Carnifex and similars: that's a very touchy problem. Here there's even people that thinks to change bases for Skimmers to simulate the fact they can change altitude. This is very deprecable... Anyway the BBB is clear about this: only bases sold with the model are admitted. Then no ten-inch pole are permitted for Skimmers height, but only the two ones are sold with him.
I hope i'll never encounter anyone with crawling model at all...
KP: KP are used for just a mission. For the tournament position i think they still will use Victory Points (as the BBB suggests)
""Two out of the three standard missions don't use kill points. Thus, a player with more troops will be at an advantage to capture/contest objectives 2/3rd of the time while he'll be at a disadvantage (conceding more kill points) the remaining time... I personnaly think it balances itself quite correctly.""
The flaw in that logic is twofold
A: You are assuming that a greater raw number of scoring Troops translates into a huge advantage. It does not in many cases, especially when anything can contest to the last man, and IG squads for instance aren't exactly the most mobile or hardy units in the game
B: You are assuming that armies with large numbers of KP's will have large numbers of scoring units. Again, this logic is false. Lets look at Tau for instance. A single Devilfish mounted Firewarrior squad, one scoring unit, is worth *Three* Kill Points. One for the Fire Warriors, one for the Devilfish, and one for the Gun Drones.
Therefore, a Tau army with relatively few scoring units can have a very large number of KP's. A tau army with say, an HQ suit, three squads of Crisis suits, three Hammerheads, and three mounted Fire Warriors has but three scoring units, but the army has a potential 16 Kill Points to give up, as opposed to most Marine armies that give up 9 to 11 or 12.
Also, shouldn't we want *all* missions to be balanced, rather than have some awful mis-match of missions where one might as well not even set up as you stand no chance, and others where you may roflstomp someone? What sort of balanced gameplay is that?
The potential "crawling carnifex" problem, the "win at all costs" mindset, and the "beardy army list" dilemma could all be solved easily at rournaments if scoring for them were 1/3 game result, 1/3 modelling, and 1/3 "fellowship score". That would encourage people to make good (but not min-maxed) lists, to strive for better painted (and converted) models, and to try to help other people have fun.
*gasp* People having FUN at a tournament? Noooooo! :)
How about allowing each player to add a 'kill point' for each surviving unit, a la Seek and Destroy missions from 4th?
Or how about adjudicating that all Troops choices represent 0.5 kill points, and one HQ unit nominated as the army general represents 2.
I own a Guard army and I love KP games.
Personally I like a challenge...
Well, one of the first suprises is that GW has not updated their website for a "tournament pack"...in the past they wrote missions for the new edition and released them fairly close to the rules going live. To my suprise they have left that rather open ended.
I cannot tell in the latest tournament pack the bonuses are just standard from before and have no application with consideration to 5th.
Also, there will be many stores doing a makeover of their scenery. I have heard several stores mention it as a future project. With true LOS scenery upgrades are not only desired but a must.
I like the new mission section concept, but I feel they left it rather thin and could have added some other deployment zone options and missions, perhaps up to 6 to match a D6 or 11 for a 2d6 roll.
Well, here's my problem with the TLOS system. I dislike the "tiptoeing" pose of the assault marines, so I put mine up on brass rod probably about 4" in length. This made them off the base pretty high, but they looked AWESOME. Now, I always measured from the base for their LoS and shooting.
In the new system, anyone with one eye and a gun would be able to shoot at me because I am above most pieces of terrain.
To that I say "thanks for screwing up my chance at fun conversions."
I also have a friend who is converting a large ork dreadnought out of a defiler. It looks really cool, but is larger than an actual dreadnought.
I guess none of you have ever been shot at, it is always a good idea to stand up straight and walk towards the b@st@rds shooting at you. makes you look cooler and more dramatic. That 7ft tall banner flapping overhead dont wory about it they wont notice it as long as you look cool.
Um, real soldiers not only don't stand out in the open, they also don't wear bright red armor, carry huge banners or have magic weapons.
Don't be ridiculous trying to justify suddenly remodeling every model to lie flat. This is a FANTASY game and one change in the LOS rules shouldn't cause a modeling revolution.
If you want to really match wits, there are better games out there that don't require judgment calls and subjective takes on whether or not forces can see each other. 40K is a game system designed to have fun with GW's beautiful models, not to be the ultimate strategy game. But as always, there are those who would muck it up.
The problem with kill points is when an army made up of lots of very small point units goes up against an army made up of only a few very large point units.
Guard - 16 kps
Deathwing - 6 kps
Orks - 14 kps
Nurgles - 8 kps
One obvious solution is to have the winner be the one who killed the largest percentage of kps (compared to their total).
So if guard (16 kps) and deathwing (6 kps) square off and deathwing loses 3 and guard loses 7 (7/16= 43% guard losses vs 3/6=50% deathwing losses), then guard wins.
It is simplier math than victory points but still more balanced than just straight victory points.
But ultimately, for competitive tourney play, I think straight victory points are the only solution.
p.s. having an entire guard platoon be single victory point is a bad idea. You will end up with the command squads hiding for the whole game to cause VP denial... And this solution still doesn't solve anything for other armies with lots of small units (like orks, tau, dark eldar, and tyranids).
Ooh, I have an idea! How about we all get in a couple dozen games or so before we start whining like a bunch of school girls! No? Oh well.
well, since GW is demanding that all models be based on bases sold with em, i'm putting my terminators back on the small bases. :)
Re: Competitive modeling
I've recently come back to 40k after a break since the mid ninetys. And if i recall the 40k i played then was true line of sight. Models that were crounced down, lieing down, jumping, doing cartwheels etc etc were assumed to actualy be standing up normaly for the purposes of line of sight. Admitedly skimmers could pop up so it did not matter what size flying base they were on, but surely common sence should provale. Your model is crouching, however if a squaddie is crouched he can stand up, his is not crouched for the entrie engagement, or we would see more lower back injurys in the armed forces!
The real problem is the FAQ's. There are dozens of rules in the FAQ that just aren't compatible (or are broken) in 5th edition.
Liber Heresius basically lets you make a leadership test and then you get to go first!
Kudos to anonymous@09:10. :-D
I've been thinking the same thing as Bigred when it comes to modelling. Consider this much more subtle scenario... In a Chaos Space Marines army, one can field Summoned Lesser Daemons. Since the new codex, there has been no difference to the CSM army list between what type of daemons they use. Now tactically it makes sense for a CSM player to nearly *always* use Nurglings.
* They are very small and so are difficult to target and easy to hide in cover.
* They are an assalt-only unit, so they don't need to see a long distance.
* In a CSM army they aren't Swarms, and so can still hold objectives.
* As posted by Bigred in the Death Guard "Triple Vindie" army list, there is a small advantage to be gained from using larger bases when Deep Striking.
* The only disadvantage that occurs to me is that the wider base size would prevent Nurglings from passing through narrow gaps in terrain.
I wouldn't like to be a tournament judge that is asked to consider whether this would be "competitively modelling". After all, these are standard Games Workshop models being used without being converted.
I hope that in practice people are reasonable with what they do. Personally I don't play in tournaments, so I can't comment on whether tournament gamers are playing purely to win at all costs.
PS: I second Drax in asking, what is a Voodoo Formation?
The Voodoo Formation is essentially moving units together as one unit (interspersing the models between each other) so that no matter what, the squads are providing interference for each other.
like this
Unit A: M
Unit B: Z
M Z M Z M Z
Z M Z M Z M
M Z M Z M Z
Z M Z M Z M
ihave been playing 5th for a month and a half now...i am the person who said the 1/3 1/3 1/3 ruling in most of my tournies and that makes it very fun
someone said a crawling carnifex is pinned good point
it is not nearly as bad as people in 4th
"umm that is 6 inches of no cover you cant shoot me"
"lets see how many assult cannons i can cram into my army"
"lets make a tank with a custom long barrel be in the back of a terrain peiece because you shoot from the gun but because the hull is 6 inches behind cover you can not shoot it"
5th is very good very very good trust me most people will not model crouching marines maybe a few but that is for creative things lke a sword in a stone
the KP system is meant to balance shoting armies with assulty armies
shooty armies got plus 1 because of no consolidation and tlos
the tau for example 3 points for the devil fish w/squad and drones
usually rips sm's a new one
now if you can kill that you get a balance out between the destructive force I(Tau) and the less likely to win(marines)
Right now guard are screwed on a kill point mission because of how many fragile infantry units are in a guard list. When the guard codex comes out and each platoon is worth 1 kill point. Each squadron of russes is worth 1 kill point. we will be talking about how awsome guard are in annhilation missions.
At 1750 my guard army has 14 KP. That is on average 5-6 higher than a marine army. I have tested a lot of 5th edition games and I hate to be the bearer of bad news here guys...
KP's are fine. I win KP games all the time. The key thing to remember is that there are only so many turns in the game. If your guardsmen are taking cover in terrain (or even going to ground with 4 or 5 guys) then you are looking at a unit that is tough to take out in the shooting phase.
If they decide to charge you, that places them in a tough spot, you can control your opponents movement by baiting with KP's ect.
I haven't lost a KP game yet... you just have to play defensively.
The really really big problem is those FAQ's. I think our next podcast is going to be about how bad they are. It's time for a good rant-cast!
Hang on....how can moddeling be part of a hobby where you may be asked to remove youtr lovingly converted sniper, because he is sitting in a tree? or your dark eldar warrior who is jumping on a kroot carnivore? My gaurd army is completeley scratch-built, and they are not heroic stature, (games workshop, rediculousley out of proportion) they are sculpted to look like real people. If my opponentasks me to remove them because effectively, they are not GW models, I'll probably refuse.
However, because most of the guys at my club are reasonable, I'll be fine.
I see the 180 guard army brought up as the reason KP's suck. The solution... DON'T USE 180 GUARDSMEN! It's almost as if that's the point of KP. If you bring 18 scoring units you might dominate objectives, but you will be blown away in KP missions.
I really like the win/draw/loss system in the new rules. I never did like the graduated victory scale. It was very little fun to be "Victoriously Slaughered" by someone. Not only that, but playing for victory points simply doesn't feel like a mission. A mission should be a goal that you accomplish even at great cost - but accomplishing it gives you victory. This is why I always loved Alpha level. They taught you to play to the mission rather than simply kill everything in sight.
Tournaments should just record win/loss/draw for each game. All the other points should be decided by modeling, painting, and gamesmanship. This will reduce asshattery and increase the focus on fun and great looking models.
I think the point about KP being a challenge is a good one. Really small elite armies will have trouble in the other missions against things like guard infantry hordes. The fact that you might get an easy/hard mission for your army is a part of the game. It's another balance choice you have to make, and for a good player, will drastically affect how you play the army you've taken, which to my mind, is a hallmark of good mission design.
LOS will not be the problem that people think, nor will model tweaking probably be as big a deal as people on the net fear. I have a crouching Alaitoc "sniper" wraithlord. I have never had a problem using it in either way my opponent wanted to. Either he was as tall as a wraithlord, or he was wsyiwig, and as long as he stayed the same for the whole game, then it was fine. Stuff like absurdly long weapon barrels is obviously abusive, and are amenable to a shame based solution.
Tourny organizers should just disclose how they plan to deal with this stuff. Will missions have kill points? WIll judges make LOS/cover calls or will there be heavy sports scores? etc.
I am also a firm believer in the "do it ourselves" school of faq-ing rules. I'm sure between BOLS and DAKKA, the requisite brainpower can be mustered to make the tournament calls that turn out to be necessary.
"well, since GW is demanding that all models be based on bases sold with em, i'm putting my terminators back on the small bases. :)"
This came up, IG heavy weapon teams come with all sorts of different base sizes. the metal ones come on square cavalry bases! I'm putting all my IG heavy weapons on cavalry bases from now on *nods*
Regarding Kill Points:
I agree with a couple of the other posters: Make the value of kill points proportional to the number you have. If you have twice as many kill points as your opponent, yours will only be worth half as much. The big advantage of this, over using standard victory points, is that it won't influence army building strategies. Players won't be put off taking small, cheap units just because they'll give out as many VPs as an elite unit.
I also agree that lots of scoring units is not necessarily any better than a fewer number of harder scoring units.
To Stephen, and others worried about using 'competetively modelled' troops when you're not trying to gain an advantage: As long as you're clear with your opponent from the beginning 'these flayers are modelled coming out of the sand, but I'll count them as standing', and then you give your opponent the benefit of the doubt every time he wants to shoot them, I can't imagine it being a problem.
Same for assault marines on flying bases. If I faced someone with these, who wanted them to count as standing behind walls when i shot at them, I'd be fine with it, as long as he gave me the benefit of any doubt. (i.e., wasn't trying to pretend they were out of line of site while hiding behind a half-inch high wall.)
Angelic Despot
""This came up, IG heavy weapon teams come with all sorts of different base sizes. the metal ones come on square cavalry bases! I'm putting all my IG heavy weapons on cavalry bases from now on *nods*""
Just put on 3 normal base IMO. 1 Firing guy, 1 Helper guy, 1 Weapon. That way no problem at all.
I for one am glad the new Guard FAQ adjudicates once and for all that a Heavy Weapons team modelled on a single base counts as TWO miniatures, and tells us to imagine a standard infantry base beneath each one. This means I can stop treating them a bit like a two-wound creature!
If only this had been the case before the new wound allocation rules!
i sorta liked in 4th ed where if you hit dead center of the base of a hv weapons team with the small blast template, you would be forced to roll for partials since the whole base wasn't covered.
"Are you ****ing kidding me? Also, you seem to be expecting people to play with a 180 Chamelioline Guardsmen packed with heavy weapons. What about a Grenadier army that has 20KP's but only 3 scoring units? There are tons of different Imperial Guard armies possible, far more variations than you would see in a Marine codex and much harder to switch between as well. Just because IG have the potential to be hard to kill through shooting (if adequate cover is available) and can have a lot of scoring units doesn't mean every IG army will or can.
Also, you seem to think that IG will have an easy time claiming objectives. When the hell have IG been known as the objective army in the past? The army as a whole is very static and immobile, even in 5th compared to other armies, and other armies can still contest objectives very easily. The benefit you think you see for objective games simply *does not* equate to the detriment in annihilation games.
""Kill points are fine.""
Says the poster who very obviously has no experience playing Imperial Guard."
You're right. I don't play them, I don't like the Imperium. But I've played against them quite often. And I really hate having to take an objective from a horde of IG. One full troop choice costs a bit more than a full unit of Necron Warriors, but when I'm trying to walk towards an objective with one, I can't match the firepower of all the heavy weapons, and that many troops shooting at me. Death by armor save. I shoot at a squad, I may take one out, only leaving 5 more to shoot back at me. Means I have to completely destroy 1 squad each turn of a 6 turn game to completely remove a single FOC slot. I seriously don't think making it mandatory to remove all 6 to get 1 KP is anywhere near reasonable.
As for taking something with 20KP and only 3 scoring units, sounds like it's your problem. Learn new tactics, build a better army. One troop choice, 6 platoons, 6 scoring units (unless your officer doesn't count, but since I can't afford to let IG have decent leadership, they don't last long, so it's never come up.) You want to limit yourself to 3, cry me a river.
And cover seems to be what the people crying over the difference in kill points are overlooking. Put yourself in woods, get a 4+ cover save. Yeah, you might not be able to hide behind them anymore, but you still get a better cover save than you have an armor. Just like you did in 4th. If all your battles are on a plain empty table, you're going to have trouble. Take advantage of the terrain, and be happy with the knowledge that the steadily decreasing foe will not be able to handle that many different targets.
IG are not that hard to take out of heavy cover, but this is coming from someone who has teleporting terminators with heavy flamers... ;)
As long as we don't see the overwatch rule brought back in.
I will reserve my final judgement on KP until I have seen how tournaments deal with it.
""You're right. I don't play them, I don't like the Imperium. But I've played against them quite often. And I really hate having to take an objective from a horde of IG. One full troop choice costs a bit more than a full unit of Necron Warriors, but when I'm trying to walk towards an objective with one, I can't match the firepower of all the heavy weapons, and that many troops shooting at me. Death by armor save.""
If you are playing Necrons and can't get to grips with an IG gunline, you have problems other than the IG gunline. Given that you can teleport accross the board in multiple ways, effectively have FNP on everyone, have LD10 on everything, and have the ability to be just as shooty as IG (I've played against Destroyer horde armies with more heavy weapons equivalents than the majority of IG armies), you are doing it wrong. Between Immortals, Wraiths, Destroyers, HDestroyers, Lords and Monoliths, you have all the tools in the world to weather Imperial Guard shooting with T5 on half your units, 3+ armor, and a 50% chance to stand back up.
[quote]I shoot at a squad, I may take one out, only leaving 5 more to shoot back at me. Means I have to completely destroy 1 squad each turn of a 6 turn game to completely remove a single FOC slot. I seriously don't think making it mandatory to remove all 6 to get 1 KP is anywhere near reasonable.[/quote] Nobody suggested that, however as is, IG simply give away far too many kill points. You also seem to forget that IG aren't exactly the most mobile of armies, meaning they have a *very* hard time of *reaching* objectives, and on a mission like Capture and Control, they generally have to rely on holding their own objective and wiping out the opponents scoring units, not actually having a chance to take the other objective.
You also seem to be assuming that every IG player takes multiple max'd out platoons. I have never actually seen someone do so, and taking such in 5th still isn't the greatest idea in the world.
[quote]
As for taking something with 20KP and only 3 scoring units, sounds like it's your problem. Learn new tactics, build a better army.[/quote] You seem to not have a clue as to what you are talking about.
The difference between something like a massed infantry chameleoline horde and a mechanized Stormtrooper army, and say a Drop Troop army, are far greater than the difference between say, a Chaos list and a Smurf list. It's not a matter of just tossing in a couple extra units or a color scheme, but rather almost buying an entirely new army, which is exactly what it would be.
"" One troop choice, 6 platoons, 6 scoring units (unless your officer doesn't count, but since I can't afford to let IG have decent leadership, they don't last long, so it's never come up.) You want to limit yourself to 3, cry me a river."" again, its not so simple. going from an army of 11 scoring units with 65 infantry and 11 tanks, to one with only 3 scoring units out of all that, even though 60 of the infantry are identical (meaning the 3 Elites are *exactly* the same as the 3 *troops*) only half are scoring. To make such into The army you are describing would essentially entail ditching everything except maybe a couple tanks and the command squad.
and buying what is for all intents and purposes, an entirely new army.
""
And cover seems to be what the people crying over the difference in kill points are overlooking. Put yourself in woods, get a 4+ cover save."" again, assuming you have an army with the one doctrine that increases your cover save and that you can fit more than a couple units in cover.
""Yeah, you might not be able to hide behind them anymore, but you still get a better cover save than you have an armor."" You also forget that with the number of IG units likely on the table getting cover saves from one-another, they are also giving said cover saves to whatever they are shooting at.
You are still far over-estimating IG scoring capability. Objective grabbing has always been an IG weakness, and 5th ed mitigates it, but IG are still not the greatest army at objective games my any means.
What you should be thinking of, is Orks.
The thing I'm really worried about is that the sky is falling. It's true. I read it in the 5th Ed Rulebook. It says right there that the sky is falling.
Anyone else worried about also putting the cart before the horse? Or blaming a simple cool mechanic for destroying a game when it is actually douchebags and asshats who'll do that?
Well said that man!
RLoS shouldn't be an issue, if you can see it your opponent (unless he/she cant come to your side of the table) can see it too. Not to mention the Rulebook specifically calls for Head, torso, arms and legs. If this was a problem a good old laser sight/pointer or Tournament "REF" works unarguably well.
The modeling is a bit tricky. Resolutions could be anything from one extreme to another. Not allowing them, which would anger those who like the modeling and customizing, take pride in their work and don't do it for unfair gain during play. Or, allowing them, which may encourage more people to abuse it. I think a fair, simple and mutually compromising way to deal with it is allow them to use it and if any questions do arise about it, get a standard model (usually the hosting store will have a display case with one) and check the dispute using it. It's still not the best way but that's off the top of my head.
The Kill Points actually aren't that bad, even for IG, Tyranid Swarm or Ork Swarm armies for one reason. 2/3 of the time the game will be objective based, so for those games these armies will have a potential advantage. It all comes down to who plays their army better for that particular scenario. In tournaments that would benefit from margin of victory for the results I think that going "back" and using the good ol' victory points would be welcomed.
I have to argee with "fruitsmack." What is all this buzz about "True" Line of Sight? I have my 4th edition rulebook in front of me, and as near as I can tell it seems to be using true line of sight. Am I (and my whole gaming club) just stupid?
RLOS shouldn't be an issue if you decide what's what before the match starts.
Someone who won't give you the straight-up before the match starts is not someone you need to waste your time playing with regardless of what the rules are.
...and as for KPs I can understand how the IG and, defintiely the Tau (3 KPs 1 for a Squad, 1 for its' Devilfish and 1 for the Gun-Frisbees) get screwed over, just play with VPs then (it's in the back of the book).
It appears that there is only one way to make the game completely equal on all accounts in tourneys. From now on, tourneys should make the players play the exact same army on a bare table (grass mat/board optional).Tourney organizers will roll off to determine whose army list they will use and supply the models accordingly (this will need to be done prior to the tourney itself obviously).All models will be straight out of the box/blister and assembled with no variation (unfortunately this must be done by the tourney organizers themselves as players tend to be too weedy to be left to their own devices and an official GW employee will need to review said models to determine if all models meet proper GW specifications).This, of course, will force the tourney organizers to raise the price of entering the tourneys to offset the cost of the mini's (which they must provide).Or you fools could just play chess if you want total equality (checkers for the less cerebral).
I think I have a solution to most LoS issues on the tournament scene: CALL A JUDGE OVER.
On the flipside of Kill Points, my group measures how many are LEFT at the end of the game, not how many were killed during the course of the game.
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