Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to brighten your 40K day, or at least brighten mine.
There has been a lot going on lately in the world of 40K. The new Space marines codex and supplements have catapulted them to the top of the power rankings. Well, at least one of the supplements at least. There are many a space marine model that is now being taken off the selves, dusted off, and put back into the service of the Emperor on the tabletop. The other shoe dropped, for some, when it was announced that there will be a new rule for Socal Open that limits how vehicles with the “fly” keyword interacts with ruins. Essentially the base of the model must fit completely on the ruins. No part of the base can hang over the terrain. If the model measures from the hull, then the hull must fit within the ruins. Suffice it to say, this has caused an ocean of tears, mainly mechanical tears, amid a number of players, but I have also seen a number of players happy about the new ruling for the SoCal Open.
As I mentioned, this new ruling has caused a bit of a stir. It immediately caused people to spontaneously break into sobbing tears as they looked at their armies and realized they now had to rely on actual tactics to win games. For some their main issue was that this was announced after the refund date. In many cases they promptly sold their tickets and continued to complain about an event they are no longer attending, because internet. For others, it did make certain builds for their army almost unplayable. The heart of their army and strategy was now gutted and they now have no other options in their army that can fill the gap. I really do feel bad for all those Eldar players, who have been struggling from the end of 7th edition to this current edition. They can’t seem to get a break. Hopefully Games Workshop will think of something to make them better. They really need the help. Only winning 60%* of their games makes them sad, and you don’t want to see sad eldar players**
On the other end of the spectrum there are those that think the ruling is much needed. In the last few months we have been seeing a long of units with the fly keyword sitting on top of ruins in a precarious fashion. It creates issues where the opponent cannot have any chance of surviving first turn, if they go second. Many times the height is so great that an opponent has no chance to assault them or even get in range with some weapons. It can even allow players to snipe characters by being a level above those characters and , because the base is equidistant to all the characters below it, the opponent is able to pick and choose which character dies. Only the most heinous players would do this as I would never do this myself*** Thankfully this new rule cam just in time to keep Space Marine armies in check. I honestly don’t know how they will be able to compete now that they can’t pile their repulsers, executioners, and impulsers on top off buildings. The era of Space Marine dominance is over before it really began, right? Nothing but good times ahead for non-marine armies, you heard it here first!
That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know your thoughts, and what you think about the ruling or if you have another way to help solve this issue, in the comments section. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!
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* Totally not a made up stat
** Yes you do
*** Unless it would help me win
Aircraft units have abstractly been given a base, unlike skimmers which measure to the model. This is how GW made it interactive – a model with an arbitrary altitude still has a projection on the board which is used as a reference to determine if a flying melee unit has come into contact with it or not. To allow aircraft to circumvent that by denying contact with the base is ridiculous. From a competitive standpoint it is vital to force interactivity, and from a fluff standpoint it is just silly.
Anyway, they should just disallow all vehicles and monsters from getting up on ruins.
Negaduck FTW!
An interesting ruling, especially as GW didn’t include it in their recent FAQ. Are they even aware ??
Will the same players instead use heavier, smaller bases to use the same tactics ??
Will the TOs also be restricting the amount of terrain in the opponents’ deployment zones that made such tactics possible (so walls without any protruding floors to rest on) ??
I have hated to see so many flyer heavy armies, surely they should be playing in AI the game GW designed for flyers rather than a game based on the land?
Aeldar and all that pay to get their T6-T7 vehicles some chance to survive.
GW should have never give SM or Custodes any flying tanks, T8 long range tanks + good rules are the problem. Its time SM to release flying is dangerous and forget the how to use it.
SM had flying tanks etc before space elves were even designed….
And then they were retconned out as GW decided that grav technology was the providence of the other races and gave the Imperium a more unique feel to use ground vehicles.
Love the article, and I’m glad for the decision. IMO “someone” should just go 1000 steps further and write an entirely new ruleset for the game. One that’s designed for competitive/balanced play. I think given FLG’s relationship with GW it’s too late for it to be them, but SOMEONE! Otherwise it’s just continually trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
GW has a few rulesets designed for competitive/balanced play: Shadespire. Kill Team Arena. Etc..
These are also much more stream/media-friendly too, shorter matches, more rounds, less table-space, closer-view of match & miniatures, making them ideal choices for “e-sport” style broadcasting.
It’s all there for the taking.
But of course, GW obviously will also always want to publish sprawling “show-off-all-your-toys-and-spend-all-afternoon-gaming”-style games like 40K that may never be particularly well-suited for, or even prioritize being well-suited for competitive-style gaming.
That latter description better fits Armageddon
and remember that GW supports games from 500 points (via Tale of Four Warlords) and that the current GW GT Heats/Final is an eighth smaller in points with no time-clocks or red/yellow cards. It’s also without five figure prize funds or similar pay packets for organisers of some these overhyped tournaments. So official tournaments are now 1750 points using the rules from the published rule book for a shiny piece of plastic.
True.
It should be noted that Eternal War missions used by GW for “official” tournaments can also be scored at the end of turn 2 as easily as they can be scored at the end of turn 7.
There’re no requirements to play a certain minimum amount of turns, nor are there assumptions that 5-model would use equal amounts of time as 150 model armies.
All the ITC changes, requiring 6 turns (incl. score disadvantages for playing only 3 turns, say) and the rat tail of chess clock and time management and “slow play” stuff is just another set of house rules the game wasn’t designed for.
Also, GW Warhammer World include a pretty significant painting and fair play score in determining the winner, emphasising 40K as a “triathlon” of painting, socialising and gaming.
The “moving miniatures and rolling dice”-part that variants like ITC focus on isn’t a majority part of “competitive 40K” as practiced at Warhammer World.
That said, the Warhammer World events team isn’t the rules-writing team. They are their own thing.
You guys get so hung up on what they do at Warhammer World, lol. The crew that runs the events there basically does their own thing. It’s not meant to be a clarion call to the world as to how to play matched play 40k. It’s just how the event organizing team at Warhammer World chooses to do things. It’s not like the CEO or the dev team gives them a mandate as to how to do things. Just like the Warhammer Fest tournaments, it’s the team running it making the calls. I mean, 2 years ago that event was seriously incredibly poor. Dramatically low on terrain, etc. If you take that–GW’s biggest event–to be the template we’re all meant to follow it would be really bad for the matched play community.
We do things in the independent scene because they work. You may not agree with all of them, which is fine, but trying to wave the flag of “well this is how it’s done at Warhammer World” as if that sets the standard for baseline matched play 40k and anything that deviates from that is somehow doing it wrong is just inaccurate. They do great work there and aim to give their attendees what they want, which is awesome, but it’s no more than that.