Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to tell all you kids to get off my 40K lawn!
Well another year, another Las Vegas Open. This one was a bit more tiresome than previous years, and not just because of the players. It was great seeing all the people I have met through the years and to meet new people and make new friends. This year we answered a lot of questions, both about rules and conversions. We even had a convenient location to find those rulings (I think it’s still up) I always end up having a good time, no matter what happens in the actual event, and this was no different. The only issue I had was people asking me so many questions.
Even before the even started, actually months before the event started, people were already asking me a number of questions. Some I would say were very good and relevant questions. Others, however, left a lot to be desired. These included questions, such as:
- When is the event?
- What city is the Las Vegas Open being held?
- Will there be a 40K tournament there?
- Can I go to the LVO? (although I think this question was meant for significant others)
The questions didn’t stop there. As the the event drew closer we got even more questions. Luckily we had a form for most of the questions. in the end we had to answer almost 400 questions, either about rules interactions or conversion approvals. During the event the questions continued. They weren’t as numerous as previous years, like in 7th edition, but there were still those with new questions or they just didn’t bother reading the event document or listen to the LVO video we do every year. An example of these looked like this:
- Do I have to use dice?
- Battlescribe is as good as a codex, right?
- Can you get me something to eat?
- I don’t need the grots on my Mek Guns, right?
- Aren’t I supposed to auto win because I play Iron Hands?
- What do you mean I can’t use this “thunderfire” cannon that is half the size of the actual one?
I get it, this is essentially what I signed up for. I have been doing this for a long time so I should get used to it by now. I still do enjoy it, even with having to answer all these very important questions. I had the extra bonus this year of getting away from my data entry job so I could do data entry in Las Vegas. Oh what a time to be alive! I guess I’m just tired from the long weekend and just venting. As a bonus, here are a few other questions that were asked over the weekend:
- Why do I have a sharp pain in my right arm?
- Should I hit on an 18?
- Is Wesley Snipes right and I should always bet on black?
- I’m pretty sure that woman is into me, although why do you think she wants to know how much I have?
- Is going on the pub crawl a good idea? (yes, it is)
That’s all for this week. How was your LVO experience, not counting the delay? Let us know in the comments section below. 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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An interesting piece that shows the need for one set of rules for all tournaments, especially those that are supposed to be part of the ITC circuit. GW has very tight rules for GW GTs at Warhammer World , the Citadel or in Australia. It’s surely time for all tournaments to do likewise.
And now insisting on an opponent using a chess clock is minus 10 points per game in the GW GT! That’s going to get even more questions.
The problem is convincing everyone to hold to a single standard, which isn’t easy. ITC doesn’t really have any way to force people to unify their formats, and honestly I’m not even sure it’s in the best interests of the game to do so- note that many other very successful games, even competitive games, have multiple formats that they use, with each one incentivizing a different style of play.
Some problems with that suggestion.
The first one is that if two formats are the same but with a small difference, then they are effectively a single format, so the question is whether the degree of non-uniformity is detrimental or not.
The second one is that thoses very successful games are, as far as I know, several order of magnitude bigger than Warhammer. Empirically, magic can support about four to five formats, and that’s a game where a 700 person event register as “average”. Smaller games than warhammer have tried and utterly failed to have several formats. So the question that whether Warhammer can support two format is actually open.
Lastly, the problem with different formats is how a lot of people will give advice that work in format A to people playing format B. There’s not a ton of warhammer tactical content already, and already it’s often confusing to read some reviews if one isn’t familiar with ITC and the other event packages.
Warhammer can clearly support multiple formats, because we are currently doing so. Whether that is maximally beneficial is another argument, but it’s incontrovertible that it can successfully support them.
But that’s completely sidestepping the main issue: how do you actually convince all of the Warhammer players in every country around the world to adopt a single format? The ITC is the closest we’ve ever come, and even it is not even near actually being unified. _Maybe_ if GW stepped in and made an actual, official, universal format it might get some traction, but given their general uninvolvement with the game side of the hobby- and the player base’s well-founded distrust of their ability to balance such things- I have my doubts even that would do it.
In short, there is no body that holds the level of authority needed to demand a unified format in 40K, and failing that every tournament is going to have their own idea of what the “best” way to do things is, because that’s human nature. Now, if you wanna talk some sort of violent coup to enforce a single standard on everyone then maybe we have an option, but anything short of that I think is destined to failure.
I disagree. Warhammer 40K currently does not support several formats, but a single one with high local, badly documented variations, that start to cause more and more trouble because the divergences start to get real bad.
I also think you overestimate the task to spread a good format all over the word ; it would come naturally if one was seem as legitimate and pretty good. Once again, there’s example of that in other games, like Commander (who aggregated and uniformized a bunch of “very similar but not quite” highlanders formats) and 1vs1 commander (who tried to do that and failed hard because of legitimacy issues)
I don’t see the point.
The biggest thing 40K has going for it is it’s buffet-style approach to the game where everyone can pick the flavour they like best, any given point level or no points at all, with event-recommendations or without, with expansions or without, etc..
If I wanna play in a strictly uniform game format, I could go play chess or whatever. It’s not like those alternatives don’t exist for people that enjoy them.
40K just isn’t one of them.
Hell, 40K isn’t even that game within the GW catalog of games, who do offer games such as Underworlds or Kill Team Arena with a much tighter, less ambigious, less tool-boxy game-design engine running them (not to mention those games being much more streaming and e-sport friendly thanks to much shorter rounds, closer camera-angles, etc.., etc..).
> it would come naturally if one was seem as legitimate and pretty good
Yeah but that’s the hard part. No organization, not even GW or the ITC, have the clout to make any single format seem “legitimate.”
And with innumerable people all with their own ideas of what the game “should” be, I cannot even conceive of a single format that you could create that everyone would agree is good. You’re glossing over the hardest parts of the task as though they were trivial.
Insist on chest clock and win anyway is a power move I now dream about.