I spoke with a TO from San Rafael, CA about his store’s Old World tournament and his take on comp. Here is my conversation with him
Andy Garcia organized a tournament for Gamescape North in San Rafael, CA. He was kind enough to respond to tell me a little bit about his background and how he approaches comp for The Old World. If comp at the BAO is a hybrid of standard play and GW’s comp, then Andy’s tournament was a hybrid of GW and the BAO rules. The “Gamescape North 1500 point Old World Friendly Semi-Narrative Event” allowed all army lists from all sources, including legends, but limited players to 1,500 points, as with GW’s event. Core and non-core choices were limited to 6 and 3 choices of the same type, respectively, no allies, and games were played on 4’x6′ tables. Below is my correspondence with Andy.
HH: First, can you tell me about your history with the hobby, tournaments and being a TO?
Andy: I first started in Los Angeles, CA, in elementary school with role playing games. I’ve always been a lover of both sci-fi and fantasy, and I started early with games like Top Secret and Dungeons & Dragons. Eventually when I was in High School I saw a picture of a Blood Bowl advertisement in Dragon magazine. I really could believe how cool the artwork was.
Needless to say, I picked up Blood Bowl at a comic book shop, and my friends and I hopped aboard the GW train. We love Blood Bowl, and purchased Warhammer The Role Playing Game and then I picked up the 2nd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle boxed set. But it wasn’t until 3rd edition WFB came out, that we were completely hooked on Warhammer. We first play with Blood Bowl plastic models and very few dice, getting many of the rules wrong. Some of my favorite memories of High School and life in general were born in my garage playing WFB 3rd edition on a bastardized ping-pong table covered with green carpet. After college my friends and I all settled in West Los Angeles, and Warhammer was entering its 6th edition. We pulled out our old 3rd edition collections and started back up where we left off, but this time at my apartment. My roommate and I built a wooden folding table to accommodate 4’x6′ polystyrene table toppers. And we were off again. We played a ton of 6-7th edition, also going to the LA Bunker and various tournaments. I ran tournaments, leagues, and campaigns. This was really the golden era of WFB for me. I met many friends who are still working for GW.
When the 8th edition was released my wife and I had moved to San Francisco. I wasn’t a big fan of that edition. It seemed to make it so that you had to almost double the amount of models you had in your army. I was always a fan of having multiple armies rather than just one big one, so it didn’t fit my playstyle. I also didn’t like many of the rule changes. I stopped playing in 2013, hoping for a 9th edition that never came. In 2016-2017 I started playing 40k. I had always had some 40k models, but never really played it much. I really missed the hobby, and played 40k a ton up until now. As soon as the Old World came back, I just didn’t have the will to play any more 40k… Warhammer Fantasy Battle was my first real love in wargaming and I own 8 armies for it. These “new” Old World rules have made all those armies really playable again. More than I could have ever hoped for… so I took all that I learned from 40k tournaments and events, and I’m using it for the Old World.
HH: I see that you have some Old World open nights at the store. What has the turn out been like, for those?
I’m very close to Gamescape North, it’s my FLGS. I had become great friends with the owner, and pleaded with him to have an Old World night. He gave us Wednesday nights, and we’ve just rolled with it. Our group consists of new and veteran players. Some just came back for Old World, some came from 40k, and some from AoS. The turnout has been hit or miss. On our good days we will have 5-6 tables, on our slow days 1-2.
I suspect that GW itself really underestimated the passion and desire of their Old World fans. The lack of models, the price of the second hand market, and the lack of basic rulebooks has made the Old World a tough sell to new and returning players. I am not only a player, but a shareholder, and I’ve sent a few emails to a few people. The owner of Gamescape, Jordan Walraven, has been so accommodating and giving. He gave almost 1200 points of Tomb Kings to a new player in our group. Without some of us veterans and Jordan supplying new and returning players, I’m not sure if we’d have such a crew as of yet. I’m also in discord, and have been trying to figure out all the players in the Old World community, so that we could share event scheduling and rulings, etc. I’ve had to do a lot of work to make sure the community is communicating, and I’ve also done some work in getting products from different areas of the country to our local group, namely basic rulebooks.
HH: Your event is advertised as beginner friendly. Do you expect a lot of brand new players, as opposed to people who played previous editions of WFB?
Because I am growing the community in a place where I didn’t originally start playing I’ve had to get over hurdles. I wasn’t able to just phone some of my old veteran friends and tell them to show up to game night (they’re all in Los Angeles). So, I really wanted to focus on a lower point level (I really love 1500 point games.), and no painting requirements. I want to make it as easy as possible on any player, returning, veteran, any player to start playing.
HH: As a TO, what kind of considerations go into the points limit and list restrictions for a tournament?
Since I’ve played Warhammer longer than anything else that I still do in life, (maybe not riding a bike)… I look for things that were problems in the past. At 1500 points, you limit the taking of 2 of certain items when mustering. GW has always been bad with players taking two of certain really powerful items. Where as maybe as they scale they should change in price, GW has never designed their games in such a way. So 1500 points eliminates some of those choices (not all) I love the rule of 3 from 40k. It solved so many problems, and it made collecting fun. I’d do the rule of 3 completely in the Old World, but the way in which some of the army lists are written makes it hard to restrict Core in such a way. Some core entrees cover both archers and spearmen in the same category.
HH: Can you tell me a bit about the points and unit limitations for this tournament and how those decisions were made?
Oh, I think I’ve already answered some of this. I think, possibly, that the sweet spot for Old World armies will be 2500 points. I don’t think the community is anywhere near there yet. 2000 points allows players to start taking two of some very powerful entrees without allowing armies to have the needed depth to stop some of these units from being all powerful. That’s why I ended up at 1500 points. I really think the 1999+1 will not work and will receive too much criticism. I know at a certain point I’ll be pushed to move to 2k, but I would like to do that when the community is ready, and possibly move to 2250 very soon after.
HH: Are you expecting your comp format to alter much in the future? Could something crop up at this tournament that might influence comp at future events?
I think this all depends on the GW elephant in the room. If they start balancing certain things that double up to make having 2 of such items much more powerful than having just one, then we will probably have to start comping such items. I’m looking at you Casket of Souls and Mortis Engine. Dragons as well. But there is a significant amount of the tournament community that delights in making lists as broken as possible…. And I want everyone to come and enjoy the game. That’s why it would be easier if we had GWs help in balancing, rather than imposing our own rules. Something to also consider is the scoring. The Square Based duo just hit on this on their latest YouTube show/podcast. I’m using a Victory Point differential that makes it so that if you score 1001 points more than your opponent, you’ve done the very best you can do. You don’t have to really punish your opponent to get 20-0. You don’t have to completely table the guy without losing a unit yourself. It makes for a friendlier match. The kicker is that the basic rulebook gives a win at 100 points. Now if you are as familiar with this game as I am, you know that a player could hold their army back versus some opponents and just try to kill 100 points on turn 6. That’s going to have to be something that we all collectively think about. Also, scenarios and terrain are important. If you have a few key scenarios in your tournaments, such as Mountain Pass and “The Lonely Tower” it makes your players want to muster more balanced armies. I don’t even like to tell players what scenarios will be played, and just tell them to expect any printed scenario in the basic rulebook and arcane journals. Surprising them with odd scenarios adds to the fun of these events. Terrain can skew the battles as well, so sticking with a couple of hills, hedgerows/walls, and a couple of woods to start is always a good plan. I think having tournament placed terrain is the way to go. Player placed terrain just adds to the time of the event and really isn’t necessary.
HH: Does more points actually give players the needed depth to deal with something like double Mortis Engine lists? What does expanding points limits due to the length of games, which are already brushing up against a time limit?
Andy: My game group in Los Angeles’ meta started moving towards hordes, even at 2k armies started getting big. And this was in 6th and 7th edition, 8th edition made that worse. It made it so that things that give you d6 hits don’t matter as much, like fanatics. Gunlines couldn’t survive 3 units of 20 goblin wolf riders. I could see that happening with the Old World and playing at 2500 points would make that even worse… We used to do 2500 point tournaments of 8th edition with 2.5 hrs per round. But the bigger you get the worse it is for the new or returning player. I was thinking about this today. Even if the game stays at 2k for a few years, it might not be all that bad. But I do like 1500 points, and right now we have the excuse to do it. 😉 I do suspect the game to move towards hordes, but I could be wrong, right now it seems to be MSU, which is really good to get new players. Especially players coming from 40k or AoS… And GW seems to be giving those players an excuse to play Old World. I wish there were rulebooks for all of them!
Thank you so much Grayson for asking me to do a Q&A. It’s great to have FLG in our community. I do remember the days when we didn’t. 🙂
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