Competitive wargamers, Salty John from TFG Radio here to discuss some important news for LVO 2023 and the FLG Surveys.
Las Vegas Open 2023 is fast approaching! The largest Warhammer tournament in the world is a huge operation with a lot of moving parts and the hard-working team at FLG and those of us who help with judging are always looking to improve. That’s exactly what this post is about, some improvements we are bringing to the players at the Warhammer 40k Championships this year and how we are looking toward the future.
A few days ago Kicker posted our General Survey for 2023. If you attended a Frontline Gaming event last year you should have received an email with a Participant Survey. The two surveys are similar but they are designed specifically so we can hear from not only those who go to our events but those who do not. It is important we hear from everyone, including potential future attendees, to make our events the best that we can!
A piece of feedback we have received for a little over a year was for us to adopt some of the Games Workshop US Open terrain ideas, specifically in regard to the first level of ruins. We are happy to announce we will be following GWs lead on this. At FLG events first-floor openings will be treated by players as if it is closed even if a covering is missing. We believe GW has proven that first-floor openings being closed is the best way to play the game in a competitive way and we are glad to follow their lead. This is not something that applies to every FLG terrain piece, and the Player Packet, when updated, will spell out specifically which pieces it applies to. We are working to avoid the “magic box” problem. When all the terrain changes for LVO 2023 have been finalized they will be added to the Player Packet.
If you have rule questions for the LVO team please use this form, but please read through here first and see if we already answered the question. Duplicate rule inquiries will not be answered again. If you have conversions that you need approval for the LVO 2023 please use this form. As always you can find much of this information in the LVO 2023 Player Packet. Stay tuned to the FLG Network and Facebook groups for more information about LVO 2023 and other exciting FLG news!
How will this affect the battle sanctum. Also will it affect doorways. I.e your cathedral set…
The Battle Sanctum is not FLG terrain, so this has no bearing on it. The Player Packet will address how this applies to which pieces of terrain, we are working to get that updated soon.
This is NOT the fairest way to play warhammer 40k. This makes knights, both Imperial and Chaos, dead in the water. Any shooting army as well will now be able to do effectively nothing to their opponents unless they let you. All it takes is fast moving melee units jumping from terrain piece to terrain piece and you auto win against shooting armies. Player skill is now irrelevant in those match ups. I thoroughly disagree with this ruling, and it is making me strongly reconsider whether I want to attend LVO or any FLG events in the future.
It does not apply to every piece of terrain given the FLG terrain. The Player Packet is being updated to spell out exactly which pieces of terrain this applies to, we are working to avoid the “magic box” issue.
I can totally understand this sentiment, but does it now mean shooting armies need to have screening melee units to receive the melee units or maybe overwatch should hit on 5’s to counter balance? Doesn’t seem like they are going back on this — it’s the future, but how can we address the valid issue you are bringing up with an additional solution? Genuinely asking
No building should be fully opaque on the bottom floor, and they probably should not be fully windowed either. Some level of LOS blocking is important, but being fully open makes hiding too difficult. Doing something as ham-fisted as making all 1st floors count as opaque is the worst of all. This gives a gigantic advantage to melee units and severely impairs shooting units. It works semi-decently on GW terrain because those buildings have at least one open side, and usually have two. They also do not take up the whole base that they’re on, and tend to be one big front wall with shorter side walls. FLG terrain is not the same as GW terrain in these respects. FLG terrain tends to have two large walls, or be fully enclosed buildings. Removing LOS into the L-shaped buildings makes it too difficult for shooting units to interact with the units hiding in ruins. They would have to swing all the way around to the side, which is often not feasible. In addition, the hiding unit simply has to move to the other side of the wall and all of the shooting unit’s movement has been for naught. Removing LOS into enclosed buildings will create magic boxes where neither melee nor shooting units can interact with units that are in the building. Needless to say, this situation is terrible for competitive 40k.
I agree, which is why this won’t be done in a ham-fisted manner. The Player Pack will have the terrain update soon and in there it will spell out exactly which terrain pieces this applies to, in order to avoid the very problem you’re describing, the “magic box” issue.
While I will reserve final judgement till I see the player packet. Magic boxes are a horrible idea and if they are going to be prevalent I am going to have to seriously consider not attending anymore FLG events as all it takes it say blood angels with jump packs hoping peice to peice.
If the nerf to IDF was not in play then it wouldn’t be as big of an issue as you can still interact with your opponent.
As of now, melee armies will simply move turn 1, not get shot at, move turn 2 not get shot at, charge and lock up a shooting army turn 3 and auto win.
This is even further worsened by player placed terrain ensuring that melee armies can place terrain in every match up to do this.
I’d be very intrested to see number of votes in favor of this as data as opposed to people against. Could very easily be a case of vocal minority.
Mr. Pagonis,
It literally says, “We are working to avoid the “magic box” problem. ” 3rd paragraph, near last sentence.
Knowing John & crew, for 15+ years, they won’t screw it up. 🙂
-Casey H
I’m not a fan of this change. Obscuring ruins with open windows are a good compromise between safety and invincibility. Behind a ruin, player A’s unit can’t be shot unless a long ranged unit comes into the mid-board from player B. Player B’s unit is in the mid-board, that creates a lot of options play A to respond. If instead player A can hide safely in a ruin without windows, then player B cannot directly interact; they just have to accept the threat range coming from a brick wall.
This creates for stale gameplay, and creates a disadvantage for shooting armies. It creates further advantages for melee-infantry units, but those units have filled multiple roles already through 9th. Those units don’t need to have guaranteed value by waiting behind a wall, untargetable. Please make changes that incentivize interesting choices for players, not just buffing units that are already potent.
Agreed. I shouldn’t feel rewarded for making positional mistakes inside of building just because the building has no windows. Likewise, I shouldn’t be punished for wanting to bring an army with any number of guns to a 5 point objective mission.
Units like Skorpekh Destroyers, Foetid Blight Drones, and Cthonian Beserks gain such an absurd amount of value from first floor blocking that bringing an army that doesn’t specialize in melee or have some sort of melee powerhouse unit feels like a self-afflicted handicap.
This is a good change. Some of the best games I had was when similar rules were introduced in 8th edition. Look forward to seeing the polished descions in the player packs.
I’ve played a variety of terrain for years.
Having the bottom floor be closed to line of sight is fine like GW has it.
HOWEVER, GW doesn’t have anything that can be fully enclosed…Magic boxes. I am aware FLG is working on this issue.
A few fixes would be
1. You can’t go into buildings that are fully enclosed
2. If both armies are touching the same terrain they can see through it.
Example: there’s a 5 man unit of terminators sitting in an ORK “L”. They can’t be seen. I run up and touch the terrain with 3 War Dogs. I can now see them and shoot them.
The GW set up works for them because there’s a lot of obscuring that just goes away when you touch it because there’s limited walls on that piece of plexiglass. If you make it so nothing but infantry can interact with the terrain than it’s bad overall.
Finally this is way to late to implement any changes like this. LVO is sold out, people have booked their flights etc.
Any large changes like this should take place at the beginning of the season before people have made commitments.
Just pure brilliance from you here. I have never expected something less than this from you and you have not disappointed me at all. I suppose you will keep the quality work going on.
I mean, I’ll give you guys the benefit of the doubt until I see the final version of the rules, but I’m pretty skeptical. The last time I played a full “First Floor Blocks LoS” game with my Knights against a strong melee build, (Bloody Rose Sisters) it was completely one sided, and a miserable experience. I literally couldn’t interact with my opponent’s army until after their units had killed a knight. Whether it was Repentia moving 20″ across the board from a mid-board ruin that I couldn’t touch them in, Retributors popping out and icing a Knight with full rerolls from Vahl, Or Vahl herself jumping out of the center ruin and charging into my DZ. The only models I could touch were ones that had just finished killing a Knight, and I barely scored. It was not a good time.
Idk. Maybe if terrain with First-floor-blocks-LoS couldn’t have Breachable? Then its at least a lot harder for units to hide in them with no consequences? Ah, but Jump pack units still get around it. hmm.
Anyways, Excited to see what you guys do with it, because I hope its better than the execution I’ve previously seen, but I’m pretty skeptical. I was hoping to attend LVO for the first time this year, since I’ll finally be done with college by then, but now I’m hesitating.
The back and forth on the terrain issue to too player driven. It would be nice to have some game designers make the rules and then have the company follow those rules. I feels like a school that asks the parents what they should teach.