Amature vs Professional. 6ed

[eldargal]

But how do you define better? Is better a tighter and more balanced ruleset or is it less balanced but more choice and more things put in simply for 'fun'. Can you really have both? Given how competitive players seem to despite 'randomness' can you really but in fun but not necessarily reliable things into books and keep it balanced?

[SotonShades]

I think that is a bit harsh, Velox. Partly because GW isn't based in London (also there is no GW London... there are a great many stores in our Nation's capital city!) and the good folks in Nottingham really don't break the rules to their favoured styles of play. I recently interviewed for a position on the Design Team and got into a really in depth discussion with Adam Troke about some of our tournament lists we have used, where he plays outside of work etc. I also know Phil Kelly and Robin Cruddace have attended a tournament or two in their time. Don't forget that the accounts department has a big say in which direction the rules are written too, which was one of the reasons one of their managers sat in on the one-on-one part of my interview. Yes we all know Jervis loves his fluff, playing narrative games and campaigns etc. Yes we know Matt Ward wants to add in more crazy rules to keep the game up with the insanity he write in the background sections, but that doesn't mean they are trying to turn the game in their favour.

Also, why have two versions of, or alterations to, the ruleset for competitive and casual play? For football (soccer to you folks over the pond) we use the same rules whether people are playing at the World Cup, pitting against each other to prove which nation is the best in the world at putting a ball in a big net, or playing a friendly game with your mates on the park. We even have a friendly league in our village who play every weekend. Sure they are never going to compete against Manchester United or Chelsea, but they enjoy themselves and play the same rules as the big boys. They also keep score. People also push the boundaries of what can be done within the rules. In times gone by, goal keepers have covered their gloves in glue to make the ball easier to catch, more recently one of the teams had towels on hand to dry the ball off during the match for throw-ins and goal kicks to ensure greater accuracy. When the use of towels was banned, they sewed an extra layer of absobant material into their shirts "to better absorb sweat" which could easilly be pulled from under the shirt to clean the ball. At the time, all of those things were within the rules of the game, in part because they hadn't been outlawed. Every season the FA add in more rules so everyone is playing the same game fairly. It doesn't mean there is balance though. All teams have 11 people on the pitch and some reserves. But bigger teams have coaching staff, medical staff, more reserves, better training facilities, huge stadiums designed to bring in fans to give the team a boost, conference facilities to bring in more money so they can buy better players... the list goes on.

For any game, be it 40k or football, playing for fun doesn't mean no one cares about winning. Just beacuse the Professionals and casuals are aiming for different goals doesn't mean they can't play by the same rules. The professional/competitive 40k gamers will always try to push the limits of the rules in the system. Your average sunday league/"fluffy"/fun gamer won't, or at least not in the same way.

For a game like chess, computers have been programmed to calculate very possible permutation of the game. This means that there are no new ways to break the game to be exploited. You can only out play your opponant (although the method by which you achieve that may be new to you or them). Because we have free movement rather than set spaces, we can't do that, so only by trial, error and a lot of playtesting and competition with the best ways to win come to light, and even then thanks to the fickleness of fate, luck probability or what ever you want to call it, the dice rolls can effect it. Same for football; you maye have the 11 best players in the world on the pitch together, but by some quirk of happenstance (the way the ground shifts when a player plants his foot to take a penalty, the way someone lands after a tackle skewing the ref's opinion of whether or not it was a foul...) they could be beaten by a much less talented team.

In both cases, by having the better, more highly tuned side you increase your odds of winning. I don't see how that has changed with the new rules. Yes there are different things to consider when working out the optimum army, in many cases more things than in 5th, but I hardly think it has stopped it being competitive. If anything this new, more cinematic and narrative based ruleset could be considered more competitive. With more variables in the game, there are more ways to optimise an army, let alone the fact that allies give everyone (apart from Tyranids of course) more options to even out the field. Even once the game has started, there are more ways to achieve objectives and all three phases are more active than before. If anything, this new ruleset demandsa a lot more of a General than 5th did, especially when playing against someone else who has thoroughly learnt the rules and mastered them. If it is harder to pick pout a single list that should win against most others in most missions (and is therefore more likely to win tournaments), doesn't that fall under the very deffinition of a competitive system? Simplicity and reliability (factoring out anything random) doesn't necessarilly make a system more competitive, just that an individual army is more likely to win.

[SotonShades]

that was only going to be a quick reply... oops

[Captainparty]

But how do you define better? Is better a tighter and more balanced ruleset or is it less balanced but more choice and more things put in simply for 'fun'. Can you really have both? Given how competitive players seem to despite 'randomness' can you really but in fun but not necessarily reliable things into books and keep it balanced?

This is exactly the point, WAAC players complain about allies, complain about the random elements and complain about other things in the rules that add a lot of fun for the rest of us, if it were up to them, the game would be a very stale affair.

The thing is, if you only read the blogs and articles on BOLS, it would seem that wanting to play fluffy games or just meet up with your mates and fight with your cool armies puts you in a minority and that you’re wrong to play like that.

If fluff and competitive aren’t mutually exclusive, why are there so many Purifiers or Psyriflemen dreads in the tournament scene when in the Fluff there are only “about score” of Purifiers and about 8 dreadnaughts, not all of which would have autocannons?

To go back to my SSB Brawl point, the tournament scene changed things so much in that game to make it competitive that it became unrecognisable, banning characters, only playing on the most simplistic and boring level without any of the fun effects and taking all the randomness out by banning items, they complained when the new edition came out because it added more randomness to attacks...

[Thanatos_elNyx]

I play Fluffy lists at Tournaments; what does that make me?

[Captainparty]

I play Fluffy lists at Tournaments; what does that make me?

Part of the majority, most people who go to tournaments go there to play the game that they enjoy and have a good time, not to destroy everyone they face, thats why I tried to use the term "WAAC player" rather than tournament player, a WAAC player doesn't care if his opponent has fun, which while it isn't against the rules of the game, is against the spirit.

[SotonShades]

I play Fluffy lists at Tournaments; what does that make me?

A squirrel.

To be fair, There are very few tournament lists I have seen that i couldn't write a decent bit of fluff to explain why that army is composed like that.

Purifiers and Psyriflemen...

Only 40 in the galaxy (more or less) and all are here because of a singular threat that only they can be trusted to deal with because of their abilities. We mortals can only see the threat in this plane of exhistence; who knows what deamonic threat from the warp is contained inside those Crisis suits or within a relic of the Dark Age of Technology they are uncovering back at their base camp. As for having so many Dreadnoughts, obviously they have had to come through some urban/forested/desert covered are where normal tracked vehicles would be unsuitable, and the Techmarines of the Greyknights decided that Autocannons were the optimal weapons configuration for the mission, able to unload a hail of shots on the massed troops of the great enemy while also able to rip apart the light transports the Librarius on Titan predicted would be accompanying them.

[the jeske]

This is exactly the point, WAAC players complain about allies, complain about the random elements and complain about other things in the rules that add a lot of fun for the rest of us, if it were up to them, the game would be a very stale affair.

yes dude . tournament players complain about 2 FoC for ally , because it lets them make more optimal lists... no wait ... that doesnt make any sense . See they complain about them not because of mechanics , but because of how the mechanic works . Imperials get more battle brothers . Marines get more battle brothers . nids are screwed ally wise[+get scary stuff from head of the DT in the form "it is hard too.." which is can be translated to "we have no idea how to make them work"] . Flyer rules are cool , more options is always good. But leting few factions spam those and others get little or no flyers or at atleast anti flyer is a bad idea.
Imagine in a year or two you have 4-5 dex . each has at least 2 flyers inside [am not thinking about ally/FW/etc here] and you happen to play a dex that can do nothing against them . And before you say "buy an aegis" I say check the terrain deployment rules , you plop it down before I will put a huge *** pice of terrain block its Line of Sight.

new psychic powers ? awesome . divination is OP , but one can live with that one will always be the best one. But w40k is not WFB where all armies have psychic defense . Taking farseers in a tau/Deldar army will not be a fluff thing in 2-3 dex time .

See a tournament player will adapt . He will switch an army , switch the system . But what will a dude do if he is just starting with his group of friends and they all already grabed the big 3 and he is left with the eldar/tau/nid option ? how much fun will he have ?

The thing is, if you only read the blogs and articles on BOLS, it would seem that wanting to play fluffy games or just meet up with your mates and fight with your cool armies puts you in a minority and that you’re wrong to play like that.

go around main land europe .armies played in clubs/shops/"friendly" games are the same people play in tournaments. Not that having 2 armies [one tournament one not] is a bad thing , I envy those who live in enviroments rich enough to have play groups like that . That automaticly means more armies , a lot more offten army switch [which then means more armies sold second hand] . But realy for a huge number of players razors spams , draigos , IG gunlines were not a "just tournament" thing.

To go back to my SSB Brawl point, the tournament scene changed things so much in that game to make it competitive that it became unrecognisable, banning characters, only playing on the most simplistic and boring level without any of the fun effects and taking all the randomness out by banning items, they complained when the new edition came out because it added more randomness to attacks.

boring is not the tournament sceen foult , If GW makes a dex that has 1 viable way to play then its not the peoples foult they dont want to spend their money on stuff that doesnt work . As the randomness goes . Most tournaments for WFB do not use the terrain rules , at least in euro land . As boring in 6th goes . Go check blogs about people writing about testing how much more time does it take to check stuff because of ally and double FoC. With so many builds in just gold fish builds , there is stuff to do for years to come even if there were no new dex. And thats just counting the good dex.

Part of the majority, most people who go to tournaments go there to play the game that they enjoy and have a good time, not to destroy everyone they face, thats why I tried to use the term "WAAC player" rather than tournament player, a WAAC player doesn't care if his opponent has fun, which while it isn't against the rules of the game, is against the spirit.

Was mecha guard unfluffy ? no . Was mecha SW unfluffy ? no . Were GK builds unfluffy ? no . Were 4th ed eldar circus or IW unfluffy ? no . were 4th ed nids unfluffy ? no . It is impossible to build a legal army with a GW legal codex that is not fluffy . Freaking JJ told us that the most awesome thing about the gav dex was that we finaly can have a khorn lord leading a unit of 1ksons . If that is fluffy [and JJ does only fluffy, he does in character durning buissness metings] , then everything else is fluffy too.

[Wildeybeast]

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of the OP that GW aim much more to fluff, I have to agree with the views that they too are not mutually exclusive.
I also think the phrases 'amateur' and 'professional' are unhelpful. In the strictest sense they refer to people who get paid for something and those who do it for fun. I'm not aware of anyone who gets paid to play this game of ours so that isn't relevant.
In the broader context, it carries the sense that one set of players are significantly better at the game than others, which is misleading and unfair. There are plenty of people who are very good at this game and could place highly at tournaments, but prefer to play a friendly game with some mates. Equally there are people at tournaments who aren't tactical masterminds, but enter for a chance to meet new gamers and have some fun.
Stick with those who prefer playing just for fun and those who like to play competitively. Everyone know what you mean by this.

[Fortunato]

When it comes to arguments like this, what is always forgotten is GW doesn't care about "competitive" or "casual" players. Bottom line, GW is a business. Their sole concern is that they continue to make money. The decision to include allies wasn't to allow casual players to create fluffy armies or to allow pro players to design powerful lists, it was to get players to buy models from different armies. Once you have a few units of army X, it is easy to be pulled in to buying a full army. It also allows them to create "ally only" armies I expect to be seeing soon, like squats or Adeptis Arbites. Less design costs to create only a few new unit types than a whole army. Same goes for fliers. It would be tough to sell more tanks to armies already filled with vehicles. How better than to create a whole new unit type and make them very powerful! Not only are fliers a new and fresh concept, but if you want to handle your opponent's fliers, you'll need your own. The difference between GW games and a sport like football or a game like chess is that GW owns all rights to their games. Sports and classic games are free domain. 40k is a product and in GW's eyes, everyone here is a consumer, regardless of you consider yourself a "pro" or "casual" player.