Are Tournaments Changing for the Better?

[40kGamer]

Hello everyone!

Just finished up a 1750 PV local tournament here in the states that I have attended since 5th edition. It was a 30 player event (max size for the venue) and brings out a lot of top quality painters and players from a pretty wide area. It isn't meant to be super competitive as soft scores are significant.

The big change I saw this year, was the proliferation of Superheavies and Gargantuan creatures throughout almost all of the armies present with a corresponding decrease in the number of fliers. Seriously who needs to wait on fliers to come in from reserve when you can start raining D-Weapon templates of doom from across the board on turn 1!

The games were still fun enough but they feel very different. I have always believed that GW's desire to fold the old Epic game into mainstream 40k is misguided. I can't fault them for doing it as they naturally want to push their plastic crack and not being able to use a model is a death sentence for sales. So are we now at the point where the game will completely revolve around killing the big scary thing(s)? What is everyone else seeing as the dust settles from the rapid fire releases?

[charliemachina]

I've heard much moaning about the need for restrictions but to be honest I like the current state of competative play.

It is very hard to build a list that has an answer to all other lists.

You have to make a list you like and learn to play it.

With Knights making super heavy armies viable.......armies do have a demand on them currently to have a super heavy or have flyers to counter the super heavy's however I consider this to simply be the ongoing development of the game.

I want all units to serve a competative balanced purpose in the game but I also enjoy having to adapt my list to changes in the meta / tornament scene.

[40kGamer]

With Knights making super heavy armies viable.......armies do have a demand on them currently to have a super heavy or have flyers to counter the super heavy's however I consider this to simply be the ongoing development of the game.

Hopefully I'm not coming across as moaning here but you never can tell. I enjoy the "pound your opponent" format many tournaments offer for what it is, but with the anything goes 7th ed it now feels like all events are essentially the same regardless of scoring.

It has definitely gotten to the point that one need not attempt crafting an all comers list... they were never 100% possible but now they are virtually impossible. At one end of the spectrum this tourney had an 8 model army - 3 Knights + 4 Imperial Assassins + Void Shield Generator which is brutal to deal with.

On another note some select superheavies were apparently banned which I find concerning. I can't imagine how anything can actually unbalance the game worse then it already is.

[GrauGeist]

On another note some select superheavies were apparently banned which I find concerning. I can't imagine how anything can actually unbalance the game worse then it already is.

I have played multiple games with Warhound Titans and other ranged Destroyer Blasts. They're pretty awesome, but I'm not entirely sure that they're unbalancing in an already unbalanced environment.

At the moment, I think it might be OK simply because everything is reshuffling.

[JMichael]

We just had a local store tournament and we voted on no Lords of War. Imperial Knights were still allowed as they are not LoW.
And I don't think anyone brought a Knight anyway!
I don't like having to face a C'Tan, but no one likes facing my Eldar Super Heavy tanks either!

[40kGamer]

I was tempted to take an Eldar Revenant but felt like it would be a bit much at a 1750 event. However from what I encountered it would have been right at home.

[Caitsidhe]

I was tempted to take an Eldar Revenant but felt like it would be a bit much at a 1750 event. However from what I encountered it would have been right at home.

I think they have profoundly changed tournaments. They are now pay to compete. They were always pay to play, but if you don't show up with the latest in the Kaiju or Godzilla collection.... well.... we all know the odds. It will be interesting to see what happens, although for myself entirely esoteric. I have my own predictions of the trends and economics. Games Workshop is changing the environment and going to a far more blatant MTG business model. The problem is that nobody explained to them that Magic the Gathering functions on bleeding people the way a Slot Machine in Vegas does. It takes smaller bites over longer periods of time. People become invested slow but sure. In that it is far more egalitarian. Everyone can afford to play to play/compete. They can even afford to keep up as the editions keep changing and cards keep being eliminated.

Games Workshop seems to think this will work in their luxury niche, i.e. that there are enough rich geeks and nerds out there to support the entire company (after all the appropriate cuts of course) into infinity. It suffices to say I'm dubious.

[DWest]

Personally, I'd argue it's the other way around; with MTG you have to replace your entire deck every 2-year cycle, and that's accomplished only by buying and opening a lot of packs, or being sliced up on the secondary market. A much larger chunk of a 40k army stays relevant year-to-year; Tactical Marines, Guardsmen with Lasguns, Shoota Boyz are never going to not be useful.

[Ang56]

Been Loving 7th, even with super heavies. Although I don't really do tournaments, and my group tends to favor infantry spam anyways. We also play on very LoS blocking boards, tabling someone even with super heavies is very difficult in our games so a super heavy just means less units to score tactical objs with. It's more of a trade off in my experience so far this edition.

If 50-75% of a players army is able to shoot every single game turn I could see super heavies being frustrating for those who don't want to buy them.

Why a tournament would allow knights and not other LoW I have no idea, there's a lot of comparable LoW out there (baneblades, stompas, anything nid really is pretty fair if you're gonna allow knight armies imo), I think drawing the line for like warhounds, revenants, ctan's or greater is a good idea. Those and some others are a bit over the top for a regular game of 40k.