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Hoo boy. Here we go. Competition and OFCC


pretre

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From Hanaur's blog:

http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/12/in-world-without-heroes.html

 

 

 
Warhammer 40K: In a World Without Heroes
 
I was remembering the past with a friend.  I suppose now that I am 40, I am allowed to officially claim at least a modicum of perspective and perhaps even a touch of nostalgia.
 
We were remembering the days of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K, when we had a tournament within a couple hours of us and they featured some of the most unusual rules, one of them being "no named characters".
 
Now back then, the game was very much more about the heroes than it is now.  Clearly the Elites of most armies have taken over preeminence.  However, until 8th Edition Fantasy and 5th Edition 40K, there really was a highly heroic bent to the game and you could argue that this was true in 5E for a while until newer and newer codex supplanted the older ones.  The game company still claims the HQ is your avatar in the game, representing you, as you command your vicious Lizardmen or tirelessly thirsty Chaos Daemons across the landscape to numerous victories.
 
This Hero led feel was so true that the OLD euphemism for Warhammer 40K was "HeroHammer".  Many were those that scoffed at the imbalance such characters could introduce and anything above a Space Marine Captain was reason for consternation.  The mere idea that you would dare introduce, say, Aun'Shi instead of a normal Ethereal was seen as proof you didn't "care about" the other players fun.
 
The Codex's recognized this sentiment in players, and so the Tyranid Codex, the old Necron Codex and others featured things that could only be taken with opponent permission.  
 
Well this became a sort of rallying cry for some players.  They formed a tournament wherein such abominations and abuses would not be tolerated, where you were there by invitation and you could just as easily be UNinvited if you didn't "get" what they were trying to accomplish, which more or less came down to the use of fluffy and essentials-only type forces with maybe a touch of fang and claw here or there, but nothing overly offensive.
 
The success of that tournament to date has been tremendous, but some overly competitive voices have crept their way into the conversation and last years tournament, after a couple years of evolution in that direction, was an all out Forge World and Escalation fest.  Civility is still the watch word and good play and calm demeanor still demanded.  But gone are the days when this last redoubt of hope for those who enjoyed the idea of a world without heroes (the overwhelming bad kind of course), so to speak.  Gone are the armies clashing while spectators could actually see the FULL panoply of the codex represented.  The line was overrun here locally at least and perhaps it cannot be reformed.  We shall hope and see.
 
I know of no other tournament like it and mourned bitterly its demise.  Don't get me wrong.  The tournament itself is bigger than ever, courting more people and more games, in fact, than ever before.  The concept of it attracts people even if the reality doesn't live up to the ideal, and a new concept has emerged to replace the old.  One thing is for sure:  it may not have been a "competitive" tournament before but it certainly is now.
 
As my friend and I spoke about all this, he said "You know...  you might not have a lot of people in the blogosphere that listen, but...  maybe you could remind people of how fun those things were and how much the concept, made manifest, really meant something to you".
 
So here I am!  Telling you that it did.  Maybe its silly to be overly sentimental about a game, but lets face it, if you even care to read this, you've probably got a lot more invested in the game than you're willing to admit.
 
My hope is not for a grandiose outcome.  I'm a realist.  I know you can't go back in time and have what you had before.  No relationship is the same after a while.  But let me tell you that there is a Tournament format out there that is very much catching a little fire and might be the answer.  The Highlander Tournament.
 
Highlander format is in essence a tournament format that recaptures the idea of seeing the codex on display and commanded as it should be:  A combined arms force.
 
The rules are simple.  You can only take one of anything.  In some you have to fill the Force Organization slots once before going back to a slot.  Troops are the exception in most of them, but you cannot take two of a troop type unless you've taken all the troop types available in the list.  
 
The net result is a tournament in which you will never see nine Broadsides, nine Lictors nor nine of much else.  You'll see codex representative armies and the problems of HeroHammer and Elite-Hammer are solved essentially simultaneously.
 
There will never be a world without heroes again, at a tournament at any rate.  But the Highlander tournament format could make a lot of guys like me (and maybe you?) fall in love with competitive play again, something that has driven many a gamer away from the hobby.
 
 
 
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I went to my first OFCC this last year, and I played against several Forge World units, Escalation units, and supplement formations - and I still had 5 ridiculously fun games. I took a single CAD from the Tyranids codex (my list was rated a 1 out of 3) and I felt like I could win every single game even though I was paired against lists rated higher than mine.

 

I'll be honest, OFCC 2014 was probably the best 40K tournament I've ever been to. And I've been to plenty of 40K tournaments.

 

As long as there is no prize for winning every game, there isn't a need to take the most overpowered list and play to win at any cost. The focus on sportsmanship allows OFCC to not have any composition rules.

 

I'll be taking a superheavy next year. And I'll still be shooting for the coveted 2W-2L-1D record.

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Well as for OFCC it is not dead, on the Fantasy side, but change is happening. There are players that are fighting for it to be a more competitive event even though Best General is not the point of the tournament/event. I know there were some who submitted Hard Core lists and argued that it was still in the spirit of the event but looking at their list you can tell they wanted the Win. Since the event has grown and attracted more players, and the newer guys see it as a competitive event instead of a break from the normal highly competitive events, what OFCC stands for has become kind of Grey.

 

I think the Senate needs to sit down and have a discussion on this, which I am sure they probably do all the time, and let the community know what their Mission Statement is. They could also have OFCC split in to two differently paired events. Have a more competitive event run separate from those that want a more Fluff based game. And having a Swedish Comp or something like it seems almost mandatory with the number of players that are showing up to the events.

 

The OFCC will most likely change some more and if it still has a Fluffy side for less competitive players I will be wanting to attend. If it becomes a strongly competitve event I will most likely not attend becuase Winning is not why I play.

 

But that is just my opinion and I don't speak for you or anyone else.

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because they can be taken:

Twice in the Troops

Thrice in Elites

and once in heavy

Can take more in troops because you can take 

 

1 5 man Dire Avenger unit + WS

1 10 man Guardian unit + WS

1 5 man ranger unit

1 3 man windrider 

1 5 man dire avenger unit + WS

1 10 man Guardian unit + WS

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I'm not sure where he's getting the idea that the competitive crowd are the ones pushing the inclusion of Forge World and Escalation in OFCC (or any other events, as it turns out.) Most of the competitive players I know are opposed to the inclusion of either, at least in the most general sense, because of the extremely poor balancing in them. The Transcendent C'tan, Sonic Revenant, Hornet, etc, etc, etc, all make the game less interesting and less enjoyable by their presence, but many tournaments in the PNW have started allowing them because there are so many people who seem to think it's a good idea.

 

I actually have a lot of respect for what OFCC is trying to do, I just think they're going about it completely the wrong way.

 

 

because they can be taken:

Twice in the Troops

Thrice in Elites

and once in heavy

 

Doesn't work that way. Regardless of the slot it fills- or doesn't as for dedicated transports- , a unit with a particular name can only be taken once in a Highlander list. (Note that this actually makes IG armies unplayable, but that's a whole other issue.)

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Doesn't work that way. Regardless of the slot it fills- or doesn't as for dedicated transports- , a unit with a particular name can only be taken once in a Highlander list. (Note that this actually makes IG armies unplayable, but that's a whole other issue.)

Yeah, Highlander played straight that way is pretty broken for some other armies as well. SOB, of course, are unplayable. Inquisition, Knights and probably MT are broken as well. Most of the versions I've seen are modified to allow more troops, dedicated transports, etc.

 

As with any comp, however, it just moves the needle to something else being OP. It does get you some variety on the field, but Spam isn't the only way to a powerful list.

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Dedicated transports are still limited to one of each, not one per transported unit.

ex; 1 rhino, one razorback, one land raider, one drop pod, etc. 

Troops restrictions are that you may not repeat until you've used at least one of every troop unit

ex: 1 tac squad, 1 scout squad, 1 tac squad, 1 scout squad, etc

Yay, walking sisters is the only valid way you could run that. Yuck.

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