Chapel

This isn't just the way people from the Portland area play, it's how we play in Eugene. Monsters, Vehicles, and Bikes simply go around ruins terrain, or use them for cover and then move around them for assault etc. My Carnifex just hit them like a speed bump and go around. So it's not really like these are out of line, super uncommon special rules. Only new interesting bit I see with the ITC, is they are classifying the lower level to block LOS entirely regardless if there are windows or cracks to see through. That isn't the way we have played, although I wouldn't mind seeing it implemented. Too often armies get shot to pieces 1st turn and it's game over by turn 2. By requiring 6 pieces of custom/LOS blocking terrain, I think the organizers are attempting to introduce a level of tactical movement being required to accomplish certain objectives. It'll bottle neck certain areas for ambush, and reduce firing lanes to promote movement instead of castling up in a corner and just blasting everything.

Has anyone compiled all the FAQ's into a single document or downloadable PDF by any chance? Chasing down all the pertinent FAQ's these days is a pain.

Welcome to the Hive Mind.... I too am building a cult and can't wait to play some games with these awesome models! Alas, Tyranids (GSC included) have lots of grooves, nooks, and armor crannies that are not only a pain to remove mold lines from....just wait to you start painting. I'm hoping to attend OFCC next year and hope to see you and your new army there!

I guess I'm not sure what the debate is on the grenades thing. The rule book says (at least mine does) that only one model may throw grenades per phase. I'm paraphrasing, but 1 model per unit per phase is the gist of it. That's how everyone I know down here in Eugene plays it as far as I know. Is this being played differently because of an ITC ruling allowing multiple grenades to be used per phase?

Ahhh I shall have to check that out, thanks. I was totally looking under the psychic powers area and such. I didn't think to look under the IC's section.

This came up in a game and I couldn't find anything in the rule book, so thought I'd come and see what people thought. What happens when a unit with an attached Independent Character gets hit with a power like Paroxism, and then splits into two units after? Order of Events: Enemy unit is a unit of Drones, and a Commander is attached I hit the combined unit in my psychic phase with Paroxism and they go to -2 BS/WS. In the opponents turn, he splits the squad into two units. Which unit(s) are affected by the -2 paroxism effect now? Just the drone unit? Just the Commander unit? Both units? There's no "original" unit because they were combined.

Whoa, Nice! Dig the color scheme!

Down in Eugene, and I run that rule in my campaigns or any tournament that I plan to run. I've heard of other people using that rule too, so it seems to be catching on and I dig that! I can't take credit for it though, I heard that somewhere else too and loved the rule.

Just for the record, Glad we could steal Ninja back to the Dark Side and get him to return to Springfield. I missed gaming with him immensely and am glad he's back and corrupted into 40K again. That said Ninja, I can bring the Gargantuan Barbed Heirodule anytime you want a piece! My nids are always ready to step up and chomp some o' them tasty squids! On the other hand, my fledgling Tau army is definitely reaping the rewards from these conversations and playing against you. I'm more of a crisis suit guy, every time I play I just see Robotech cartoons from my childhood playing in my head as my suits jump around and blast tanks to scrap!

Generally most tournaments I've attended have a 3 color minimum and WYSIWYG. Coming from a smaller community, it's harder to enforce the painting requirement for events, campaigns, and tournaments. But I believe and have seen that people generally have a better attitude and better time against opponents with fully painted armies. It lightens the mood and seems to soften the blow. Yes I know there are exceptions both ways, but this is generally what I've seen. That said, I'm all for the 3 color minimum and I myself even have a hard time adhering to that. I'm making an effort, putting forth the time to get there though. I was a grey plastic general for a long time and had to make a conscious effort after enjoying a couple of fully painted events to really push myself so that my opponents could have that level of respect from me. The respect that I took the time to put some loving care into painting and basing my armies. TO's have the hardest choice to decide how to handle someone who knew the rules, and chose to bend or break them anyway. It happens and sometimes it's just dang unavoidable. A model broke, or you packed the wrong one by accident. It happens. To account for these mistakes and potential problems we enforce it with the special rule: Preferred Enemy "Unpainted" and Preferred Enemy "Non-WYSIWYG". In a smaller community that doesn't have a ton of players like Portland or Seattle, it seems to work fine and help. Does a couple things.... First, I like this policy because if you did have an accident with a model, forgot one, dropped and broke it, or even just didn't get it all the way painted, you aren't severely punished by that 1 or 2 models. You are at a slight disadvantage, but not earth shattering. Second, if you were the Mega-Bozo that chose to ignore the event rules with painting and showed up with a grey army, you will be at a severe disadvantage. You likely won't have a very good showing, and it's very unlikely that you'll end up on the winning end of the stick. However, if you were just there to play and have a great time, you can still do so. The raffle might be kind, but you won't be eligible for the top or 4 prizes (Best General, Best Sports, Best Overall, Best Painted). You can still get a shot at a small gift card and have a good time though. As for the philosophy and thinking on the painting vs. affecting overall.... I'm a firm believer that "Best Overall" means just that. If you put forth an effort and tried to better your painting, you'll do just fine. I've seen plenty of armies painted up to a pretty good standard and it didn't take Golden Demon amount of time to do it. But if you put in the bare minimum, then it's just the same as being just a so-so opponent sportsmanship wise. Best Overall means you put forth the effort in painting up the best you can, tried to make sure your opponents had the most crazy awesomest time they could, and you put the beat down with bringing the pain. All too often it seems that people who won a lot of games weight the General part of the triumverate far too heavily. Like 70% and only 15% for Sportsmanship and Painting. I see them as 33% in all, so yes I can see someone who went 4-1 winning best overall over someone who went 5-0 but maybe was a turd to play against and had a bare minimum 3 colors. For some people Painting comes easy, others they can see the games playing out before the first die is already thrown and win games like crazy.....and still others are so much fun to play against, that I'd be happy playing 5 games all weekend against just them even if I lose them all. That said, Raffles are awesome, you have a shot at fortune and glory even if you haven't perfected your game. They give everyone a chance at winning something cool, even if you're just Mr. Joe Average out for a good time, meeting new peeps, and having some fun games.

Genestealers being able to assault out of reserve, infiltrating, or outflanking would go a LONG way to helping them. 6 attacks would make people fear them like they should, but people would just shoot them off the board with the weak save they have currently. Bring em in off a table edge or from an infiltrated position with 4-6 attacks each.....oh yea. People dropping dueces in their shorts everytime you put some down. Warriors are easily fixed by upping their Toughness to 5. Currently they just get blitzed out by fire with such a weak save, and instant death killing them off. Even at T5, with a weak save, massed bolter fire rips them up, and at a high point cost, it's not nearly effective as they should be. It's kind of a shame that the Flying Hive Tyrant has to be the anchor and spammed to make any kind of a competitive list. If more options were viable, that would be sweet! It would also be nice to have something other than the Barbed Heirodule to be reliable for taking out armor. I think they were on the right track with the Exocrine, but shorted it with only Str 7 on it's shots. If it was Str 10 then we'd have a winner. Same goes for the Hive Guard, up those cannons to Str 10 and all of a sudden Nids have a viable force that can reliably hit armor from a short distance. Some of the other units like Trygons and such also got weeded out for more effective units. If they could attach to raveners or hormagaunts when deploying, that would be a huge bonus. You have a mini-formation or something where you bring in a Trygon, hormagaunts, and genestealers. Then the opponent HAS to deal with the immediate threat, as opposed to just a single unit at a time popping in piece meal. I guarantee you would see more units other than Flyrants.

The only way to completely balance 40K, is to require all players to play with the same army list. That is 40K Chess, and honestly I think that would be a really interesting tournament. You could also expand it to just using the same codex, and allowing lists to be built to only units in that codex....which would give a bit of diversity. Backstory and fluff however, are certainly elements that drew me into the hobby, and I'd be willing to be an overwhelming majority of those playing today. While it may not have a lot to do with balance (arguable), it's certainly a factor for continued involvement in the hobby. I guess everyone has a different idea of what's fun and what a tourney should be. Some people like stomping face and winning with whatever army pieces they can put together, fluff be damned, that is the next hotness and powerful combos, and paint to the bare minimum. Others devote a ridiculous amount of time to each model, meticulously painting each detail, naming their captains, and stomping across the field of battle with a specific space marine company. And there's a lot in between, just looking for a great game with some new faces and an enjoyable game. Whatever your draw into the tournament scene, the rules may not be perfect, but it at least gives some guidelines to abide by.

This isn't chess, if we were playing Chess, we'd be playing Chess. You don't see very many highly touted and advertised tournaments for chess these days. Because we want to play 40K, and 40K has a story. It's one thing to face off against marines across the table, but it's something entirely different to face off against an opponent fielding Space Marines, Eldar, Necrons, and a sprinkling of Orks thrown in for good measure.

Honestly in my opinion, the detachments limitation keeps things from getting ludicrous on a story/fluff line level, and to some degree keeps the fluff cohesion together. Not that it isn't stupid already in some instances...but that is a more rare occurrence, and not the norm. But it completely breaks the mood and atmosphere to fight an army with 15 different independent characters all loaded into a party bus land raider. I faced this once in a large 8 player apocalypse game and it was not fun in the least. Fortunately I tied the whole dork lot of them up with some "Without Number" Hormagaunts which pissed off the guy to no end, because the fight was right next to my board edge, and they kept coming on and preventing them from doing anything. Seriously though, it's ridiculous enough facing some of the maximized lists out there with units from a ton of different sources (especially since I'm a Tyranid player primarily). When people start showing up with Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, Eldar, and a couple Flyrants....I'm just not interested in playing this. Might as well mix all the armies together and not have any kind of army organization whatsoever. I prefer limiting it to a few armies. At least some Chaos Marines, Renegade Guard, and Daemons makes sense on some level, as does Mechanicus, Skitarii and Knights. It's up to us as players to hold to the integrity of the games storyline, if we lose that, then what makes this game and universe special disappears.

So as long as the Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and Knight are taken in the War Convocation, they count as 1 detachment. So if he had just combined the three sources, not taking the required models, then it would have counted as 5 detachments.... Ok that makes sense, I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly. So it's not necessarily a 3 source limit, it depends on the detachment they are bound too. Hey thanks for the clarification, appreciate it!