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pretre

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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.

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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.

I really don't agree that it's unfluffy to have multiple detachments. I started playing imperium with the WH/DH books. In one army, I could field assassins, inquisitors, grey knights, astra militarum (indoctrinated IG), and militarum tempestus (INQ stormtroopers). At one point, I also had those WH Zealots via WD rules.

 

For opponents, we had TAU with allied AM (human auxiliary), Chaos with CSM, CD and AM tanks (bassy), and orks with their lootas (which used to borrow IG/SM equipment/vehicle options for their orks to take).

 

I really don't think fluff has a place in competitive events. Think chess. Maybe there's a plot to chess, but a chess tournament doesn't really need to think about it. 40k is no different.

 

If we wanted fluffy, it wouldn't be marines vs marines in almost every game. You could rig up some overall plot for a tournament and have each game played contribute to an overall victory. You might even go so far as to limit the number of players for each faction.

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Huh.....

 

And the above doesn't qualify as multi-detachment shenanigans?

 

The detachment limits were originally put in place during 6E because of the introduction of Inquisitional, Knight, and similar "special detachments" (as well as formations) that allowed players to break the normal "primary + ally" limit of the time. As these detachments could only realistically be taken by Imperials (with a handful of exceptions) and could, in many cases, be game-altering, there was significant concern that being able to combine so many different parts together could create abusive lists. It's virtually impossible to say whether or not this was true in retrospect, but that was the rationale behind it.

 

The limitations persisted into 7E by virtue of inertia, and in the recent ITC poll there was extensive support for their weakening and/or total removal. The ITC council has since upped the limit to three detachments (rather than the original two) and there has been some talk of allowing unlimited ones, though a "no duplicates" rule is still currently enforced.

 

No fixed ever can or will wholly prevent players from using/abusing the system- odd exceptions such as the War Convocation and other "formations of formations" are a thing, and the only other feasible solution (have them count as all of their component detachments) makes them essentially unplayable, including most of the new special detachments like Decurion/Warhost/Gladius/etc. I think, where possible, it is preferable to err on the side of allowing players to bring as wide a variety of legal choices as possible- excepting those options that are problematic for the functionality of the game. As the War Convocation has yet to prove itself so, I see no problem with allowing it until it does.

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I really don't agree that it's unfluffy to have multiple detachments. I started playing imperium with the WH/DH books. In one army, I could field assassins, inquisitors, grey knights, astra militarum (indoctrinated IG), and militarum tempestus (INQ stormtroopers). At one point, I also had those WH Zealots via WD rules.

 

For opponents, we had TAU with allied AM (human auxiliary), Chaos with CSM, CD and AM tanks (bassy), and orks with their lootas (which used to borrow IG/SM equipment/vehicle options for their orks to take).

 

I really don't think fluff has a place in competitive events. Think chess. Maybe there's a plot to chess, but a chess tournament doesn't really need to think about it. 40k is no different.

 

If we wanted fluffy, it wouldn't be marines vs marines in almost every game. You could rig up some overall plot for a tournament and have each game played contribute to an overall victory. You might even go so far as to limit the number of players for each faction.

 

 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.

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You don't see very many highly touted and advertised tournaments for chess these days.

 

I'm pretty sure that the worldwide audience for and sales of chess blow 40K out of the water. No one ever talks about the "world warhammer champion," but Deep Blue shook people's conceptions of what computers could do when it beat Kasparov.

 

A functional game system is not fundamentally opposed to well-developed theme and story; many games have both, and the only reason 40K doesn't is because GW insists that tournaments and competitive play are somehow harmful to the game.

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A functional game system is not fundamentally opposed to well-developed theme and story; many games have both, and the only reason 40K doesn't is because GW insists that tournaments and competitive play are somehow harmful to the game.

I agree. Though when I think of a competitive game that plays on a table top, I always go to chess. Competitive Warmahordes and Magic the gathering are pretty close to chess, too.

 

I think one of the key factors for competitive gaming, like chess, is to have a balanced format. That way, it is strictly a contest of players ability to play the game. Although chess does this to an extreme, 40k is very much not a balanced game. I think if you wanted to make 40k into the competitive game that groups like the ITC claim to desire, they need to balance 40k within their event.

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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.

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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.

You could make a fluffy tournament, but what we often see is something else. Normally, a 40k tournament feels like your army is transported to a random plane of terrain, where a guy name "Melllvar" forces the unlikely allies into a battle to the death.....

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