Nighthaunt win BLACKOUT.

[Nevvermore]

Can’t  believe someone would complain over that terrain. To me that table actually looks sparse, we usually play with more terrain than that. There isn’t only one big LOS block in the center of the table and it’s not very big. Shooting armies would have a field day on that table. 

[Future]

Yeah table looks beautiful. So do the armies, glad the players had loads of fun.

[Gaz Taylor]

9 hours ago, Rogue Sun said:

So long as you were cool with it then I'm happy. Just want to make sure players aren't in the habit of bringing their own terrain if they're going to exploit it. TO's should borrow terrain if they need it, but they should also be the ones to place it. That's all I'm aiming to ensure happened.

I’ve played Ben a couple of times at events and he always brings his own terrain and mat to play on. He always asks if you are fine with him doing that and you always have a choice in where stuff goes. The board looks amazing when done and he great fun to play. 

 

[VoodooChileIRL]

I really like that combo of Kurdoss Valentian and a model with The Aetherquartz Brooch. 5+ on the enemy hero phase to steal your opponent's Command Point using Kurdoss and a 5+ on spending a CP to recover it from the Brooch.

Don't know how much it featured during the games, but on paper that looks like a great way to nearly always have CP available to you.

[AaronWilson]

Really well done to Ben! Fantastic looking army and from what I've read a fantastic sport as well, kudos.

[Tropical Ghost General]

Congrats on the win Ben from a fellow spooky General. 

Two questions about your list:

1) You didn't bother with any of the battalions, why was that? 

2) With the last of the models being released this weekend coming, is there anything that you'd swap out from your Blackout list to include some of the new stuff? 

[Rogue Sun]

5 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

Looking at the picture of the game (I assume that is the nurgle vs Nighthaunt game people are talking about), I can’t see what the “exploited terrain” comment is about.  It looks like a pretty good table to me.

The exploit comes from the fact that that's not what the table was set up as for the tournament. Ben brought his own terrain and apparently placed it with TO consent. Now if your opponent agrees (as apparently is implied) I suppose no harm no foul, but then again bringing huge pieces of LOS blocking terrain coupled with playing an entirely flying army can be construed as giving yourself an advantage. This is why TOs should never let players have any say in terrain, not only can it be exploitative but it's just lazy for an organizer to have players set table terrain. Players stand to gain from placement of particular terrain. 

[ClockworkGeo91]

45 minutes ago, Rogue Sun said:

The exploit comes from the fact that that's not what the table was set up as for the tournament. Ben brought his own terrain and apparently placed it with TO consent. Now if your opponent agrees (as apparently is implied) I suppose no harm no foul, but then again bringing huge pieces of LOS blocking terrain coupled with playing an entirely flying army can be construed as giving yourself an advantage. This is why TOs should never let players have any say in terrain, not only can it be exploitative but it's just lazy for an organizer to have players set table terrain. Players stand to gain from placement of particular terrain. 

I take it you were there to see all of this?

Or are you making claims based on what you 'heard'?

 

Congrats Ben, what a great looking force!

[ledha]

39 minutes ago, Rogue Sun said:

The exploit comes from the fact that that's not what the table was set up as for the tournament. Ben brought his own terrain and apparently placed it with TO consent. Now if your opponent agrees (as apparently is implied) I suppose no harm no foul, but then again bringing huge pieces of LOS blocking terrain coupled with playing an entirely flying army can be construed as giving yourself an advantage. This is why TOs should never let players have any say in terrain, not only can it be exploitative but it's just lazy for an organizer to have players set table terrain. Players stand to gain from placement of particular terrain. 

any good tournament table SHOULD have several huge pieces of LOS blocking terrain anyway

[Chris Tomlin]

12 hours ago, Rogue Sun said:

Sooo, not to create controversy, but is it now legal to bring your own terrain to events? Because it's being reported that this is what happened here. The TO allowed Ben to put some ridiculously large LOS blocking pieces that he had brought onto the board which of course his army could charge over no problem but the Nurgle army could not. 

For reference, these were some of the pieces brought and placed:

Who are you @Rogue Sun and were you actually at my event? You say "not to create controversy", but you know that is exactly what you are doing and you need to stop it. There is absolutely zero controversy here and these type of posts really wind me up. I'm not sure whether I'd be more or less annoyed to learn you were at the event or not.

If you were at the event, then you will have been part of the fantastic atmosphere with 94 players enjoying some fun games of Warhammer. It was one of the most relaxed events I've ever been at (TOing or playing) with zero issues whatsoever. So this being the case, I'm not sure why you'd feel the need to raise this after the fact rather than just coming up and talking to me during the event.

On the flipside, you weren't at the event and you just want to stir the pot whilst sitting being some internet pseudonym. If this is the case, then I really don't understand your agenda here and your posts have zero value in my opinion.

As others have mentioned Ben always likes to create fantastic custom terrain for his armies and brings this along to events with a gaming mat. Whilst he has shown this weekend that he is a top player, he is also a great hobbyist and clearly gets a buzz out of great looking games of Warhammer.

BLACKOUT was held at Firestorm Games, who provided terrain for all tables, so attendants were not required to do so. However, Ben asked his opponents if they minded him using his mat and terrain before each game. As per @Carrion King's response (and thank you James for that response - well done again for your performance on the weekend), most of Ben's opponents were more than happy with this arrangement as it made for the best looking table each round (a lot of the Firestorm terrain is still very much WFB over AoS).

...however, one of Ben's opponents stated he would rather use the terrain on the table they were drawn on, which was of course completely within his right to do. So that game was played on the provided terrain and Ben still tabled his opponent whilst giving away 0 kill points (we are talking about a very good player as his opponent here as well!). During this particular round, Aaron Bailey (@Forestreveries), who swept up painting awards with a pirate themed Legion of Night, was able to play on a table with all Ben's terrain and it looked fantastic.

There is absolutely zero negative in any of this and I really don't understand the mentality of trying to find one.

Ben won 5 major victories, tabled all his opponents with 10k+ kill points, gave away 0 kill points vs two very good players, got a Best Army nomination and 2/5 Best Opponent votes. He was an all rounder and the clear Champion. End of.

6 hours ago, Luke1705 said:

Do we have access to the rest of the lists from this event?

I will collate a PDF of all 94 lists either tonight or tomorrow. I'll share the link in this thread when it's up.

Chris

[Paul Buckler]

If you had ever been to an event run by Chris, you 100% would never call him Lazy.  Bens terrain was amazing, and he always gives his opponent the option of not using it.  But why would you not want to play on a board looking like that!

The internet strikes again! 

 

[Karchev23]

Well done Ben! On the note of the terrain. It looks gorgeous! I'd happily play on that, give that man a cookie

 

[Chikout]

I wish more people would bring their own terrain to events. If they let the other player place it, as Ben did, there is no problem. It was also great to see 9 different factions in the top ten. 

All the people who attended blackout or bobo seemed to really enjoy the events. It looks like Aos is in a pretty good place right now.

[ianob]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I wish more people would bring their own terrain to events. If they let the other player place it, as Ben did, there is no problem. It was also great to see 9 different factions in the top ten. 

All the people who attended blackout or bobo seemed to really enjoy the events. It looks like Aos is in a pretty good place right now.

It really is. There's a lot of maturity that needs to happen, as the scene has grown so fast and the game has gotten so popular so quickly, but when that does happen I think the AoS scene is going to be approaching the best I've ever played in!

[Kugane]

I wish more battles had terrain like that! It looks awesomely fun. Far too many armies would perform much better if LOS and blocking terrain were more of an ongoing thing. I am glad Ben brought his own, hopefully it changes the norm a bit and becomes more widely accepted to do so! Also a lovely army and list.

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

I’ve played Ben a couple of times at events and he always brings his own terrain and mat to play on. He always asks if you are fine with him doing that and you always have a choice in where stuff goes. The board looks amazing when done and he great fun to play. 

 

Nothing like knowing the ins and outs of every single piece of terrain you will encounter, plus knowing exactly how much there will be and never being surprised by something unexpected.

Nice home field advantage to have for each and every game. 

Not saying Ben is trying to create an unfair advantage intentionally*, but it's being created nonetheless. I would not be cool with this, but I also would not want to run the risk of appearing discourteous. It's a real tough position to put your opponent in and I'm a bit surprised a TO would allow it.

 

*And let me be clear - By all accounts Ben is a great fella, and this is in no way a shot at him. I have zero reason to believe he's trying to pull a fast one. Also, this is not a negative comment toward the event or the TO.

I just find it genuinely surprising that this is allowed and that others players should have to be put in a position to risk looking bad if they feel ill at ease with saying yes to the terrain.

It's not about there being a deliberate attempt to gain an advantage, but rather about an opponent feeling there might be one but still feeling obligated to permit it.

[Mayple]

More of a practical question regarding the event:

Did you use the realm rules? If so, did you modify it in any way? (Ghur comes to mind) - How was it?

When players bring their own terrain like Ben did, or just in general, do you tend to use the warscroll rules for specific terrain pieces, or do you just treat them as aesthetically pleasing terrain pieces without any special rules?

[Wayner]

It was actually my only downer for this my first event that I didn't get to play Ben lovely bloke and absolutely awesome terrain. Would of loved to play him using it. 

[Gaz Taylor]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

I just find it genuinely surprising that this is allowed and that others players should have to be put in a position to risk looking bad if they feel ill at ease with saying yes to the terrain.

It's not about there being a deliberate attempt to gain an advantage, but rather about an opponent feeling there might be one but still feeling obligated to permit it

Totally disagree with what you are saying. If somebody doesn't like something they would say. @Chris Tomlin even says above this post that somebody didn't want to use the terrain. 

[Luke1705]

25 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Totally disagree with what you are saying. If somebody doesn't like something they would say. @Chris Tomlin even says above this post that somebody didn't want to use the terrain. 

While I have absolutely no problem saying "hey I think this terrain is totally unbalanced/difficult slash time consuming to play on/creates an unfair advantage for myself or you" I am fully certain that some people would not be as upfront about things like this.  Exhibit A: the dude above me who literally said "I would be uncomfortable nixing someone's terrain on these grounds".

That being said, it's also easy to see why an event would do it (especially a big one). I've never been to an event that asked you to bring your own terrain, but I've also coordinated the terrain for an 80 person event and let me just say....wow! Way more work than I thought it would be and while we had a ton of positive feedback about the terrain in particular at the event we ran, there is still so much more that we can do better and we learned a ton through the process.

Having people bring their own terrain absolutely can and does create a slight competitive advantage.  I'm sure some people don't model their terrain with this in mind, but they certainly don't do the opposite (bring terrain that is bad for their army). And surely there are people that intentionally do try to bring terrain that is good for them. I feel that, from an event organizer perspective, people should be allowed to bring their terrain, and encouraging it would be fine with me, but I think that top tables should have the terrain set by the event organizers and that the terrain should not be the terrain that players bring with them.  Feels like a good compromise for all.

[Luke1705]

5 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

BLACKOUT was held at Firestorm Games, who provided terrain for all tables, so attendants were not required to do so. However, Ben asked his opponents if they minded him using his mat and terrain before each game. As per @Carrion King's response (and thank you James for that response - well done again for your performance on the weekend), most of Ben's opponents were more than happy with this arrangement as it made for the best looking table each round (a lot of the Firestorm terrain is still very much WFB over AoS).

...however, one of Ben's opponents stated he would rather use the terrain on the table they were drawn on, which was of course completely within his right to do. So that game was played on the provided terrain and Ben still tabled his opponent whilst giving away 0 kill points (we are talking about a very good player as his opponent here as well!). During this particular round, Aaron Bailey (@Forestreveries), who swept up painting awards with a pirate themed Legion of Night, was able to play on a table with all Ben's terrain and it looked fantastic.

This is literally perfect handling of terrain IMO and I'm glad to see that Ben won.  Sounds like my kind of guy - plays hard and paints hard too (for the record I absolutely do not paint hard but I love aesthetically good-looking pieces)

[Sleboda]

That's cool that someone did speak up, but in my experience, that's the exception. You may remember back in the old days of "by permission only" special characters, you had to ask an opponent to use them.

So, you would spend the money on the model, spend a weekend painting it, then have to ask if you could use it. Lots of people (not me) felt special characters were too powerful and preferred not to play against them. It was up to them: exercise their rules-given right to deny permission and disappoint their opponent, or say nothing and play the game with unspoken discomfort.

That's the problem. You almost never hear afterward from the people who don't express their preference to not do a thing. It's a social risk to do so, so they smile, say yes, and diminish their own fun just to avoid looking bad - even though they were given the option.

I know this to be true because I've actually asked, point blank, several players about this over the decades. I've had to let them know that I'm really just curious and not judging. I've had to go super far down a path to coax their true thoughts out of them. It is really not easy at all to feel "safe" expressing their desire to say no.

"Getting permission" sounds, on the surface, like a great solution. It's really not. An external rules source needs to be the arbiter.

I've played in tournaments where it was a pre-stated feature of the event that you could bring your own terrain set up. There was even a contest for best table. It was awesome and you knew it ahead of time. That's very different from literally every single other tournament I've attended where the terrain was all provided by the TO. If I went to one of those and my opponent suggested we replace the terrain with a custom set up of his own, I'd like to know that the TO would step in an say that's not an option. The player should never be put in a spot to look like the bad guy for simply preferring to play by the published rules of the event.

I'll point out that I don't have any idea what this event's rules were, so my discussion points are really about the general idea, not the particular event, players, or TO.

If you're bored or a glutton for punishment*, here is an elaboration.

 

* hmm ... the forum bleeps the word for enjoying getting hurt ... strange

[ClockworkGeo91]

11 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

That's cool that someone did speak up, but in my experience, that's the exception. You may remember back in the old days of "by permission only" special characters, you had to ask an opponent to use them.

So, you would spend the money on the model, spend a weekend painting it, then have to ask if you could use it. Lots of people (not me) felt special characters were too powerful and preferred not to play against them. It was up to them: exercise their rules-given right to deny permission and disappoint their opponent, or say nothing and play the game with unspoken discomfort.

That's the problem. You almost never hear afterward from the people who don't a express their preference to not do a thing. It's a social risk to do so, so they smile, say yes, and diminish their own fun just to avoid looking bad - even though they were given the option.

I know this to be true because I've actually asked, point blank, several players about this over the decades. I've had to let them know that I'm really just curious and not judging. I've had to go super far down a path to coax their true thoughts out of them. It is really not easy at all to feel "safe" expressing their desire to say no.

"Getting permission" sounds, on the surface, like a great solution. It's really not. An external rules source needs to be the arbiter.

I've played in tournaments where it was a pre-stated feature of the event that you could bring your own terrain set up. There was even a contest for best table. It was awesome and you knew it ahead of time. That's very different from literally every single other tournament I've attended where the terrain was all provided by the TO. If I went to one of those and my opponent suggested we replace the terrain with a custom set up of his own, I'd like to know that the TO would step in an say that's not an option. The player should never be put in a spot to look like the bad guy for simply preferring to play by the published rules of the event.

I'll point out that I don't have any idea what this event's rules were, so my discussion points are really about the general idea, not the particular event, players, or TO.

If you're bored or a ******, here is an elaboration.

Can't believe people are still carrying on with this social pressure argument; fairly assumptive that you are saying everyone who played against Ben needs a TO to step in on their behalf because they can't speak for themselves.

I read your elaboration about these greater points - I understand what you are saying but you are basically painting these as absolute across the board rules. Each event has their own rules; This one allowed terrain, others do not. Some allow custom warscrolls, models etc. some do not. None of your points are universal rules, each event has it's own rules, this one allowed terrain.

Your argument is not absolute or across the board, this was Chris' event, and his rules allowed Terrain.

That's it, as far as I can see this is the end of the discussion.

Aside from anything else - Notably we have not heard a compliant from anyone who actually played against Ben.  If you don't like that rule, don't play at events that allow terrain - although mostwould have said 'no' if they don't like it despite your assertion that no one can speak up for themselves.

[Sleboda]

5 minutes ago, ClockworkGeo91 said:

Your argument is not absolute or across the board, this was Chris' event, and his rules allowed Terrain.

That's great! Honest! 

Like I said, my point was less about this event and more about the idea of permission. I'm not saying it's universal. I'm saying that in my (not inconsiderable) experience with many, many long form conversations on the topic with people who were sufficiently assured they could be honest that, yeah, the discomfort is a real thing for a lot more people than who are willing to say so at the table, so to speak.

[ClockworkGeo91]

18 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

That's great! Honest! 

Like I said, my point was less about this event and more about the idea of permission. I'm not saying it's universal. I'm saying that in my (not inconsiderable) experience with many, many long form conversations on the topic with people who were sufficiently assured they could be honest that, yeah, the discomfort is a real thing for a lot more people than who are willing to say so at the table, so to speak.

I understand your point and appreciate how clearly you have presented it.

However It isn't about this event - correct. This thread was meant to be a positive discussion about Blackout, however people who were not even involved have brought negativity to this thread when the discussions to a wider issue would best have been laid elsewhere - again especially if you were not present.