Matched Play: How "Optional" Should Terrain and Realm Rules Be?

[soak314]

And I'm not just talking about rolling scenery dice and realm artefacts, Im talkin full monty:

A.) All realm effects followed INCLUDING Ulgu in all it's 8" limiting glory, and Ghur and the often violently ignored Rampaging Monsters rule.
B.) Terrain rules as per their relevant warscrolls. This includes stuff like full on LoS blocking, Obstacle rules, and Garrison rules, that supersede the scenery dice.
C.) Full terrain and board setup as seen in the new GHB.

Most people I play don't ever bother with realm rules past the artefacts, or possibly the spells. The realm *effects* in particular are very polarizing.

Every single person I've played with isn't or is only partially aware of the terrain warscrolls, despite the GHB stating they should be used for matched play.

The new board setup is far more readily accepted, as the GHB is pretty clear on how this process is done. 

  ***

This topic is really interesting to me because there's a lot to talk about  around it.

Realm Artefacts for example are readily incorporated because it's a big range of toys for you to pick from, at no major disadvantage. Realm spells, not as much, because it will depend on how caster-heavy your army is. Realm Effects tend to be ignored because there is that one chance you roll something that completely shifts the game dynamic (Ulgu range limitations, Ghur Beasts, Ghyran no run rule, Hysh/Shyish spellcasting bonus rules, Aqshy total LOS blocking on all terrain, etc etc.).

Terrain warscroll rules are ignored for good reason: not everyone has all the bits required. There's also the extra layer of rules you now have to account for, and a lot of tournament players correlate not being fully aware of what rules could be in play to losing, often horribly. This is a fair outlook, as some of the terrain warscrolls are considerably more gamechanging than their scenery dice counterparts! 

And the board setup at this point is an easy adapt cuz it removes a very vaguely defined aspect of the game. The most pushback I've seen levied against it is that it makes the game longer.

***

Now, assuming you have a local independent shop, that has several multiples of ALL the warscroll terrain, all proper done up and presented on appropriate neoprene mats. It has two dozen 6x4 tables, it has loads of floor space, and all the nice little small tables with little wheels on the side for you to put your models on. It's an ideal tournament venue!

Now imagine the venue does indeed run regular tournaments, but with very specifically laid out rules: they will follow the GHB guidelines to the word. This includes everything I mentioned above (and the painting points/hidden agendas for tiebreaking, but those are less interesting talking points).

Would you frequent these hypothetical tournaments, knowing they followed the frankly much more random nature of the GHB's official take on matched play?

If you wouldn't, then at what point do you think a matched play game stops "being matched play"? How many of these optional rules do you have to keep intact for it to be an ideal tournament rule set? How much space in their wording do you think GW specifically leaves up for organiser interpretation in this regard? 

And just to throw another wrench into things, at what pointage  do you think would following the *full* GW-mandated matched play setup work best? 2k? 2.5k? Meeting Engagements?

 

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

I’m of the mindset of including it all, mainly because it adds more to the tactical side of the game where players must react to novel situations and takes a bit away from the strategic list building aspect. 

I think it’s a real missed opportunity not using proper terrain rules and garrisoning etc. It can really change the dynamic of the game and the power levels of armies.

Although I do agree it can add extra time issues to the game and the old “fairness” issue will crop up if someone has bad luck with terrain etc. But these issues will always exist. 

[soak314]

16 minutes ago, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I’m of the mindset of including it all, mainly because it adds more to the tactical side of the game where players must react to novel situations and takes a bit away from the strategic list building aspect. 

I think it’s a real missed opportunity not using proper terrain rules and garrisoning etc. It can really change the dynamic of the game and the power levels of armies.

Although I do agree it can add extra time issues to the game and the old “fairness” issue will crop up if someone has bad luck with terrain etc. But these issues will always exist. 

I'm of the same outlook: I think the aos core system is one of the farthest things from "ideal competitive wargame system" I've ever seen, but all the game-changing, randomized factors in scenario setup help push it more towards being a very interesting, much more compelling meta where you're tested on your ability to adapt and think on your feet instead of your list's ability to take toy soldiers off the table in the first couple of turns.

EDIT: And I disagree about the list building being de-emphasised! Someone swayed me to this opinion in the meeting engagements thread: in a format where the scenarios are highly variable it is imperative that you make a list with less strategic holes in it, one that can efficiently cover its exposed hindquarters in any given situation.

Edited July 25, 2019 by soak314

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

3 minutes ago, soak314 said:

I'm of the same outlook: I think the aos core system is one of the farthest things from "ideal competitive wargame system" I've ever seen, but all the game-changing, randomized factors in scenario setup help push it more towards being a very interesting, much more compelling meta where you're tested on your ability to adapt and think on your feet instead of your list's ability to take toy soldiers off the table in the first couple of turns.

Exactly. A big thing about the competitive or balanced factor is that you have to consider what you are testing. If you’re testing the user at a tactical level with almost perfectly balanced forces (never happens in the real world) then you play chess. 

If you want to test  strategic and tactical skills in an relatively unknown environment (like real world) then AoS represents that really well. 

With unknown battlefield terrain, unknown turns and many other factors, the emphasis gets placed on the player reacting in the best possible way they can for that unique situation. Which is what a war game is all about IMO. 

[MrZakalwe]

20 minutes ago, soak314 said:

I'm of the same outlook: I think the aos core system is one of the farthest things from "ideal competitive wargame system" I've ever seen, but all the game-changing, randomized factors in scenario setup help push it more towards being a very interesting, much more compelling meta where you're tested on your ability to adapt and think on your feet instead of your list's ability to take toy soldiers off the table in the first couple of turns.

Problem for me with the realm rules is that they don't tend to create a novel tactical situation, they just tend to give one side or the other a massive buff. When they dropped we tested them for a while but didn't have positive results - including one game against Ironjawz with my ranged heavy Mixed Order force where we got a certain Ulgu result which was no fun for either player - so we dropped them. Realm spells and artefacts are nice, though. 

Random terrain rules were a similar experience - one side getting a bit of magical terrain at the front of their deployment while the other gets a big block of deadly just messed with a game that already has a shed load of RNG in it. 

I think if the random terrain was done symmetrically it could be awesome because they both players are trying to cope with something similar but that's a fair bit of bother during setup and AoS games already take longer than 40k with current bloat. 

Edit: but yeah at this stage you would have to ply realm spells and artefacts from our cold, dead hands. 

Edited July 25, 2019 by MrZakalwe

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

11 minutes ago, MrZakalwe said:

Problem for me with the realm rules is that they don't tend to create a novel tactical situation, they just tend to give one side or the other a massive buff. When they dropped we tested them for a while but didn't have positive results - including one game against Ironjawz with my ranged heavy Mixed Order force where we got a certain Ulgu result which was no fun for either player - so we dropped them. Realm spells and artefacts are nice, though. 

Random terrain rules were a similar experience - one side getting a bit of magical terrain at the front of their deployment while the other gets a big block of deadly just messed with a game that already has a shed load of RNG in it. 

I think if the random terrain was done symmetrically it could be awesome because they both players are trying to cope with something similar but that's a fair bit of bother during setup and AoS games already take longer than 40k with current bloat. 

Edit: but yeah at this stage you would have to ply realm spells and artefacts from our cold, dead hands. 

But that’s a problem with your lis building not anticipating that or having a contingency in case your shooting was turned off, there’s other things in the game that can limit shooting as well which would have a similar effect on an all ranged list, that not a fault with the game. 

And why does a wargame have to be exactly even both sides? That not how war works. Sometimes you end up in a bad location and have to use the tools you have to make the best of it. 

Odds are over the course of a a few games or tournament it evens out

[wayniac]

It should be mandatory IMHO.  Didn't a WHC article say that those realm rules and such are taken into consideration for balancing the game, so ignoring them is willfully ignoring intended design to counteract some army builds?  Granted, we have no way of knowing if that was true or just BS, but with nothing to prove contrary it has to be assumed that it really is intended to be used for balancing.  IMHO anything that encourages balanced lists as opposed to focusing on "winning during the list building phase" like you so often find in Warhammer is great; the realm rules should discourage heavy shooting skews, for example, in the event you get Ulgu. 

However i do think that events should predetermine which realms games will take place in; it should not be left up to random chance the day of.  The tournament pack should say that the first round is in Ulgu, the second round is in Aqshy, and the third round is in Ghyran or some such, so at least you're aware and can adjust your list appropriately.  I'm actually curious how many tournaments really use them.

Almost everyone I talk to hates the realm rules with a passion and refuse to use it.  The terrain stuff gets used, but rarely remembered.  I have not played with the GHB19 terrain rules yet to know about that.

Edited July 25, 2019 by wayniac

[Aginor]

I would be happy to use all those rules more often, and thus encourage building more versatile lists that can cope with all of them.

But unfortunately the game is not balanced to do that. And that's especially true for tournaments IMHO.

In a story campaign that I run for/with my buddy I sometimes say stuff like "your scouts say there will be a lot of obstacles on the battlefield" and thus enable him to build his list for that.

But that's where the second problem comes into play: "one trick pony" armies. If you play Kharadron Overlords then some realm rules (those good against shooting) outright kill your list. You don't even have to play, you know you will lose.

Something that slows down armies will kill Ironjawz as they will be shot to pieces.

Realm rules working against magic will be really bad for Teentch but the Kharadron player will only laugh.

As Seraphon I have it good. I can mitigate those effects using summoning, I also have good unit variety to choose from. SCE will also be fine because they have a huge choice of units and even their shooty stuff isn't _that_ bad in melee.

But many armies will struggle with some of those rules. And that means that a roll for the battlefield's attributes might decide the match. Which isn't exactly fun gameplay.

And even if the realm rules are known beforehand: some armies will not be able to compete. Those players have to pick another army, allies (which is almost the same), or just don't go to the tournament.

Of course there are ways to mitigate those problems. But they won't work for every army either.

[Dead Scribe]

Things like realm rules will always chaffe because like it or not people love them one-trick pony lists that get massively screwed on certain tables.  Thats what happens when you load down an army with one type of thing (say... all shooting, and then complaining when the table has line of sight blocking terrain).  

You can't fix that with rules and I don't think you can fix that mentality either to want to build one trick pony lists that can always do good in every situation.

So then that goes to the original question.  Should realm rules be mandatory?  I'd answer no.  Because realm rules will ****** one trick pony lists over.  Or even lists that have a theme that overloads an aspect of the game.  Say if I bring a 75% shooting army.  If there is line of sight blocking terrain on the table or realm rules that limit my shooting, I'd concede before the game even begins, because I'm playing at a massive disadvantage.

Which circles around to "is it ok to build lists like that?" and I'd say it should because thats what people want to do.

And if thats what people want to do, they should be able to do so or else they will find something else to do with their money.

I think the realm rules are cool and neat, for those that want to use them.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[zilberfrid]

The issue I have with realm rules, is that my army can change its composition before it enters a realm.

Going to a place that almost disables shooting? Outriders stay home, militia might take up shields, and a few extra greatswords are exchanged. That would make sense for a general to do.

If we had a sideboard that allowed changing a few units, I would not mind them as much, but as it stands, the roll of a die changes a lot of the chances of an army.

Note that this is with Freeguild, who need to source magic, healing, artillery and much of the support from outside their faction, we don't have the option to prepare for multiple things at once.  And this is not even one of the elven factions or devoted of Sigmar.

With a sideboard for different realms, and/or armies that are more complete (perchance with Cities of Sigmar?), I would not have an issue with it, as it stands, realm choice simply destroys some armies, while hardly limiting others.

[zilberfrid]

16 minutes ago, Aginor said:

I would be happy to use all those rules more often, and thus encourage building more versatile lists that can cope with all of them.

But unfortunately the game is not balanced to do that. And that's especially true for tournaments IMHO.

In a story campaign that I run for/with my buddy I sometimes say stuff like "your scouts say there will be a lot of obstacles on the battlefield" and thus enable him to build his list for that.

But that's where the second problem comes into play: "one trick pony" armies. If you play Kharadron Overlords then some realm rules (those good against shooting) outright kill your list. You don't even have to play, you know you will lose.

Something that slows down armies will kill Ironjawz as they will be shot to pieces.

Realm rules working against magic will be really bad for Teentch but the Kharadron player will only laugh.

As Seraphon I have it good. I can mitigate those effects using summoning, I also have good unit variety to choose from. SCE will also be fine because they have a huge choice of units and even their shooty stuff isn't _that_ bad in melee.

But many armies will struggle with some of those rules. And that means that a roll for the battlefield's attributes might decide the match. Which isn't exactly fun gameplay.

And even if the realm rules are known beforehand: some armies will not be able to compete. Those players have to pick another army, allies (which is almost the same), or just don't go to the tournament.

Of course there are ways to mitigate those problems. But they won't work for every army either.

I would say that if you know the army beforehand, you can change allies and adjust army composition, it should be a lot more even.

Tournaments should make sure they cycle the types of realms, so you are neither screwed three rounds in a row, nor boosted that same amount of times.

[Overread]

Realm Rules are fine when they are known in advance and players can work with them rather than against them. For tournament events most tend to stick to a single realm so that armies are not left with random realms that benefit them and then in the next game they get a realm that nerfs them hard. Sideboards are not as practical for wargames with points as they are for card games. Card games its simple "no more than 4 of the same card and not more than the card limit for the match (60 or so is common in magic the gathering)". That's really easy to swap cards in and out of.

 

For a wargame the points of things can vary a lot and its more tricky to just "swap something out for something else." Taking a shooty army and going for more close combat almost has to rebuild the army from the ground up. At which point you're not really playing with a side-board but with two armies. Which is another aspect in how would you limit the sideboard. Some armies can more easily swap around 200points of models; others might find it a struggle. A skaven force with lots of clan rat units ahs lots of variety; whilst an army of stormcast has far fewer smaller unit blocks to move around. 

 

 

In the end for games what's important is that the CORE game should include random , but be weighted more toward player skill. So that you're winning matches because you brought a good legal army and you're playing well. Rather than because the realm rules favoured your opponent and your opponent got a double turn first etc... 

[tom_gore]

I think it would be cool to have an event (tournament) where the game size would be X points (could even be different sizes on different rounds) but you would be able to bring a list of total Y points, of which you would build your army before each game round after the announcement of the scenario and realm rules. You would also know your opponents allegiance, but you both would create the list in secret and then reveal them.

Obviously should have a limited time to construct the list, like 15 minutes or so.

 

[wayniac]

I honestly find most of the vitriol over the realm rules come down to "I can't play my one-trick skew list that I always play and only want to play" which is where the issue arises.  I have gotten screwed in the realm rules myself (Maggotkin with the extra rule that slowed you) but it still made the game better than without it.  I could see the issue for using t hem for pickup games, since then it is actually random and not known beforehand but if it's some k ind of event, whether a league, campaign or even a tournament you can predetermine what realm each round/week's games will take place in so people can prepare accordingly.

I think the bigger question would be WHY the design team seems to think such a large random swing is a good idea to balance out the game as opposed to doing it at the army list and faction levels.  The realm rules are cool but and as I said I like them but I totally understand the "WTF?" response to them since they are so polarizing to games.

[Dead Scribe]

I mean - people also don't like the terrain to impact games much either.  In our store everything has to be mirror setup and if you put more than one line of sight blocker down, you're going to have a fight.

We had a blow out a few weeks ago because one of the players set up a table with the storm vault stuff all over it and it blocked a lot of line of sight, and there was a lot of hurt feelings and anger over that and a guy that stormed out of the store that hasn't been back or heard from since.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[soak314]

Just now, wayniac said:

I think the bigger question would be WHY the design team seems to think such a large random swing is a good idea to balance out the game as opposed to doing it at the army list and faction levels.  The realm rules are cool but and as I said I like them but I totally understand the "WTF?" response to them since they are so polarizing to games.

That's pretty clear to me personally: they've made a wargame and they acknowledge its nature. It's not an RTS, not a tactical action chess analogue like KT Arena or a hybrid tabletop competitive system like Underworlds*, it's a wargame.

And as pointed out earlier, if you want to emulate what is tested in war you need to make the competition a test of who can make the most out unknowable and terrible situations. Nobody else in the industry tries to do that, and if there's one thing GW has absolutely nailed across the years, it's making a one of a kind identity for themselves.

I'm pretty sure this is just them applying that philosophy to competitive play.

_{*(KT Arena and Underworlds are fantastic dedicated competitive systems more in line with the balancing seen in GW's contemporaries and everyone should give them a shot.)}





 

[wayniac]

31 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I mean - people also don't like the terrain to impact games much either.  In our store everything has to be mirror setup and if you put more than one line of sight blocker down, you're going to have a fight.

We had a blow out a few weeks ago because one of the players set up a table with the storm vault stuff all over it and it blocked a lot of line of sight, and there was a lot of hurt feelings and anger over that and a guy that stormed out of the store that hasn't been back or heard from since.

Sadly I'd guess that attitude is more common that people think.  There's a lot of "it's not fair" approaches to terrain placement if someone has heavy shooting and you set up LOS blocking terrain.  It's why you often see sparse terrain that ends up not mattering or symmetrical terrain, or the classic "terrain on the sides, middle wide open" sort of stuff.  I don't get it.  The terrain is supposed to help balance the game against that guy who brings shooting heavy armies, not let him just walk all over everyone or it's "not fair" that he can't.

Yikes.

Edited July 25, 2019 by wayniac

[wayniac]

27 minutes ago, soak314 said:

That's pretty clear to me personally: they've made a wargame and they acknowledge its nature. It's not an RTS, not a tactical action chess analogue like KT Arena or a hybrid tabletop competitive system like Underworlds*, it's a wargame.

Yet wargames don't have random things like that in such polarizing ways.  At least not any wargame I've ever seen other than Warhammer.  This is neither here nor there so I won't continue down this train of thought but randomness is not strategy nor tactics, it's just randomness.

Edited July 25, 2019 by wayniac

[Overread]

35 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I mean - people also don't like the terrain to impact games much either.  In our store everything has to be mirror setup and if you put more than one line of sight blocker down, you're going to have a fight.

We had a blow out a few weeks ago because one of the players set up a table with the storm vault stuff all over it and it blocked a lot of line of sight, and there was a lot of hurt feelings and anger over that and a guy that stormed out of the store that hasn't been back or heard from since.

Honestly it sounds like an attitude problem with your store and group. Rather like they need to open up their minds and play with line of sight blockers on the table. If someone is storming out because of terrain deployment like that then its kind of extreme. It also sounds like there's a lot of younger and newer players in the group. 

 

Also isn't your local the place that limits you to 1 hour playtime? That in itself would make a drastic change in how players approached the game - likely making them not want to move around terrain (all on the edge) and want to get the battle over fast with smaller forces. 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Overread

[Dead Scribe]

I'm not excusing his behavior because it was rather embarrassing to watch a 30 some year old man storm out of the store red-faced and angry over a game, but to his defense he DID buy an army based off of tournament standard, which doesn't currently really enforce a lot of line of sight blocking terrain, so he felt that he was being gotcha'd by the equivalent of house rules or non standard unofficial deployment.

[SwampHeart]

Just some bullets on my personal tournament attendance stuff:

-Won't go to a tournament using realm rules. Getting you can't run isn't a 'tactical challenge to see how good a general I am', it is literally turning off a core mechanic of the army/units I use. Also this is just another set of print outs I need to carry with me, rules bloat is real. And yes I know GW says the game is balanced with realm rules in effect. Its 100% provable its not true because GW themselves don't use Ghur at things like the GT Heats. If every single realm feature was well balanced for matched play then why is GW specifically avoiding one of them? 

-There isn't enough time in a tournament to have players set up terrain before each game. AoS already has a time issue, adding another 10-15 minute mini game to the process isn't helping anyone. I am 100% fine with going to a tournament that has pre-set its tables according to the GHB rules though. 

-Terrain Warscrolls are a huge PITA. Its not even a balance thing, its just another bit of bloat for me to have to remember on the table. AoS suffers from rules bloat as is (again see realm rules). The scenery tables work fine, I don't need to constantly reference what a Sigmarite Shrine does - I already need to be aware of what my army can do, what my opponents army can do, what realm artifacts may be in play, what army specific scenery is in play, etc. 

When I run events at my FLGS we use the scenery tables on tables set up per GHB guidelines, no realms, realm artifacts allowed. That's a pretty decent mirror to the rest of the US tournament scene so I think it works pretty well. 

 

[soak314]

2 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Yet wargames don't have random things like that in such polarizing ways.  At least not any wargame I've ever seen other than Warhammer.  This is neither here nor there so I won't continue down this train of thought but randomness is not strategy nor tactics, it's just randomness.

Yeah, exactly. They're trying to differentiate further within the genre they previously defined. Nobody else is approaching it like they are, and they're leaning into it.

I can see a lot of people here don't regard the ability to adapt to something you can't control as good measure of tactica, but is it really not? Id be way more impressed with someone who can consistently win tourneys with realm rules on. Anyone can mathhammer an even playing field, not everyone can keep themselves form breaking when things look hairy, and manage to pull wins out their ass in a random, unfair environment.

 

[wayniac]

3 minutes ago, soak314 said:

Yeah, exactly. They're trying to differentiate further within the genre they previously defined. Nobody else is approaching it like they are, and they're leaning into it.

I can see a lot of people here don't regard the ability to adapt to something you can't control as good measure of tactica, but is it really not? Id be way more impressed with someone who can consistently win tourneys with realm rules on. Anyone can mathhammer an even playing field, not everyone can keep themselves form breaking when things look hairy, and manage to pull wins out their ass in a random, unfair environment.

 

I won't delve too deep into this tangent but people don't want randomness to dictate what they can't control, they want it to be actual skill and how you play, like wargaming of old where maneuvering and setting up charges and things like that were all the rule of the day.  Well actually most modern players seem to want list building to be the only real tactic, but my point stands:  The issue is it's just "We rolled the result on the chart which really hurt my army" isn't doing anything for tactics, it's just RNG ****** you over and making  you adapt instead of adapting coming naturally during the course of the game.

That said though, I still think the realm rules add some nice variety, even if I feel that having such huge swings of the game due to a die roll isn't actual tactics.

[Dead Scribe]

I don't think any real tournament players want listbuilding to be the only thing that matters or real tactic.  They want it to be about 50%.  If you can't build a legit list, you have no business being on the top tables.  

If we (tournament players) wanted listbuilding to be the only thing that matters, then there would only be one list that should win events, which is clearly not the case.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[tripchimeras]

I think there is a BIG difference between a tournament and any other type of play competitive, matched, or otherwise.  If I am playing competitively with friends, in either some sort of campaign, ladder league, or just 1 off's all of these rules add tactical ripples to the game and can make things more interesting.  In particular I can see why GW would say they balance the game because they can help a lot of underpowered books in some of these matchups against the power armies, particularly those that are scew lists.  And in this environment of "competitive" play, singular losses are not huge deals (not that they ever really are, but I hope you know what I mean).  In the aggregate, across realms the better players are going to win more games, and the lists built to withstand the most variation of opponents are going to win more games, even if occasionally you run into a scenario completely stacked in your opponents favor, where there is essentially nothing your army book could have done to compensate regardless of the army you assembled.  Those situations are going to just seem like a fun challenge, and even if its basically an auto loss its one game among friends, or within a much larger campaign, that can easily be made up for later.

Tournaments, however, are a very different beast.  First of all the number of games in a tournament are limited you are generally looking at 5 in a 2 day event.  To win that type of tournament you have to go undefeated plain and simple.  Most people who play tournaments want to be based primarily on player skill, player skill includes 3 things, list construction, deployment, and gameplay.  Luck is the limiting factor here, and the one you want mitigated as much as humanly possible in a tournament.  As much as the realm rules, terrain rules, and terrain set-up rules are good balancing acts in aggregate, they create this balance in a pretty random and very uneven way.  While it's easy to say "bring a more balanced" list as a response to complaints, it is not nearly so strait forward.  Different realms are almost always going to benefit certain types of armies more then others, increasing the "luck of the draw" aspect of who wins the tourney even more then already exists.  People want pre-set "balanced" terrain for the same reason, you don't want to have to get lucky with which tables you land on.  This is why many serious tournaments (at least back in the days of 8th edition) would literally publish terrain packs with 6 types of tables so everyone knew what variations were possible, and in events that don't do this, terrain almost always is pre-placed in a more or less balanced format, this usually means at least 1 or 2 line of sight blockers but also areas with decent line of sight for shooting lists.  The point of all of this ISN'T to encourage scew lists, though perhaps that is an unintended consequence.  The reason for this is to limit randomness and luck.  In a 5 game tournament, if I lose 1 game due to bad realm rules that greatly advantage my opponent (this is totally possible even if you are taking a balanced all comers list), I have just lost my chance at the tournament even if I win all of my other games because the format was not even.  It doesn't matter that "real wars are not balanced" this is not casual gaming where role playing and immersion is paramount, this is a tourney where people want to pit skill vs skill, not see who can be the luckiest.  GW games already have plenty of luck in a tourney setting (why many don't think they are good tourney games to begin with), but there is enough skill normally, at least in my opinion, to make them worthwhile.  I think things like realm rules, realm spells, and player set up terrain really begin to push the game towards a really bad tourney state, while incongruously also pushing the casual game in a more balanced direction (though personally I think the GHB19 terrain rules are an abomination even after the faq, realm rules are cool though).