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

[svnvaldez]

1 hour ago, gjnoronh said:

Why? 
Competitive play is competitive, winners should be respected for their legitimate achievement even if the rules aren't exactly the same from one event to the other.   

I wholeheartedly disagree but I understand my view point is not shared by all.

[SwampHeart]

2 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

I wholeheartedly disagree but I understand my view point is not shared by all.

So basically unless someone wins an event using an arbitrary rule set that you think is the correct rule set then their win has no value? Weird flex. 

[svnvaldez]

16 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

So basically unless someone wins an event using an arbitrary rule set that you think is the correct rule set 

So basically unless someone wins an event using an OFFICIAL rules set that GW thinks is the correct rule set.

Is how I’d say it. 

[svnvaldez]

I said use pg 70-71. Bold on top of pg 70 says a TO can modify them. I’d prefer they didn’t and am happier the closer they keep it to pg 70-71.

I hope GW drops the BOLD line in the future as more players accept using a standard format.

Until GW does that TOs can do what they want and I have no real complaint... I would hope they see the gentle push GW is giving them with pg 70-71.

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by svnvaldez

[SwampHeart]

18 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

Until GW does that TOs can do what they want and I have no real complaint... I would hope they see the gentle push GW is giving them with pg 70-71.

 

Fortunately they won't because GW's tournament pack is asinine and awful and TOs have been doing it longer and more successfully than GW. 

[svnvaldez]

3 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Fortunately they won't

Yea you are right, they probably won’t.

And just to be clear I think 2 points for offering to shake someone’s hand is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

we just disagree with on what the TO/Player responsibility is when defining the rule set.

This is an extreme example and I understand it doesn’t get the point across... basically I would not want to enter a chess tournament and end up playing checkers

Edited July 25, 2019 by svnvaldez

[soak314]

19 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Fortunately they won't because GW's tournament pack is asinine and awful and TOs have been doing it longer and more successfully than GW. 

Honestly, good on them for making such robust use of Open Play!

[SwampHeart]

4 hours ago, soak314 said:

Honestly, good on them for making such robust use of Open Play!

That's cute, very wrong but cute none the less. In case you missed it matched play is neither defined as using GW's suggested tournament format or using the realm rules sweetheart. 

[soak314]

11 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

That's cute, very wrong but cute none the less. In case you missed it matched play is neither defined as using GW's suggested tournament format or using the realm rules sweetheart. 

Hey, I'm not invalidating anyone's chosen way to play here, if the American GT's find a way to standardize the game in their community with houserules so more folks are happy, then more power to them!

 

[SwampHeart]

2 minutes ago, soak314 said:

Hey, I'm not invalidating anyone's chosen way to play here,

Oh you aren't? I could have sworn that's exactly what you were doing and if I might even think you did it on purpose because the tournament community (to be clear that's both in the UK and the US) doesn't agree with your position. But hey - you keep telling people who don't use realm rules that they're playing open play - you live in the world you want. 

[svnvaldez]

41 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

That's cute, very wrong but cute none the less. In case you missed it matched play is neither defined as using GW's suggested tournament format or using the realm rules sweetheart. 

I don't want to get too much into it but why would you think "matched play is neither defined as using GW's suggested tournament format or using the realm rules." 

Realm of Battle is on pg 16 of the 18 pages of core rules:

After picking a battleplan to use,
you can pick a Mortal Realm for
the battle to take place in. If you
do so, the Mortal Realm that you
pick will determine which Realm
of Battle rules you can use for your
game. If you can’t agree on the
Mortal Realm to use, roll off and the
winner decides.

By the core rules (Open/Narrative/ or Matched) if the two of us wanted to play a game outside of an event (without a players pack) it would be a roll off and the winner would pick the realm.

Matched Play (not the same as tournament play or competitive play) is detailed on pg 52-83 of the GH19: 

INTRODUCING
MATCHED PLAY

The main differences between
matched play and open play lie in
army selection and battleplan design.
Matched play games include rules
that allow players to pick armies of
equal power, and the battleplans
written for matched play games
are designed to provide tactically
challenging games where each side
has a more-or-less equal chance
of winning.

The emphasis of matched play
gaming is on planning, tactics and
military nous, so it is the perfect
format for those who consider
themselves accomplished strategists
and savvy commanders. While
narrative and open play games can
vary greatly in scope and content,
presenting you with all manner of
scenarios to battle through, matched
play games are all about you and
your army, the models you select
and the tactics you use. They are
driven by every player’s desire for a
satisfying and well-earned victory.

MATCHED PLAY RULES

Two types of matched play game are
featured in this section – Pitched
Battles and Meeting Engagements.
The Pitched Battle rules are intended
to provide as even a playing field as possible, ensuring that armies are
equally matched, battlefield terrain
is chosen and set up by both players,
battleplans offer no advantage to
either side, and victory conditions
are clear. A Pitched Battle is the ideal
place to start when playing matched
play games, and these rules are the
most commonly used in competitive
tournaments the world over.

PITCHED BATTLE
TOURNAMENTS

The following rules are used for the Pitched Battle tournaments that we run ourselves. They can be used as written
in your own tournaments, or modified as you see fit – as long as all attendees are made aware of any changes.

PITCHED BATTLE
TOURNAMENT RULES

The following rules apply to
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Pitched
Battle tournaments unless noted
otherwise in the tournament
rules pack:

1 The tournament will use the
core rules – including those
pertaining to allegiance
abilities, warscroll battalions
and Realm of Battle rules –
and the Pitched Battle rules
and the rules for Hidden
Agendas from the latest
General’s Handbook. In
addition, it will use the rules
for endless spells, spells of the
realms, and artefacts of the
realms from Malign Sorcery.

[Carnith]

31 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Oh you aren't? I could have sworn that's exactly what you were doing and if I might even think you did it on purpose because the tournament community (to be clear that's both in the UK and the US) doesn't agree with your position. But hey - you keep telling people who don't use realm rules that they're playing open play - you live in the world you want. 

I think you are mixing him up with someone else. Unless you follow his posts in another thread, the person you responded too has only made two responses.

[svnvaldez]

Well look I don't want to fight about it. IN BOLD on top of pg 70 it says: They can be used as written in your own tournaments, or modified as you see fit  so yes any TO can alter the game. But Realm rules are part of the Core rules of the game. Has nothing to do with Matched/Open/Narrative.  I could hold a tournament and say I get 10k more points than my opponent. I personally would call that Open or Narrative but you could call it Matched play Pitched Battle with a modification if you wish.

[svnvaldez]

16 hours ago, soak314 said:

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

I'd do the following (I'd like the TO to not pick Ghur and pick realmscape features of 1 ie no effect)

1 The tournament will use the
core rules – including those
pertaining to allegiance
abilities, warscroll battalions
and Realm of Battle rules –
and the Pitched Battle rules
and the rules for Hidden
Agendas from the latest
General’s Handbook. In
addition, it will use the rules
for endless spells, spells of the
realms, and artefacts of the
realms from Malign Sorcery.

6 Terrain for the battles will be
provided and set up by the
tournament organisers. All
terrain features will be scenery
models from the Games
Workshop range, and will use
the rules from their scenery
warscroll (scenery warscrolls
can be downloaded from the
Games Workshop website).

9 Fifteen minutes before the
start of each round, the
tournament organisers will
tell you which Pitched Battle
battleplan is to be used in that
round, in which realm the
battles in that round are taking
place, and which realmscape
feature from the Realm of
Battle rules for that realm will
be used in that battle round.

 

[svnvaldez]

16 hours ago, MrZakalwe said:

 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 would never recommend a TO randomly determining the realmscape for an Event. See above 

[JPjr]

The realm rules can add a lot of flavour but obviously they’re contentious, and there’s a couple of decidedly game changing ones.

I think it’s good to add some element of unpredictability though, adapting to less than perfect circumstances that can change should, in my view, be as if not much more important than crafting some perfect list.

so personally I can’t see why it’s not above the ken of mortal man (& TOs) to go through the realm rules and trim them down to, let’s say, 3 per realm that are more manageable, still encourage people to consider being more flexible in their army composition without potentially wrecking whole factions.

Or go totally the other way and have more options but with a less permanent effect on the game. So bring in ‘Twist’ cards to reflect changing environments, 20-40 universal cards and a selection, say 10, for each realm that has some effect to take into consideration have a new one drawn each round (with a large % being ‘No Twist!’), and hey presto GW can also sell a new pack of cards for £20

On a slightly related tangent...

3 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

All terrain features will be scenery
models from the Games Workshop range

Genuinely curious, as someone who doesn’t really attend these things, how strictly is this observed? As obviously whilst GW do some great terrain these days it’s also pretty limited, no hills, lakes, rivers etc.

All those interesting natural features that can really make movement and deployment a tactical experience but aren’t very flashy and/or covered in skulls so unlikely to ever get models.

Building your own terrain is, to me, such an integral part of the hobby it seems a shame if every tiny bloody thing needed to be officially produced by GW to have a place in the game*.

 

 

*obviously people can, and thankfully do, do whatever they want in the comfort of their own homes...

[MrZakalwe]

15 minutes ago, JPjr said:

Genuinely curious, as someone who doesn’t really attend these things, how strictly is this observed? 

It's not- I'm not doing the maths for what it would cost to deck out a tournament hall like that but I think you'd need a similar mortgage to my house.

[DerZauberer]

While this thread heavily derailed into "what is matched play?", i try to give my 2 cents about realm rules and terrain rules.

I'm somehow certain that 90% of the playerbase just cuts out Ghur, even GW did on one of their tourneys. Maybe it's because Ghur is extremly weird, maybe its because you may know roll a D6 instead of a D6+1 on the realm table, who knows. So i can't tell you much about Ghur.

But the other 6 were frequently used and enjoyed, even when people got hindered through that, but! we allways allowed a re-roll of realm features if it would've too much impact on the game. That way nobody was salty and mostly we forgot about several rules, e.g. the command abilites, cause the realmrules are really bloating the game, while spells are allways a welcome addition and give awesome spice to the games but are coupled with

"wheres malign sorcery?! ah! there! waaaait, wheres aqshy... there! okay, let me have a read... so i cast inferno blades"

me:

Its actually fun and i personally love it.

Terrain rules to be quick: never used them, additional unnecessery bloat in my oppinion.

Now as far as tournaments go: theres allway the tournament pack, which describes what to use and which rules are in play. If the pack says "full, random, realmrules" you should leave your kharadron at home, get your magma dragon packed up and join the frey or simpley don't attend. The whole "it's in the core" and "it's balanced that way" argument is just weak, as every TO ever who understood GW games somehow house ruled the games to achieve a balanced format, e.g. ITC. Imo people are too focused about "matched play" and "open play", there is no white and black ans especially in tourneys you should agree on stuff beforehand. I allways view most of GW's additional rules (realmrules, malign sorcery, forbidden power, terrain rules, terrain setup, etc.) as a sandbox to create the matched play experience you (or the TO) wants to play.

If i would be a TO, i would determine for each game one realm, one specific realm feature and no terrain rules. That way people know what to expect, when to expect it and build there lists according to it. In addition it minimizes the additional rule bloat as you can prepare for those realms beforehand.

[wayniac]

3 hours ago, JPjr said:

Genuinely curious, as someone who doesn’t really attend these things, how strictly is this observed? As obviously whilst GW do some great terrain these days it’s also pretty limited, no hills, lakes, rivers etc.

Well part of that is because hills, lakes, rivers etc. are useless.  They serve no purpose other than to add visuals to the game.

Back on topic the fact that TOs think they know better (ITC is especially guilty of this) is always going to be an issue.  Even in the old days you had RTTs that had additional rules, just it was less prevalent.  I personally feel GW needs to have an actual tournament pack, an official one based on what they feel makes the game, and make using it a requirement for "official" tournaments.  So your "GW tournament rules suck" person can run their own event, just it won't be officially recognized.  You'd still have people like the ITC trying to undermine and usurp (which they already have done in the USA) but I think most people would be using the official from GW rules and not from an arrogant third-party who thinks they know better than the designers of the game.

[zilberfrid]

5 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Well part of that is because hills, lakes, rivers etc. are useless.  They serve no purpose other than to add visuals to the game.

Back on topic the fact that TOs think they know better (ITC is especially guilty of this) is always going to be an issue.  Even in the old days you had RTTs that had additional rules, just it was less prevalent.  I personally feel GW needs to have an actual tournament pack, an official one based on what they feel makes the game, and make using it a requirement for "official" tournaments.  So your "GW tournament rules suck" person can run their own event, just it won't be officially recognized.  You'd still have people like the ITC trying to undermine and usurp (which they already have done in the USA) but I think most people would be using the official from GW rules and not from an arrogant third-party who thinks they know better than the designers of the game.

Well, if the designer of the game has suggestions they do not use in their own tournaments, there is a case to be made their tournament suggestions leave something to be desired.

If the designer of the game increases the extant unbalance with a random factor in such a way that a game might as well be forfeited before it even starts because of an unlucky die, either the left or the right hand needs to do something.

[SwampHeart]

9 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

6 Terrain for the battles will be
provided and set up by the
tournament organisers. All
terrain features will be scenery
models from the Games
Workshop range, and will use
the rules from their scenery
warscroll (scenery warscrolls
can be downloaded from the
Games Workshop website).

How much money do you think TOs have to run events? 

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

How much money do you think TOs have to run events? 

Honestly it varies a lot region to region and depends heavily on if the event is something local, regional or national.

At a local even chances are the TO hasn't got much if any budget beyond renting the place to do the game. That said because its all mostly locals; the local gamers might well have pooled more of their own terrain into that for the event. So whilst the TO hasn't got the budget, they can get enough from the locals to make tables complete. 

That said if the games are way beyond the scale of the local club chances are local members and even the TO might not have enough community terrain to make feature rich tables. You'd thus only see it at major events with a company backing them - eg like how there's Wayland games who can financially support events with the store sales.

 

That said only GW terrain is going to be costly. 

[SwampHeart]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

Honestly it varies a lot region to region and depends heavily on if the event is something local, regional or national.

At a local even chances are the TO hasn't got much if any budget beyond renting the place to do the game. That said because its all mostly locals; the local gamers might well have pooled more of their own terrain into that for the event. So whilst the TO hasn't got the budget, they can get enough from the locals to make tables complete. 

That said if the games are way beyond the scale of the local club chances are local members and even the TO might not have enough community terrain to make feature rich tables. You'd thus only see it at major events with a company backing them - eg like how there's Wayland games who can financially support events with the store sales.

 

That said only GW terrain is going to be costly. 

I've been to majors that GW supports (LVO, ACon, NOVA, and ATC) and I can tell you that even tournaments this big can't have tables of only GW. Its not remotely feasible given the cost of GW terrain. There is a reason MDF and 3D Printed terrain is the primary terrain you see at tournaments - its the only cost effective method to stock, in some cases, hundreds of tables. To stock one table with all GW terrain is in excess of $100 (USD), even if we assume you could buy it all at trade discount (40%) you're looking at $60 a table - it would have cost adepticon in excess of $5500 in just terrain to run all GW terrain. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Overread]

Yeah plus a lot of terrain like generic walls and hills has likely been made long before GW terrain was as  numerous as it is now - well made terrain can last years with a bit of touching up here and there. 

 

It actually highlights how GW is really pushign their own terrain hard because in the past we had al ot more generic terrain rules for things like hills and cliffs and buildings. Whilst things like dangerous terrain were just area effects and you could make it whatever yo uwanted - a mine field, swamp, polluted water, acid pool etc.. Now GW would rather we bought the "Skaven Pollution Pool" that comes with its own warscroll of added features.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Overread

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

2 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

I've been to majors that GW supports (LVO, ACon, NOVA, and ATC) and I can tell you that even tournaments this big can't have tables of only GW. Its not remotely feasible given the cost of GW terrain. There is a reason MDF and 3D Printed terrain is the primary terrain you see at tournaments - its the only cost effective method to stock, in some cases, hundreds of tables. 

It certainly is feasible. There’s multiple large 100+ events in the UK that use majority of GW terrain on every table alongside non gw