The future of compendium warscrolls

[Dave Fraser]

Yeah, these guys. 

[Jamie Ferguson]

24 minutes ago, Terry Pike said:

Just out of interest is there anyone here who will not be attending SCGT2017 because they cannot take Compendium Warscrolls?

Me actually. But I don't think for a second that my decision will have any impact on the success of the event, nor should it. 

[Jamie Ferguson]

So Dan has explained his choice on twitter, which was pretty much what I was hoping for. 

I think this choice stands to hurt players who didn't need to be hurt. I still don't see any reason why there's any need to be ahead of the curve or to preempt what may be seen as inevitable. I'd far rather that the compendium armies were allowed to fade away naturally and ideally be given time to be replaced - thus stopping people from being disenfranchised. I'm all for inclusion and making things open to as many as possible. I'm pleased to see that at the time of writing, Mings poll suggests that a majority feel the same. 

All that said, Dan's call is to run the event he'd like to attend and give what he sees is the best overall experience. You can't really argue with that. While I don't agree with his call I completely respect it and thank him for being clear. (Which he didn't have to be)

[Terry Pike]

1 minute ago, Jamie Ferguson said:

I'd far rather that the compendium armies were allowed to fade away naturally and ideally be given time to be replaced

The games been out for 2 years this July (probably when the GHB2 appears). How long were you thinking/wanting to replace the army?

I think its been pretty clear that Compendium was going to be removed at some point, I'm guessing it will be sooner rather than later though.

[mmimzie]

I think tournaments no allowing compendium is a natural fade. Its people showing there desire not to play with this stuff.

 

Also the compedium has alot more in ot than TK. It's got archaon which enable some silliness. Its got VLoA which has a good stat line and a strong ability for the price. Everyother named hero that has lond since died in the lore. It has a bunch of artilery.

 

All this stuff not being balanced or produced. Requiring kit bashing or ebay just to have access to It. Makes the game harder to get into something more like refurbishinh old cars.

 

Anywho as the SCGT guy said no point really expressing my point as your opinions on the matter wont change, and I'll add that my opinion will just be further marginalized.

[Dave Fraser]

How long did CD get by on the 4 page PDF from 6th ed before they got pulled (most of 2 editions is the answer), DoW were still in the ETC in 2010 despite neither having had models for years and no new rules for even longer.

I entirely understand from GWs viewpoint why they would want to ditch them because it is of zero value to them as a company.  Why as a player of games that needs to be such a big issue I don't fully understand. 

Dan's (and your) reasoning of it's not fair that only some have access to the models sort of makes sense, but given the abundance of other manufacturers who can do alternative mini's I don't think it actually holds up.  Those that want absolutely could buy the army.  Sure they couldn't use it at the handful of GW run events in the year but to say models are unavailable simply isn't true.  That is of course from a seasoned non-GW model user so I have no issues with alternative manufacturers, something I'm aware doesn't translate to everyone.

I suppose this could potentially hurt GW but as someone that owns so many different armies, the majority of which are made up of GW figs and continues to buy more armies I don't get it.  Maybe it's because I collect multiple armies which isn't the norm, do most just have 1 army and that's it, so if they bought an alt TK army then they would actually be hurting GWs sales?  If that's the case then I suppose it holds some water as ultimately WFB got canned because of poor sales and has been replaced with a hugely more enjoyable product so I'd not want to see that jeopardised because TK happen to have quite good rules so all the people hunting the top tables would stop buying GW stuff.

Anyway this is rambling away from the point of the conversation.  I've had armies invalidated in the past and I'm sure it'll happen again in the future so I've just got to suck it up.

[CoffeeGrunt]

May I direct you to Mantic, where you can buy all the bootleg Not Tomb Kings your heart desires and so very few players are really bothered that you're using them if it's not a GW store or tournament.

So your point that there's an inequality of access really doesn't stand, without also considering second hand sales.

[Arkiham]

12 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

May I direct you to Mantic, where you can buy all the bootleg Not Tomb Kings your heart desires and so very few players are really bothered that you're using them if it's not a GW store or tournament.

So your point that there's an inequality of access really doesn't stand, without also considering second hand sales.

Well considering the community has been asking games-workshop to be more involved in the community and in tournaments etc, allowing people to Proxy entire armies or models with games-workshops competition in a tournament gw is now actively taking part in seems a bit stupid tbh.

If you want to run a tournament and allow anyone to turn up with anything,  don't be surprised if games-workshop pass on putting it on twitch or take interest in it, officially. 

[JontyGoesGaming]

I don't quite follow the argument that  you should be able to theoretically purchase all the armies you might meet at a tournament. You should be able to see the rules for them, absolutely, but I don't see why I need to be able to buy them.

Granted, AoS is miles bigger now than last year, but in order to expand the range, there are old ranges (Tomb Kings etc) that have been removed suggesting that GW has an upper limit of the number of kits it can keep in circulation at any one time. 

There are around 60+ subfactions in Age of Sigmar. Not all of them but many of them needing between 2-6 new units. That's a massive expansion to the range, far more than the number of 'compendium' units that have been lost. Releasing those will take quite a while and there's a very real possibilty that it'll mean more existing ranges get discontinued.

I could be completely wrong, but it feels as though GW could move to a rolling schedule where they release and support an army for a few years in order to establish it. Maybe they think they will eventually be able to move to a print on demand business model and technology will allow them to be more responsive.

So what would happen if some of the smaller releases/repacks like Fireslayers, or Ironjawz were due to be discontinued in a few years in order to make way for new factions to be fleshed out? Or with the new rolling storyline, GW wanted to do a themed army to fit a specific campaign? Would these no longer be accepted at tournaments?

 

[WeeDaveSoutar]

Ok, I finally have some time to throw my thoughts into the debate.

As has been stated by many people on this thread, the SCGT is its own event and the organizers are free to run it as they will. I would echo @Jamie Ferguson however in that I would not attend this event without compendium, both personal and principle.

This being said, the pod-casters and organizers of these big events now have a say in the creation of updated General's Handbooks, how big a say we will probably never know. Being a regular listener/supporter of Heelanhammer and Facehammer it has been made quite clear that they do not really support the continuation of compendium scrolls, particularly in the case of Facehammer. Therefore until GW comes out and tells us whether compendium will be discontinued in matched play for GH2, the big events choosing to ban them is pretty important.

I can understand the viewpoint of a few people here that some of the compendium scrolls are undercosted or overpowered which currently causes problems at events. However is it really so bad that they need to be banned? A little comp on a few scrolls would sort a massive amount of the problems and would allow those who have invested heavily and want to play their compendium armies to do so.

From my own personal view, when AoS arrived and my Tomb Kings were discontinued as a model range i was extremely worried that I would no longer be able to use them. Last July however, when they received points in the GH my fears were alleviated and while i absolutely did not expect any new releases for them, I was happy that they were a part of matched play. Following this i dropped nearly £80 on rebasing and a further £200 or so from GW on non-tomb king models so I could convert up my army and add some themes to it. I did this because I want to play my tomb kings, I have a large collection and I love the flexibility the army has in the number of different ways you can play it.

I have no problems with events comping compendium stuff to balance it out, nor would I have much issue with GW changing the points of some of my TK units if they appear in GH2. I am confident in saying that unless compendium units were made utter garbage, many of friends and opponents on the tournament scene here in Scotland, and in England should i get the chance to travel down this year, would still have a tough and tactical game against me.

I do however have great issue with the total banning of compendium units should it happen in GH2, which i stress again hasn't happened yet. I have been in this hobby for nearly twelve years, I have invested heavily like many others in both time and cash. I can't even count the number of fantastic people I am friends with from tournament warhammer and although I'm sure the Scottish scene would allow it if i asked, why should I have to ask to be allowed compendium units? Tomb kings are my only completed AoS army, and i have already sold my warriors of chaos army to fund rebasing and updating my tomb kings (which did not come from ebay) after GH1 was released. As a student I don't have the funds to just go out and buy one of the new AoS armies immediately as a replacement, nor do I want to sell my 8th edition mixed vampire counts army because I put a lot of work into painting it and I would like to see what the vampires battletomes look like first. I stress, I will continue to invest in AoS but I am waiting for an army i like to be updated (elves, freeguild, slaves to darkness) and time to save cash.

I fully understand that I may be rare case but frankly if you can invest in this hobby, wish to continue to be a positive part of the tournament scene and then be told by players that your units are outdated in the fluff, have overpowered rules and are not produced so you can't play them leaves a pretty horrible taste in the mouth. These problems are not nearly enough validation to stop people using their armies, they really aren't.

[CoffeeGrunt]

It's also a worryingly short-termist viewpoint: old players don't matter, only those buying large armies immediately matter. If you have put money into the company over the last decade, they don't care and will at some point possibly discontinue your army.

What if GW progressed the story in five years time until Sigmar was slain, and the Sigmarines were removed as a faction entirely? If you claim for one second that Sigmarine players would just accept that, you're deluded.

[Chris Tomlin]

I love how we've gone from a few Tournaments disallowing Compendium warscrolls to GW binning Stormcast Eternals in five years time.

Brilliant!

[CoffeeGrunt]

Well this is Speculation: The Thread, after all.

[nuttyknatty]

So, is the rationale for the comp that Compendium warscrolls are overpowered?

If so, seems reasonable. 

I'm not certain that the fear that 'what SCGT does, the community follows' is fair though. In my limited knowledge, the South Coast boys always came up with an interesting unique comp. There was still a large variety of comp packs run by other TOs.

[Marc Wilson]

I thought this car-crash thread was quite entertaining but it's even more jaw-dropping over on twitter. 5/1 someone posts a video of themselves setting fire to Ghorros Warhoof before the night is up.

[chord]

5 hours ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

2) I don't want this game to become Magic the Gathering, with an obsoletion-oriented meta that involves entirely refreshing your collection every six months,
 

This very much!! it's why I stopped playing magic. And as a new player to Table Top Miniatures I'll drop GW in a heartbeat if this happens. I would imagine many of the new players in my town would as well. 

[Jamie Ferguson]

22 minutes ago, Marc Wilson said:

I thought this car-crash thread was quite entertaining but it's even more jaw-dropping over on twitter. 5/1 someone posts a video of themselves setting fire to Ghorros Warhoof before the night is up.

Aww, come on that's not very charitable. The vast majority of posts on here have just been people with a viewpoint, some passionate, respectfully having a discussion. Ridicule is not fair or helpful. Surely the whole point of this forum is to have a 'forum' for discussion. 

Ive been pleased to read well considered posts on every side of the discussion on this thread. I've not changed my viewpoint but I'm enlightened as to the views of others and I respect (most) of their opinions. 

[Thomas Lyons]

1 hour ago, JontyGoesGaming said:

I could be completely wrong, but it feels as though GW could move to a rolling schedule where they release and support an army for a few years in order to establish it. Maybe they think they will eventually be able to move to a print on demand business model and technology will allow them to be more responsive.

I agree that this seems like the direction they are moving, which means that "current" factions like the Seraphon would like be banned from similar events in a couple years time when they are binned.  This is the essence of rolling comp based on availability.  

Bretonnians weren't banned in 8th.  Chaos dwarves weren't either.  I don't understand the mentality of "out with the old stuff."  If the issue is power level then there are a lot of stupidly powerful combinations in the meta of the current models that needs to be comped first.  Then, if things still need to be adjusted (like Necropolis Knights needing to be 200 per 3 rather than 160), then let their points be tweaked for the event.  We had entire point systems developed to properly comp forces in 8th; why is repointing a couple units like Rufio suggested such a chore now?

Full Disclosure: I'm passionate about this conversation because I have 10,000 points (current GHB) of Tomb Kings that I want to be able to play in events.  I have a ton of conversions planned (with the related bits collected and packed away) to convert a whole host of standard Death units to the TK aesthetic.  I'm deeply invested in @Mengel Miniatures current Endless Deserts TK project.  I'm not a fair-weather TK player that is jumping on the post-GHB power train.  A decision against prohibiting TK players from attending events is a move to exclude others like myself from this hobby and the related community.   

[amysrevenge]

Shall we do a numbered list?  Why not.  maybe someone will read it.

 

A) This discussion is about evolving community standards.  There is no real indication that the issue has anything to do with upcoming changes to the actual formal ruleset, only the wider community interpretation of the ruleset.

B) There are two different mindsets I see out there supporting the "No Compendium" community standard.  They are coming to this consensus from VERY different starting premises, and they both end up enforcing their premises inconsistently, in the effort to maintain this consensus.

1) Fluff People (hereafter FP). 

a) The FP argument has nothing to do with too-hard or too-soft rules or what models are in the webstore.  The FP argument is that the Compendium warscrolls that didn't make it into the Grand Alliance books are dead and gone relics of the Old World and don't belong in the Age of Sigmar. 

b) The main place where the FPs are inconsistent is that they are awfully quiet about other dead-and-gone warscrolls, mainly from Forgeworld, when applying their "No Compendium" solution.  Sayl the Faithless and Tamurkhan are just as dead and gone as Josef Bugman and Skarsnik, but they aren't in the Compendium section of the General's Handbook so they are, for some reason, A-OK.

2) Availability People (hearafter AP). 

a) This argument has nothing to do with fluff or who is alive or dead in the Age of Sigmar, but it is a bit trickier to nail down the AP argument. 

i) Some of the AP argument is rules-based - extra-hard hitting things like Hellcannons or Tomb King trickery. 

ii) Some of the AP argument is based on the abundance of detail - new people having to read all those extra warscrolls in their app is too hard. 

iii) Some of the AP argument is based on model availability - if you can't buy it NIB from the GW or FW webstore, why should it be allowed?

b) The AP arguments are riddled with inconsistencies. 

i) For the rules-based arguments, "No Compendium" is much too broad of a brush.  If you have a problem with Hellcannons, ban Hellcannons (or double their points, or make them 0-1, or whatever).  Why catch Forsaken under the same ban? 

ii) For the abundance of detail argument - boo freaking hoo.  If I'm brand new to AoS, how is it more difficult for me to open up my app and read a few pages of Bretonnia warscrolls that I've never seen before than to read a few pages of Flesh Eater Courts warscrolls that I've never seen before? 

iii) For the model availability argument, turn to Forgeworld again - I can buy a Dwarf Battlestandard, and I cannot buy a Rogue Idol of Gork.  Which of those is allowed and which is not by a blanket "No Compendium" ruling?

C) In conclusion - "No Compendium" is too broad of a brush to accomplish what anyone wants.  It prevents things that people have no problems with, and allows other things that people do have problems with.

[Uneven Frostgun]

Ok so I'm a bit confused.

where has everybody gotten this information that the compendium warscrolls are not being allowed in? when I read the event document it said that you may use everything from pages 128 - 152 which includes all of the compendium. To clarify this I emailed them about this.

 

Suffice to say I am quite confused.

[Jamie Ferguson]

Very good post. I'll admit I'm biased as I agree with the premise and conclusion but that does not take away from the quality of the post. 

[amysrevenge]

(I suppose if it's for disclosure, I haven't used a Compendium model in a game since last January, before the split was even really a thing - I own many of the Dwarf/Dispossessed models that didn't make the GA: Order cut, but haven't re-based them or used them in ages. Otherwise I'm quite modern with my AoS collection.  My objection to "No Compendium" is a philosophical one, not a personal one.)

[Jamie Ferguson]

2 minutes ago, Uneven Frostgun said:

Ok so I'm a bit confused.

where has everybody gotten this information that the compendium warscrolls are not being allowed in? when I read the event document it said that you may use everything from pages 128 - 152 which includes all of the compendium. To clarify this I emailed them about this.

 

Suffice to say I am quite confused.

It's because an independent tournament, the 'SCGT' (considered the biggest and one of the best events on the calendar. Certainly the most influential) has decided to ban compendium. Not GW. 

[Jamie Ferguson]

3 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

(I suppose if it's for disclosure, I haven't used a Compendium model in a game since last January, before the split was even really a thing - I own many of the Dwarf/Dispossessed models that didn't make the GA: Order cut, but haven't re-based them or used them in ages. Otherwise I'm quite modern with my AoS collection.  My objection to "No Compendium" is a philosophical one, not a personal one.)

Same boat for me, I've elves, dwarfs and empire lists that struggle without compendium. I don't tend to use them as I'm favouring my Sylvaneth. 

I started this thread as I had a philosophical issue and because I personally know people (and by extension a community) who will be negatively affected by this if it becomes a trend. 

[Uneven Frostgun]

7 minutes ago, Jamie Ferguson said:

It's because an independent tournament, the 'SCGT' (considered the biggest and one of the best events on the calendar. Certainly the most influential) has decided to ban compendium. Not GW. 

Ahh now I understand. Well I guess my view on it's if you don't agree with how the tournament is being run don't go. Those who are fine with it will go. At the end of the day there will be a place for every one.