Reality Aploding

Over the last year this hobby has exploded with activity from the Design Studio. We have updates on codices, new supplements and expansions, and now the formations and dataslates. And don't forget flyers and changes to the force organisation chart with allies. This increased activity has set our very tiny corner of the interwebz into a frenzy.

John Steining's stunning collection is now Tournament legal

The views of tournament organisers and vocal competitive players are great at driving the opinions of our community. As are Store Owners. Regardless of how good or bad something is, they can help set the intwerbz into a frenzy of nerd raging idiotz or something a little less crazy. Because, even though they may deny it, people do like to drink somebody else's kool aid.

Sigur's Lord of Skulls, coming to a tabletop near you

But how does that relate to Games Workshop's latest releases? After all there have been dozens of releases that haven't set the interwebz on fire like this in the past. Do you remember the gnashing of teeth True Line of Sight and Wound Allocation in 5th Ed result in? Now they doesn't seem so bad. My not so humble opinion is that the online rumours planted seeds of fear and it just grew out of control from there. Tournament organizers helped add flames to the fire in a way I've never seen since becoming apart of the online community. There was an innocent knee-jerk reaction to the sudden changes Games Workshop introduced.

According to the interwebz, TEN's R'Varna is just one of the growing problems plaguing tournaments

Fortunately the knee-jerk reactions are slowly being brought under control with some discussions taking place. There are some suggesting we keep on going the way we always have by ignoring the supplements, expansion and the dataslates. After all how many tournaments can you say that use the mysterious terrain, battlefield debris or mysterious objectives found in the rule book? So the precedence is there for tournament organisers to just pick what is and isn't used. There are even those who suggest we ignore the ally table all together.

Cagn's army is proof that Eldar Jetbikes don't have to be ridden by Seers & Warlocks

Possibly the most promising discussion is the one suggesting that careful mission design can have the desired results without introducing restrictions and bans. This approach interests me the most as it doesn't directly stop players from using their own toys while at the same time potentially addressing the over abundance of Taudar, Screamstar, Draigowing, Leafblower or whatever may be the next 'must play' netlist. These changes will shake up what it takes to win games of 40K.

Garfy's stunning collection is now also Tournament legal

Regardless of the approach to our perceived problems, the answers aren't going to come from Games Workshop. If we think they will then we're deluding ourselves. They care about this hobby just as much as we do. However, their actions suggest that this hobby is not meant to be played in a serious competitive way.