The responses from tournament players have varied from the fairly reasonable "This is as far from a competitive event I have ever seen in my life"( typified by this post to the outraged "This whole thing reeks of thirty-one flavors of bullshit" nerd-rage best exemplified by this amusingly swearing filled hate-rant.
Now, my disapproval leans more to the reasoned complaint than to the drinking-from-a-bottle-of-meths-in-a-piss-stained-raincoat lunatic ranting from our American chums.
For a long time, I've sat across the atlantic, wondering how US gamers put up with the awful dog show aspects of the tournament scene over there. There are far more points available for army "composition", for painting and for "being a nice guy" than there are for actually, you know, playing the game.
It's nice in theory - but it leads to all kinds of awful distortions of the game. For example, people paying professionals to paint their armies to guarantee painting scores, people deliberately swapping "most sporting player" for points, and the way in which army composition being "fair" or not is entirely subjective.
For example, at the last GT, my army looked like this:
You might notice, there's quite a few tanks. More tanks than my opponent had men.
Still, totally in-keeping with the background of my army (Steel Legion, remember). Nicely painted. But is it nicely painted enough? Is it "fair" enough to pass composition scores? Is it "fair" enough that people will not think I'm using a "cheesy" army?
I actually had a brilliant game against that Space Wolf player, but I totally destroyed him. Would he give me "best opposing army"?
Is it "fairer" than this army?:
Some people don't like tank armies. Some people think Vendettas are undercosted. Some people just hate playing against Imperial Guard. You can be perceived as a cheat just because of internet gossip or what that specific tournament environment is like. For example, this year, literally, the first question I was asked when I told my opponent what army I was playing was "how many Vendettas"?
For the record, I was the top guard player. I didn't take a cheesy or min-maxed list - I beat all the people with 7,8,9 flyers. But there's a chance I would be marked down just for playing guard. Or marked up for playing non-flying guard.
It's all subjective. And it's all judged by other players. Which creates a huge problem. What is meant to encourage fun encourages a nasty, bloodthirsty competitiveness that exists outside the game. You get to anonymously attack other people's army choices, painting skills - all the rest of it.
Suffice to say, soft scores, handed out by other players, are a bad idea.
The big changes are not just the addition of these "soft scores" - which I dislike more than anything- but other bad things include:
Random pairing
Every round is random - I really enjoyed the tabbing & score system, which meant you played against equally skilled opponents. This creates a bad situation for both hardcore tournament players like me, and for the more fluff oriented gamer.
Hardened players like me want to go up against the best lists with the best players. No guarantee of that. Equally, the fluffmasters prefer it when they don't have to play against hardcore out-to-win types every round.
The point is, it used to be, you could only lose the GT on day one. So on day two, the games down at the bottom tables were a good laugh. People relaxed, just had fun. Left the sweating on dice rolls to the people on the top tables.
If you don't think this is a bad idea, imagine if Wimbledon matches (or the Oxford IV!) were randomly tabbed. You can easily end up with immensely distorted results.
In the picture below, you can see my guard just about to destroy a lovely Ultramarine army -
This result only came about as a result of both my opponent & I losing our first games badly. I did beat him, and pop back up (finishing 35th overall), but the point was, the game felt fair. We were matching players on equal points - there's far more chance of having a string of fun games against equally skilled opponents with similar armies this way, than having it random.
Segregated Scoring
You don't just "win" or "lose" overall anymore. Overall tournament victory is determined by an arcane calculation based on how many of your army there are at the tournament. This (might) be a good way to aggregate a league, but it's not a good way to assess victory in a short competitive gaming event.
Why? It takes away from the meaning of achievements. Who cares if you were the best Black Templars player if you were the only one who turned up? Equally, how do you explain the scoring system that made you the best Space Marines player? What does having the biggest "margin of victory" mean?
The new moves to race based rewards are (I think)an attempt to make more people "winners" - but the truth is, the previous system made far more people feel like they'd achieved something that day. Why? Well...
Dropped Final
If you finished in the top 45, you got to go to a free final held in the spring, which had an amazing standard of gaming. It meant that 1/3rd of people left very happy - they had got a tangible result for being pretty good.
Dropped 6th game
It used to be £55 for 6 games. Now, they are cutting it down to 3 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday. I have never need more time in a 1500 pt 40k game in a tournament. It just doesn't take two and a half hours to play.
I understand that some people complained it was hard for them to finish at 5pm on a Sunday and get home at a reasonable time. TO be honest, if this brings an influx of scottish/southeastern players, I'll be surprised.
Roster Tie-Break
I work in PR & publishing - I write in my spare time. I have no problem with the tie-breaker being on army roster (I'm already planning my Valkyrie Crash Safety brochure & Ork-Imperial phrasebook), I can see how some people who just want gaming will despise it.
Equally, it's unbelievably subjective. The judges just decide who of the tied scores wins. A coin toss would probably be fairer, or a judgement on quality of painting would probably be fairer.
Conclusions
Under the previous system, we had as credible a tournament scene as 40k could have - power paired rounds, no subjective painting or sportsmanship scores, and a final where you had to qualify in the top 45 of a tournament to even get in the door.
That final - the one with the 150 other people who were guaranteed to know how to play the game - was free to attend.
So, you got a great prize for showing up and playing your best in the heats - you were guaranteed to get six games against great opponents. That was certainly my experience of it. Winning the whole thing brought as much kudos as anything with Toy Soldiers in it; equally, the only way to qualify for the tourney other than gaming score was by having one of the 5 best painted armies at a heat.
The 15 best painted tickets usually meant the standard of the armies in the best army nominations was phenomenal. Incidentally, this year, at the final, 9 of the 15 best painters had qualified on gaming score AND painting, just in case you thought they were automatically "easy" games.
How is the new system a better celebration of the hobby? I suspect the quality of the armies will be worse, the quality of the games will be worse, and we all get less game for our money.
But, I'll still be going.
Why?
Much as I like non-GW events (like Vanguard & Spoils of War, the brilliant tournament organised by my Brizzle chums - buy tickets now!) I find they draw from a narrower pool of Gamers - for example, I look down the lists of gamers and find I know about 1/3rd of them.
It is very much Bristol's gaming community's big day out. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the GT I've played people from all over Europe, from all over the country. Nothing has the same pull and the same variety of gamers and armies.
Equally, they don't have the same "feel".
There is something to be said from playing in the big gaming hall in Nottingham - from winning best army at an event where the pics go on the GW website - from the deeply varied group the GT attracts.
Also, at the end of the day, it is still a good value for money event. All the food is included; all of the terrain and scenery is lovely. £27 a day is not a great deal for that sort of thing. There are cheaper options available, yes, but if I was worried about money I probably wouldn't play GW games.
Ultimately, I'm going to give it a try - despite my reservations, maybe it'll be great. Maybe it'll be terrible. But at least I'll be able to say authoritatively one way or another.
Also, I'll be able to add weight to my complaints if it *is* bad. Staying away, in my opinion, isn't really going to cut it. If the GT (something I really enjoy) is being damaged, then I want to fight to save it, not acquiesce and say, "Ah, I'll just go to Mayhem/Vanquish".
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