Building A Better Blog Wars - Lessons from BW6

I've already talked about the bad (the tabling problem) and the ugly (me winning) so it's about time I looked at what was good about Blog Wars 6 and what it means for BW7. From the feedback I've had from various people it seems that despite my perception the event actually went quite well. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think it was a total disaster but I'd certainly say from my perspective the organisation was poor in comparison to previous events. Anyway, this was meant to be positive...

Custom Scenarios
Whilst I enjoy tournaments where the scenarios are completely unique, what often happens is that players write their lists to exploit some unforeseen loophole. It's how 40K is played I suppose but I was keen not to stray too far from the rulebook missions when creating the Blog Wars scenarios in the hopes of having a fairly level playing field (if such a thing is possible).

I think the Purge the Alien variant that I ran actually worked for the most part. I decided to make it the first mission of the day as, although people were probably half awake, the round would be followed by lunch so there'd be time to crunch those numbers without delaying the next game. This would've worked had I not messed up the scores for the stand-ins. Having an old school VP (let's call them Blood Points/BP to avoid confusion) based first mission meant the scores were more varied and people were less likely to end up with identical scores and/or duplicate matches. I recorded the raw number of BP in the spreadsheet so that if all else failed I could use it as a tie-breaker. I was tempted to make people record BP in every game but no-one likes adding all the numbers up and I think once in a day is enough. I know they're a ballache to calculate but hopefully people can see the need for it.

The "Emperor's Relic" mission seemed to achieve it's aim of making people push for the central objective and/or opponent's objective rather than sit back and play for First Blood like the Emperor's Will encourages. Perhaps that's just my perception though, how did everyone else find it? There's very little to say about Crusade as it was essentially the same as the rulebook mission but with 5 VP per objective but I think it was a good way to end the day. Having a mission with a large number of objectives encourages people to tailor their lists accordingly and hopefully not just rely on cheap scoring units to do their objective grabbing.

Generally speaking the scenarios seemed to work well. There was the tabling issue of course but I've explained why I believe it works despite it's many detractors. I think the missions were pretty straightforward and with the exception of a few exceptions (see below) I don't think there was anything to cause problems.

Scoring System
The idea this time around was to have all of the rounds be worth 25 VP each. In practice this didn't totally work thanks to the wonder that is 40K. The first mission in particular had a number of units which caused problems. Tau Ethereals give an extra VP when they die, Lone Wolves give up points when they survive, Bjorn gives up multiple VP if he dies, Tervigons and Portalglyphs create extra points, etc. etc. Some of these also affected the objective games but they were more of a problem in the Purge the Alien mission.

There'll always be exceptions to the rules, it's the way 40K is made. The difficulty is in deciding how to incorporate these into the scoring without making things too unfair. Despite the theoretical 25pt limit there were a couple of games where more points were scored. I'm not really sure why people were spawning termagants in a game based on Blood Points but each to their own. Before the next event I need to go through all of the books and try to identify any possible bonus points that could be scored so that I can list them in the rules pack to clarify everything before the event. It's difficult to know if people were adding the 150 bonus points on for killing the special character but next time I'll probably alter the score sheet so it's easier to see.

I think in round one I ought to consider giving the scores with a decimal place. This will help differentiate better between the scores and should clear up why someone seems to have an identical score but actually places above someone else.

Other Stuff
I've changed my mind a few times about whether to allow Forge World or not. For now at least, I'm going to keep things as they are and not permit it at Blog Wars 7. Despite the "official announcement" that people seem to think is necessary for it to be legal in 40K, I actually believe it is perfectly legal to use it in regular games of 40K.  I'm not the only TO to stop people bringing FW units and I hope people can understand the reasoning. I may have to review this when the new expansion comes next month but I can't see me changing my mind.

I'm having difficulty deciding about the Inquisition codex and supplements at the moment. On the one hand I love them from a fluff perspective but they make the game even more complicated than it already is. I think BW7 may be the last time I allow supplements depending on how well they work and what new ones are released between now and then. In the same way as FW models, you don't want to stop people bringing something fun and fluffy but I want to minimise the amount of dirty combinations that are possible without specific comps.

Conclusion
Despite a couple of notable failures on my part, I know what went wrong and I know what I can do to stop it happening at Blog Wars 7. I've already put work into improving the scorecards and spreadsheet to make the scoring smoother and more reliable.

The main thing I need right now are comments from you guys. What worked, what didn't and what should I be doing that I'm not or vice versa? If you don't want to comment here then by all means email me. I'll be announcing BW7 shortly so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Blog Wars 6 - My Battle Reports

As promised (what seems like ages ago), here's a rundown of my battles from Blog Wars 6. I wrote about the Tau army that I took in a previous post so take a look there for my list. As a reminder, Blog Wars runs slightly customised missions which are based on the rulebook ones but with slight variations to fit in with the special character theme.

Game One - Tau vs. Dark Eldar/Eldar
My first opponent was Daniel Russell who I was actually quite concerned about since he really didn't seem well! Anyway, Daniel's list was a Dark Eldar/Eldar "Planes and Bikes" list. He'd got 2 razorwings, a voidraven and a crimson hunter for the planes and 3 squads of reavers and two sets of windriders for the bikes bit. Elsewhere he'd got a farseer, haemonculus, 3 small squads of wracks, a support weapon team and Duke Sliscus as his special character. We'd be playing the Blog Wars version of Purge the Alien which is based on old school VPs with a bonus 150pts for killing the special character.

Most of Dan's army would be in reserve, the planes obviously had to be and the guardians and wracks would also be kept in reserve to minimise casualties. I won the roll off and in my first turn I decided to target the weapons batteries which would be a threat to my riptides. I probably should've targeted the reavers though since they'd be a threat to my pathfinders and it would've been wise to hit them before they got their 3+ cover saves. It was pretty irrelevant mind you
because one riptide overheated and the other scattered wildly giving me a less than devastating opening salvo.

As expected the three reaver units went straight for my three squads of pathfinders with their bladevanes and caltrops. When the dust cleared I was left with 2 out of 18 pathfinders! The support weapons also did a number on my crisis team killing two and wounding a third.

Shadowsun arrived as did one of my kroot units. The kroot went after one squad of reavers killing them off with help from some fire warriors who'd disembarked from their devilfish. The other fire warriors, remaining crisis team, shadowsun and one of the riptides all combined their firepower to kill off the haemonculus, farseer and support weapons leaving just Duke Sliscus in the crater in the middle of the board with a single wound left after failing his Shadowfield roll. The other riptide went into combat with another squad of reavers hoping to kill off a couple and make them run. He fluffed his rolls and only killed one biker with the rest just passing their morale check.

With one riptide locked in combat I was frustrated to see all four flyers and most of the other reserves arrive at the same time. The free riptide took some pot shots at a razorwing but could only strip a hull point. The voidraven used its void mine to great effect killing off Shadowsun's bodyguard. The razorwings used their missiles to kill swathes of fire warriors with one squad losing its nerve even with Ld10 from the Ethereal. Duke Sliscus was frustrated by Shadowsun's drones in the first round of combat but soon dealt with her.

The riptide finally finished with the reavers and now I needed to focus on the flyers for my best chance of scoring some points. One squad of kroot arrived on the right flank but fluffed most of their rolls and could only kill two out of three wracks for a measly 15pts. Sliscus, the remaining wrack and another squad of 3 charged into the kroot but only killed a handful. In response a single kroot managed to hit and wound with his one attack which was enough to kill Sliscus despite FNP. Another kroot killed the solitary wrack scoring yet more points. Not bad for a 60pt throwaway unit!

I had further disgusting luck against the flyers. The remaining fire warriors were able to take down the crimson hunter, some jammy shots from my three pairs of drones killed a razorwing and a riptide killed other. The voidraven fell to the crisis suit I think. From that point it was difficult for Dan to score many more points and I was able to clear up a few more of the bikes to give me a 20-15 win with two secondaries each.

Game Two - Tau vs. Necrons

I'd played Peter Barrett at the last Blog Wars with my old gunline Tau. He was less than pleased to be facing my new list but this time he was fielding Necrons instead of marines. Not the usual Necrons though, Peter had taken a destroyer lord with two units of destroyers, some scarabs, two triarch stalkers, three squads of 10 warriors, 10 immortals, a royal court (split between the troops) and Trazyn the Infinite for his special character. The mission was the Emperor's Relic which had one fixed central objective and one objective each in our deployment zones. The central objective was worth 10pts and your own objective was worth 5pts to you but 10pts to your opponent, again giving a maximum of 25pts. The nominated special character on each side would be scoring.

Apologies to Peter because with all the chaos surrounding the tabling issue I didn't take many photos. Not only that but my report will probably be sketchy (feel free to correct me on the details Peter). Anyway, with that aside I won the roll off but Peter seized the initiative (I think). This allowed me to get my fire warriors into range straight away. The riptides nova'd for the Ordnance blast. Combined with the fire warriors they were able to decimate one of the units of warriors whilst destroying one of the stalkers. The crisis team didn't manage to roll enough sixes to destroy the other stalker.

The scarabs ate one of the devilfish but were eventually gunned down by the fire warriors. A squad of destroyers arrived on the right flank and I should've targetted them with the riptide but I was too distracted to notice them arriving. The fire warriors and riptides slowly chipped away at the troops. Shadowsun arrived from deep strike and blew up one of the stalkers. The rest of her squad with help from fire warriors killed off most of the nearby warriors. Shadowsun made her way over to the Necron objective. A unit of kroot had arrived and attempted to hit the Necron objective but had failed to kill any warriors and soon fell victim to Trazyn and his unit. The warriors then used Veil to move over to my objective but when Shadowsun killed Trazyn the veil cryptek was taken over by him. Great for keeping Trazyn alive but it pretty much gave Shadowsun their objective.

In the centre of the board the drones from the devilfishes were being annoying little gets and screening the Necron warriors so they couldn't advance into rapid fire range of the fire warriors and nor could they move onto the central objective. Towards the end Peter got frustrated and was forced to charge them to try and clear them out of the way. Sadly this eventually proved to be the death of the unit as my fire warriors moved up to claim the objective and gunned down the remaining Necrons. Meanwhile I'd failed to keep one of the riptides far enough away from the destroyer lord so he fell victim to the "stop hitting yourself" effects of the lord's mindshackle scarabs. The other riptide took revenge and killed the lord with his fusion blaster. With the destroyers in combat with the suits the riptide was free to kill off the warriors on my objective and take Trazyn with them. This gave me a 20-0 win with 3 secondaries to 1. Had I managed to get another turn in I could probably have killed off the destroyers by charging the riptide in but it wouldn't have changed the result since I would've tabled without being on all three objective.....

Game Three - Tau vs. DA/BA

For my final game of the day I was astonished to find myself on the top table. I'd scored well in the first two games but was certain there'd be more than a few people who'd scored better. My opponent Chris Cowburn was a single VP ahead of me so I expected this game to be pretty close. However, sadly for Chris this game was a bit of a mis-match. Chris was running DA/BA with Belial, a terminator librarian, 10 deathwing, 5 deathwing, dreadnought in a pod, reclusiarch, sanguinary priest, 10 assault marines (jump packs) and a dakka predator. With my large amount of AP2 and high volumes of S5 fire I was confident I could deal with the relatively low model count in Chris' army.

The mission was Crusade with 5 objectives (worth 5 VPs each) and Dawn of War deployment. Special Characters were scoring again. Chris went first I think with the dreadnought coming down and targetting one of my devilfish. This allowed him to flame some pathfinders whilst still getting a melta shot off against the tank. Sadly he was only able to Stun the devilfish but a handful of pathfinders were vaporised. Elsewhere the Blood Angels leapt ahead of their slower Dark Angel cousins.

The devilfish disgorged their cargo and combined with the riptides they were able to kill off all but one of the assault marines with the reclusiarch and priest falling victim to the weight of Tau fire. The crisis team attempted to down the predator by stripping hull points but could only score 1. The terminators advanced again and wrecked the previously damaged devilfish eventually gunning down the occupants with assault cannon and storm bolter fire.

Shadowsun and her squad landed with the commander splitting her shots between a predator and the nearby terminator squad. Her melta shot was enough to destroy the tank and combined with the bodyguard she was able to kill most of the terminators. The remaining marines were killed by weight of fire from the crisis team. Some kroot also arrived and headed towards one of the objectives away from the fighting on the right flank. The riptides combined to kill off the dreadnought leaving Chris with Belial, the librarian and the squad of 10 terminators.

Shadowsun stayed to claim an objective on the right whilst her bodyguard, along with the rest of the army, focussed on taking down the remaining terminators who'd still be able to claim two objectives if left alone. The kroot arrived on the left flank and got into position to claim the objective. The drones were used to screen the terminators and prevent them advancing on the objective but it didn't stop them from killing enough kroot to force them to run and deny me the nearby objective. Fire from the kroot, riptides and fire warriors reduced Belial's unit to himself, the librarian and two terminators. In a bold move Chris decided his best chance was to charge the drones and attempt to stay locked in combat during my turn.

The pair of terminators charged a pair of drones with the drones being lucky (actually unlucky in this case) enough to kill a terminator. The remaining terminator fluffed two of his attacks and therefore only killed a single drone tieing the combat. Belial and the librarian had similar "success" killing two drones and the survivors passed their leadership test!

There was nothing for it but to charge in with the riptides. The single remaining terminator won his combat but was eventually gunned down, however, I'd not be able to claim that objective with anything as the kroot continued to run. Belial and the Librarian survived for a couple of rounds on combat with one riptide but once the other was in range (after it had destroyed the drop pod) their smash attacks were enough to seal their fate and complete the tabling. This game me a 20-0 victory with all 3 secondaries. If I'd missed one more objective then I wouldn't have done enough to win the event!

Conclusion
Well I can hardly complain at taking 20/25 points in all three of my games. It was, however, massively embarassing to have won my own tournament. Despite not taking the conventional "power" lists from the Tau book (e.g. Broadside spam, Farsight bomb or Taudar) the codex is still incredibly strong and there's no doubt I met the right armies on the day to flatter my list. There were several armies that I'd have really struggled against but then I suppose luck is always a major factor in any tournament victory.

There were several times during the day where I was incredibly lucky. Killing so many planes in my first game with flukey shots from drones and suits was a fine example. The drones were generally pretty good. Incidentally I'll write a full rundown of how my list performed in the next post. Suffice to say I've been using Tau a lot recently so I think the time has come to bench them for a little while.

I've only got one more tournament arranged before the baby arrives (assuming he/she doesn't arrive early!) which is a 1,750pt single day at the Outpost. The venue doesn't insist on painted models so it might be chance to finally take my Dark Eldar to a tournament. That or I might proxy my Dark Angels as White Scars and throw in some allied Space Wolves. At some point I'll have to start thinking about what I want to take to Blog Wars 7. This partly depends on when the Ork codex arrives but I might play around with my SW, DE and DA and see which appeals the most if I don't bring Orks. Details of Blog Wars 7 should be up soon(ish).

Finally, thanks to all three of my opponents for putting up with me and apologies for posting this so late, it's been a busy couple of weeks.

Blog Wars 6 Painting Competition (pic heavy)

As ever the standard of painting at Blog Wars was high considering the small number of armies in attendance. Once again I didn't get time to go around and judge them all for myself but I was still pleased with the results. At Blog Wars there are competitions for Best Army but also for Best Special Character. Somehow the same person never wins both!

Here's a selection of some of the armies before I get onto the winners.

Here's Jamie's entry this time around. It's a really impressive collection but I'm actually relieved it didn't win so that the event wouldn't look like a complete fix!!!! The farseer in the last picture is based on the PC game Dawn of War and acts as Eldrad. I particularly like the runes orbitting her but I'm sure they wouldn't last five minutes in my stubby fingers!

Tyranids were the best army this time around with Dave Weston taking the title with some beautiful conversions. It even managed to win despite being displayed on a red plastic tray that didn't really compliment the army!

Finally Chris Benstead (who won Best Army last time), took the prize for best special character this time around for his Abaddon. His Iron Warriors are stunning and I failed to get pictures last time so I'm pleased I (well Matt) managed to get some shots this time around.

It's always my favourite part of the event and it's just a shame I didn't find the time to judge them myself. I'm thinking at Blog Wars 7 I might have a TO's choice award for my favourite which isn't always the same as the voting.

Blog Wars 6 - Tabling for Maximum VPs

Sorry for the delay with these posts. I've had a busy week getting the house ready for the in-laws coming this weekend so I'm just catching up.

So entering round two I was somewhat flustered by having to sort the scores out and going from 15 minutes ahead of schedule to 5-10 minutes behind. I was hoping that I'd be able to make the time back by playing my second game quickly allowing me to sort out the scores and hopefully get us back on schedule. That all went to pot when Dan Lane and Franco called me over to adjudicate on their game....

The Incident
Before I get into it I want to say that I'm going to attempt to write this as impartially as possible. I'm sure Franco will mention it on the 40KGlobal podcast so please read this and listen to that and form your own conclusions.

Anyway, they'd reached the end of their game and Franco had tabled Dan at the end of turn 4 (although it may have been turn 5 depending on who you asked). The rules pack stated that tabling your opponent did not automatically give you maximum points. Knowing that this is something that is somewhat controversial I reminded everyone before the event that this was the case. I'll go into more depth about why I decided to use this system later but suffice to say it'd been in the rules pack from the start which had also been sent out to everyone a couple of days before.

Well Franco had tabled Dan but wasn't controlling any of the objectives. Franco's argument was that he should be allowed to play his turns which would easily allow him to claim the objectives. Now I could understand Franco's frustration that he'd tabled his opponent but yet would actually be given a score of zero (although he would get 3 secondaries). I hadn't specifically said that people couldn't have their remaining turns but it's generally accepted that the game ends immediately when the last unit dies. In his mind though anything other than ruling that he could have his turns would be "ridiculous". If I ruled against him he would "leave now, and never come back". With both players (quite rightly) trying to argue their case and me struggling to think clearly I made a mistake. First, I tried to get both players to see it from the other's point of view. Dan could see that to table and score no points sounded daft but justified this by saying that the rules pack was quite clear. Franco refused to see it from Dan's point of view.

I was hoping there might be a middle ground so I assessed the situation on the table to see if, in the "remaining" turns Franco could get the objectives. Sure enough he'd got Farsight (scoring thanks to the BW rules) near the central objective, a landspeeder full of scouts near his objective and some kroot outflanking near Dan's objective. Essentially then I was rulling between a 25-0 defeat and a 0-0 draw. The kroot weren't guaranteed to make it to the objective so I thought I might've found a middle ground. The kroot would need to move 11" through cover to get to the objective. With Move Through Cover they moved 5" but they'd still need a 6 to run into range of the objective. Of course Franco rolled a 6 thus removing my option for middle ground. Having allowed him to do this though I'd essentially permitted him to have his turns and backed myself into a corner.

I wasn't happy with the decision but I needed to get back to my game. In the meantime I was chatting to various people who'd finished their games and had heard about the problem. Some of them had tabled their opponents but not claimed full VPs, as the tournament rules stated. Clearly then I'd need to decide whether I was changing the rules in the middle of the game or if I should go back to Franco and tell him I'd changed my mind.

I probably should've decided sooner rather than later but I wanted to get my game done as my opponent had already suffered enough delays. With the clock ticking down I got my game finished and there was now no choice but to make a ruling. Knowing that other people at the event had managed to play to the event pack I decided that I should enforce this in Franco & Dan's game too. This would therefore mean a 3-0 win to Franco (on secondaries). This wasn't good enough for him though and he stuck to his guns, packing up his models and leaving the event probably never to return.

I'm not thrilled that this happened as Blog Wars is supposed to be a friendly event that welcomes all comers. To have someone leave over a decision doesn't fit in with the Blog Wars philosophy of friendly competition. Whilst I still believe I made the right call in the end the problem was that I hadn't made it straight away. The rules in the event pack should be gospel. This means everyone is competing within the same parameters. To change them in the middle of the event is unfair.

Lessons Learned
I'm sure any 40K player who's been at it for a while knows that the rules aren't perfect. At a tournament you want the referee to make confident decisions that are based on a deep knowledge of the rules. The worst thing they can do is to go back on a call. That's the main thing to take away from this I think.

The other thing to think about is being totally explicit in the rules. If I intend to keep the rules regarding tabling then I need to specify that the game ends when the last unit is removed as a casualty. There are no further turns and if you haven't got the objectives then you don't score any points. Provided everyone is well aware that this is the situation then they can play their games accordingly.

Franco argued that "no other event since 2011" has used this system. At the time I was thinking that perhaps it was a good idea to follow suit to avoid situations like this being repeated. However, with more time to think about it I think it's something that should stay. It's important to realise why I want to keep the rule.

Why I want to keep the rule
The scoring system at Blog Wars doesn't have a binary win or loss result from each game. Instead, players are rewarded for winning convincingly and not penalised too heavily for a narrow loss. This may not be the way other tournaments do it but personally I think it works. Obviously there's the potential for someone to win all three games and not finish very high up (it's been Luke Fogg twice now - sorry Luke) but hopefully they've still enjoyed the day and their games will have been close.

That's the crux of it really. Winning doesn't actually matter that much at Blog Wars. Your ticket costs £15 and the most you can win is £25 for 1st place. Essentially then you're playing for a tenner when you take away your ticket cost. That's hardly stellar. Conversely the raffle offers a couple of hundred pounds worth of prizes which you're eligible for regardless of where you finish. Perhaps then Blog Wars shouldn't be viewed as a tournament but rather a social club. Yes there's a competition but, cheesy as it sounds, it's more about playing different people and having fun.

That's why I started going to tournaments in the first place, to play different people. If I win my games great if not who cares. Obviously I bitch and moan about it with the best of them but hopefully my opponents don't think of me as a power gamer.

So anyway, if you aren't awarding full points for tablings then you're encouraging people to play their games differently. In fact you're encouraging them to build their lists differently too. There's no doubt that the current meta encourages people to take cheap scoring units like kroot, cultists, etc so you can afford to pump more points into units that will devastate your opponent. Look at the top lists right now and with the exception of lists where the power comes from the troops section (e.g. wave serpent spam) the lists have barely any points in troops so they can afford the deathstars.

If you don't get maximum points from tabling you can't build your list that way. Your opponent may look at your list and think "I can't hope to beat that" but when they see your scoring is some kroot they'll be thinking they can easily take away your opportunity to score too many points. At Blog Wars the number of points you give away is almost as important as the number you score.

Conclusion
The Blog Wars system isn't the same as the major competitive events and it never has been. For starters there's the compulsory special character rule which came at a time when a lot of the major events were banning special characters. I don't post the results on Rankings HQ which I've been asked to do in the past.

The point is that I don't want Blog Wars to be like other events. I don't get a huge number of players attending but I don't want that either. I'm not trying to make money, I'm not trying to compete with the big GTs. What I want is for people to come to the event, no matter how experienced they are, and enjoy the day. The rule will be staying because Blog Wars is different by design. Perhaps I'll spell it out more clearly next time though.

Blog Wars 6 - The Aftermath

The sixth (can you believe it?) Blog Wars happened at the NWGC in Stockport yesterday and there was plenty of drama! Before I get to that I want to talk about the good things. First off, a big thanks to the staff at NWGC for keeping us fed and watered. I know the venue was cold but next time it will be June and Darran from the venue has promised that for the next winter one he'll have a heating system.

Secondly, thanks to everyone who came. I don't know about the rest of you but I think there's a great atmosphere about the event and generally everyone seems to be playing in the spirit of the thing. There are now just 3 players left who are veterans of all six Blog Wars and they are Matt Greenwood, Graham Sanders and Chris Benstead. A special thanks to those guys for their unerring support of the event.

Around two thirds of the players there were veterans of previous Blog Wars which I hope shows how enjoyable the day can be. There are plenty of tournaments out there that get more players but I hope people think the Blog Wars atmosphere is worth coming back for and I still can't think of a tournament that offers more in prizes for such a relatively small player count.

Anyway, let's get the embarrassment out of the way right now. Here's the results of Blog Wars 6 which have also been added to the Blog Wars Results Archive.

As you may have spotted I unwittingly won my own tournament. I know that's a ridiculous situation but I'll explain more about it when I cover my Battle Reports. Suffice to say, announcing myself as the winner wasn't the only time during the day that I wanted the ground to swallow me up but before I get to that I'll talk about a couple of other things with the results. First off you'll notice Franco's absence but I'll get to that in another post.

The other thing to note is that of the five Tyranid players three of them finished in the top 5. We know the codex is stronger thanks to Biomancy but it goes to show you can find life in the older books even with the ever-changing meta. The Eldar lists are pretty well spaced through the list but I should point out they weren't the standard competitive lists you might expect. Finally, congratulations to Ross Mason and Aaron Shrive for taking 2nd and 3rd place respectively at their first Blog Wars event.

The Scoring System
Here's a reminder of how the results are sorted:

1. Total VPs scored (Primary plus Secondary)
2. Goal Difference (total VPs scored minus total conceded)
3. Total Primary VPs scored
4. Total Secondary VPs scored
5. Total VPs given away

The theory behind this was that I should always be able to separate two players on something as it was very unlikely that people would score the exact same points in all categories. Of course that ended up breaking in the first round with Matt Greenwood and Daniel Lane scoring identical points across the board. For the first time in Blog Wars history I made a massive error on the scoring in the first round too. I'd had two players drop out, one to illness and one absent without any explanation. Luckily I was able to call in a couple of standbys to fill in the gaps. I assigned them the numbers of the missing players but then entered them on the spreadsheet the wrong way round. This meant the scores for their games were entered wrong causing the whole kerfuffle.

Anyway, this gave me an opportunity to realise that the scoring wasn't in fact broken and I could split Matt and Dan up by the number of VPs they'd conceded (old school VPs that is) when their maximum 2000pts and equal secondaries wouldn't help. Problem solved.

The idea of this scoring system, coupled with the tweaked scenarios, would result in each game being worth a maximum of 25pts. This would give plenty of scope for separating scores and would reward people for winning more convincingly. Obviously as a winner you don't care how decisive the victory is but if you lose the game it matters that you get recognition for making it a very close game. I understand the argument that a win is a win but that's fine for the competitive events. Blog Wars is different by design.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the scoring, I know it has issues (which again will be discussed in more detail in another post) but to me it works how I want it to. Right, sorry this post was a bit later going up than usual but I was too knackered to post last night and have been out all day today.

Over the next few posts I'll discuss the big drama of the day, cover the painting competition, report on my battles and generally cover the action from the weekend. Once I've run through all of that I'll do the same as last time and take a look at what worked and what didn't in order to make Blog Wars 7 better for it. Hopefully you all enjoyed it and some of you are reading this hoping to come along next time.

My Tau Army for Blog Wars 6

Unbelievably Blog Wars 6 is tomorrow and as I write this I've still not finished painting Shadowsun and her drones for my army. She's up to three colours but only just and I hope I have enough time to improve her before the big day. I'm starting to sound like a stuck record but at some point I intend to come back to my Tau army and add some highlights and washes to actually get them "finished". I use the inverted commas because I'm not sure it's a real thing! Anyway, here's my list:

1,850pts of Tau
Ethereal
Commander Shadowsun (two shield drones, comm-link drone)
2 XV8 Bodyguard (fusion, plasma)

11 Fire Warriors in Devilfish (disruption pod)
11 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
11 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
10 Kroot
10 Kroot

Riptide with ion accelerator, fusion, VT, EWO
Riptide with ion accelerator, fusion, VT, EWO
Crisis team (2 suits with 2xMP, flamer & shas'vre with 2xMP, PENchip)

6 pathfinders
6 pathfinders
6 pathfinders

On the face of it there isn't a huge difference between this list and the one I took to BW5. The major difference is that Shadowsun is now my SC and not Longstrike and she replaces my usual commander. The bomber is gone too and replaced by another unit of pathfinders. All of the fire warriors are now mounted up in devilfish making my army a lot more mobile.

I've spoken about Shadowsun at length when I was trying to decide between her and my regular commander. Ultimately the BW rules swayed my opinion as she allows me to take an Ethereal along whilst still bringing an SC.

The Fire Warriors are still the core of the army but instead of standing on the back line in cover they can be much more aggressive. The Ethereal helps them put out a decent volume of fire too. They're more durable in their transports and the Ethereal's 'fish is given a disruption pod to allow him a better chance of survival. These should hopefully be able to combine for some classic fish of fury action.

The kroot have lost their hounds as I simply couldn't find the points for them but 2 out of 3 times I'll get them on the side I want anyway. They proved to be vital and surprisingly deadly in my games at the tournament last Sunday so they're a must for me. Combined with the Fire Warriors I've still got 5 troop choices and they should be more durable than last time around.

This time there's a pair of Riptides. They're undoubtedly the powerhouses of this list. There's no denying that twin-riptides isn't a totally friendly build but the rest of the list isn't one of the typical competitive builds you see around. They're incredibly flexible with their Skyfire and Interceptor combined with their ability to throw down pie-plates.

The missile crisis team is my version of the HYMP broadsides effectively. They don't put out anywhere near as much firepower but they're more mobile and thanks to JSJ they're more likely to survive I reckon. Obviously they're vulvnerable to krak missiles and the like but hopefully they can bring down a couple of vehicles or an MC before they bite the dust.

Finally there's now three units of Pathfinders to provide markerlight support. I've toyed with all of the options for getting those vital marker hits but I always come back to Pathfinders. They're easily the least durable and least mobile of the marker platforms but they're easily the cheapest when it comes to points per marker hit.

So there you have it. I've still got work to do on Shadowsun but otherwise I'm pleased with how the army looks on the table and the switch to (mostly) mech doesn't have make deployment quicker and should hopefully make for quicker games which are vital when I'm trying to run the event at the same time!

I've had a couple of test games against Andy Lane from Claws and Fists (who sadly can't make it to Blog Wars) but I'll let you read about how they went over there. See you all tomorrow!

Blog Wars 6 Prize Announcement!

It's that time again and as ever it's my favourite bit of the Blog Wars build-up (except the pie charts of course!). This time around the good people at Element Games, who now run the shop at the NWGC, have generously sponsored the event. I'm very grateful to them for this and as ever I encourage you to support them and therefore the venue. Whilst I can't pretend the death of Maelstrom was to do with poor sales, I'd hate to see another excellent venue go under. Anyway, Element will be offering 15% off GW stuff and of course that means the vouchers from the tournament will be effectively worth that little bit more. Their website shows the stock that will be available to buy on the day so it's worth taking a look so you can plan what you'd like to pick up on the day.

As ever there'll be vouchers for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and last place alongside vouchers for Best Painted Army and Best Painted Special Character. To me though the exciting things are the spot prizes and raffle prizes.

Spot Prizes
Once again there'll be two categories for spot prizes: Booby prizes and I Miss 5th Edition prizes. The booby prizes are awarded to the first player in a round to do something particularly bad to his own army! As compensation he'll pick up one of the spot prizes which will be very loosely related to the cock up. These will be for the same mistakes as at BW5 if any of you can remember that far back!

The "I Miss 5th Edition" prizes will be awarded to players who have something happen to them that simply wouldn't have been possible in the previous version of the rules. Like the booby prizes these are for the same things as at BW5. For example, failing a charge of less than 6" across open ground which is something that of course wouldn't have happened in 5th edition.

These prizes will be up for grabs during all three rounds so keep an eye on the big screen to see how you can win them and then all you need to do is remember to claim them. There's only one per round so it's the first person to correctly claim it that will take the prize.

On offer are:

• Psychic Power Cards
• Plastic Eldar Farseer kit
• Munitorum Templates
• Skull Measuring Tape
• Aegis Defence Line
• Munitorum Vehicle Dice

Raffle Prizes

My favourite part of Blog Wars and something that's been around since the first event, the raffle is where the big prizes are to be won. These prizes will be on offer at the end of the day as part of the prize ceremony. Once again, there's no need to buy a ticket you're already in the draw. Everyone's player number goes into a hat and they're drawn at random. You'll have to wait until the day to find out what you can win but I'm very happy with the selection on offer. Obviously there's prizes there that will be more use to some than others but there's always eBay and bear in mind that each prize is worth more than your ticket cost to buy!! 

Finally I'd just like to say another big thanks to Element Games for sponsoring the event and allowing me to offer such excellent prize support. I defy you to find a tournament that offers more prizes for such a reasonable ticket price! In total there's over £375 worth of prizes to be had! Carlsberg don't make tournaments but......

Post 400 - Armies at Blog Wars 6 (The Pie Chart Post)

First off this is apparently post number 400 on this blog! That's somewhat disturbing really. Even more worrying when you consider how many words are in my usual posts!! I've probably written enough on here for several doctoral theses! Time well spent..... perhaps.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for sending in their army lists. If you haven't received an email from me it means everything is fine with your list. Those who've received queries regarding minor errors please get back to me as soon as you can. I've updated the Blog Wars 6 page with the armies that everyone is bringing. As usual though I'd like to look at the spread of races represented at BW6 and that of course means pie charts!!

Before you take a look at the new charts perhaps you'd like to remind yourself what the situation was like at BW5. Grey Knights, Tau and Tyranids were the most popular choices back in June. This wasn't surprising in some ways as the new Tau codex hit in April but on the other hand the number of Grey Knights armies was somewhat unexpected. Anyway, here's the spread of races at Blog Wars 6 (click to make it more legible):

Tyranids, CSM, Eldar and surprisingly Space Wolves dominate the field. In the past the prevelance of Space Wolves armies could be put down to From The Fang being about them but that isn't really the case these days. It's remarkable then that one of the few armies left in the game without flyers of any kind and with little anti-air capability are still popular. It'll be interesting to see how they fare as their book could be considered an older codex now.

Tau are still popular which isn't surprising really. I'm intrigued by the number of CSM armies when they aren't considered competitive these days. I'm surprised there aren't more Space Marines with their new shiny codex but perhaps people haven't had chance to put their armies together in time for the event. There's only a single Necron army this time around too despite their ability to hold their own even with the new books.

There are slightly more players bringing allies this time but no major shift. Here's the chart:

Nothing particularly astounding to report here. More Space Wolves though! You'll do well not to play them at some point this weekend. If you take out the Tyranids (since they can't take allies) then about a third of the armies have allies.

Generally speaking the most likely opponents for your army (in no particular order) are Tyranids, Space Wolves, Tau, Eldar and CSM. It'll be interesting to see how well my Tau do against that field (or not).

Finally, onto the Special Characters and it isn't hard to see why Malan'tai was doomed when their doom appears 5 times at Blog Wars 6!! It'll be interesting to see the conversions on offer. Fair play to the accidentally original Tyranid player who's taken Deathleaper instead!! Otherwise two each of Arjac, Eldrad, Farsight, Fateweaver, Lonstrike, Shadowsun and Tigurius. There's quite a mixture of characters around though with 39 in total (several armies have multiple SCs) and 27 unique characters will be represented at least once.

I'm pleased that probably my favourite character, Arjac Rockfist is represented twice. He's one to watch out for.

Friday Night
There wasn't exactly a deluge of responses about Friday night so I'm not going to run a formal event. There are about half a dozen people around the night before the main tournament though so if you guys wanted to head down to the venue and play pick up games as warm up then go for it.

Rules Queries
There were a couple of questions about the scenarios that I thought I'd post up here in case anyone else was wondering the same thing. Firstly in the Purge the Alien style game the VPs are calculated based on the points value of the units killed in a similar way to 5th edition i.e. units at 50% starting strength and below count for 50% of their points (rounding up). In the case of armies that can spawn models such as Tyranid tervigons and Daemons portalglyphs the spawned models are worth their usual codex values and should be included. This means there is the potential to score bonus VPs above the theoretical 25 VP maximum.

Secondly, the nominated special character counts as scoring in the objective missions which means he also counts as a denial character even if he wouldn't normally i.e. Longstrike in his hammerhead. He can be used for Linebreaker in this way too.

If there are any further queries about the scenarios or 40K rules in general please either comment here or email me and I'll give a ruling.

Conclusion
Having seen the armies that will be in attendance Blog Wars 6 is shaping up to be very interesting. With the player count standing at 34, this is the biggest event yet. I'm looking forward to it immensely and I hope you guys are too. Only 11 days to go!

Blog Wars 6 - Only a month to go! (A few notes and Mech Tau)

Unbelievably there's only a month until Blog Wars 6! It hasn't half come around fast! Luckily I'm taking a very similar list to last time so I'm not having to do any last minute painting but good luck to any of you that are!

The good news is there are still a few tickets left for the event. For those who don't know about Blog Wars here's a quick rundown:

• Originally started as an inter-blog event but now open to EVERYONE!
• 3 games at 1,850pts with 2.5 hours per game
• Each army MUST include a special character in their primary detachment (full list of permitted SCs on the BW6 page)
• Imperial Armour units are not allowed
• Prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Wooden Spoon, Best Painted Army, Best Painted Special Character
• Spot prizes throughout the day
• Free raffle at the end of the day (keep an eye out for the list of what's on offer)

More than half of the tickets have been sold but if you'd like one their £15 each and can be purchased by either using the contact me link or simply clicking on the PayPal button.  I'll be confirming some of the prizes in the next week or so (when I buy them!) but as ever there'll be plenty up for grabs. Full details are on the BW6 page which can be accessed by clicking on the logo to the right.

Food
There were a few issues with the food at BW5 with some people waiting a while to get theirs. I've been speaking to Darran at NWGC tonight and he says they've had a complete overhaul of the cafe and at a recent event with 30+ people everyone was served within 10 minutes. Sounds a lot more promising I'm sure you'll agree. Food choices will probably be something like spaghetti bolognese, curry or burger and chips. That kind of thing anyway. Obviously I leave it up to you guys to let me know if you have any specific dietary requirements.

Friday Night
I know a few people came up to Stockport the night before the event last time around. I'm actually off work on the Friday so if there are enough people around I'd be happy to run a bit of 40K in 40 minutes (or similar) for a pre-event warmup. I'll email everyone who's bought a ticket in the next few days and see if there's much interest. If I were to do it then there would, of course, be generous prize support for a minimal entry fee.

Mech Tau

Just a quick note about mechanised Tau. I've been toying with the idea of a mechanised list for BW6. The motivation for this was two-fold. Firstly I think that with the shift to infantry based lists recently there are a lot of armys now that struggle to deal with massed AV12. Secondly, whilst there's no denying the static gunline with Ethereal is effective, it isn't exactly much fun to play with or against.

Anyway, I've had a few games with my mech Tau recently so I'll post up some brief battle reports and after action thoughts when I get around to writing them up (GTA V is taking up a lot of my time at the moment!).

Blog Wars 6 - Two Months to go! - Comp Discussion Round-up

The sixth Blog War will be held on Saturday 2nd November at the North West Gaming Centre. For those of you who aren't familiar with the event here's a quick run-down.

• Originally started as an inter-blog event but now open to EVERYONE!
• 3 games at 1,850pts with 2.5 hours per game
• Each army MUST include a special character in their primary detachment
• Imperial Armour units are not allowed
• Prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Wooden Spoon, Best Painted Army, Best Painted Special Character
• Spot prizes throughout the day
• Free raffle at the end of the day (keep an eye out for the list of what's on offer)

More than half of the tickets have been sold but if you'd like one their £15 each and can be purchased by either using the contact me link or simply clicking on the PayPal button. 

When I started Blog Wars I set out with the intention of running a friendly tournament that welcomed both new players and tournament veterans. At the time some people didn't believe their could be such a thing as a friendly event but I hope I've proved over the last few years that it can be done. I've always tried to find a balance between running a tournament that rewards players for winning their games and preventing people from bringing horrible lists to end up with dull one-sided games.

Unfortunately, there will always be a couple of people at any tournament who bring an ultra-competitive list to make it easy to walk away with the top prize. I recently started a discussion about the concept of "comp". Blog Wars is already somewhat "comped" thanks to the compulsory Special Character. This time I'm also insisting that the SC be within the primary detachment to put people off simply tagging on an allied character. That doesn't mean to say SCs are banned in allied detachments but only an SC chosen from the primary can benefit from the BW special rules for them. I've also banned Imperial Armour units at BW6 as I think they're undercosted for what they can achieve and some people simply can't afford to bring them.

Anyway, in a previous post I put forward the idea that armies at Blog Wars 6 should be further restricted. The idea was that the "spam" that appears in a lot of competitive lists e.g. triple heldrakes, scores of Necron flyers, full squads of missile broadsides, etc. would be prevented. The post generated more comments than any of my previous posts ever had and there was a decent discussion. There were several compelling arguments for and against "comp" so I wanted to address them all here. This will be wordy but I think it's worth reading to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing with Blog Wars.

"Comp is tricky, if a player wants to bring filth they will do even with comp, they'll just find the filthiest army within the comp." - Morrbane

I have to agree with this. You can put restrictions on armies as much as you like but people will always find a way round it. 40K players are notorious for this. 

"....but if I took my Nids (in their current form) or a similar older codex, not being able to take 2 of the same units could be harsh...as they are kind of needed to keep up....How about including list building scores? " - the 6th degree

Essentially what ever you do as a TO be it custom scenarios, comp or whatever, there will always be sine armies that benefit over others. I agree that some less than dirty builds could be prevented that make some of the only decent builds for older codexes unviable. Were I to take my Dark Eldar for example, a single Ravager really isn't going to cut it. List building scores are always going to be subjective. The TO can't score them as it's hard to be impartial (I just plain don't like Necrons for example) and you can't guarantee that the person scoring fully understands their opponent's army. Not to mention you'd score armies that you thought you could beat better than ones you knew would annihilate you.

"A good comp system I've played in limits it to 2 units outside troops, but then has a few other limits, such as a max of 3 flyers and monstrous creatures (combined limit), max no. of av14 vehicles, a limit on vehicles in squadrons." - Rathstar

I have to say I like this idea of limiting it to two units with further limits on flyers etc. However, at a tournament this weekend I took a double riptide Tau list and the general feeling in the room was that this was dirty. The rest of my army was fairly mixed but people focus on what they consider to be cheese. 

"....we do 2k but the restrictions are no double force, FW, or allies. We do this because it limits people from bringing cheesy armies and brings a more fair army list all around...." - Ulises

At sub-2K Blog Wars doesn't have to worry about double FOC. I've said before that I'm really not a fan of the allies system (and outside doubles I rarely field an army from more than one codex). I've also toyed with the idea of banning flyers in the past but I always feel like you're saying "I want to play 5th edition" with things like this. Allies, whether I like them or not, are a big part of 6th edition and to ban them wouldn't sit right with me.

"Try highlander. No more than one of any unit no exceptions" - kong

As some of the responses said this massively limits some books over others. Obviously anything you do in 40K has that effect. There was a recent tournament at a local store where they tried this and I have to say the thought of it put me off. Their version didn't limit dedicated transports and I thought I'd just end up facing either Necron flyers or Eldar wave serpents. This kind of restriction would require custom scenarios too as some armies simply couldn't field enough Troops. I've talked before about why I want to avoid custom scenarios.

"But, by not allowing repeat units, the armies that do show up at blog wars should be more varied and interesting to play with and against than the usual 3 annihilation barges or 47 (ish) high yield broadsides." - Fragnog

This was the main ethos behind comping Blog Wars. Not to necessarily ban certain armies but to encourage more varied and interesting lists. That being said I do think that Blog Wars already has quite a variety. There may only have been 30 players but as I recall we didn't see even two armies that were close to being identical. The same can't be said of other events I've been to.

"Do not punish players, instead reward... Have your top 3 prizes for the best players, but also have awards for the fluffy guy(s), the rookie, etc." - Anon

You sir, make a good point. Far from punishing people for bringing something that is perceived as "cheesy" I should be encouraging people to bring something more interesting. At previous events I've had a "Best Army Theme" prize for the army who I felt best fit with a particular armywide concept. Essentially what I think you're saying is make the prizes for the competitive bit pale in comparison to the prizes for being a nice guy! I like that idea.

"In addition to points for wins, losses and draws (totalling 30 points if you win all your games) there are army scores..... totalling 20. So your army is worth nearly as much as winning all the games." - Matt Calow

The community tends to refer to this as Soft Scoring and I'm not a fan of it in general. A tournament is a competition based on how well you play the game (including writing the army list, understand your opponent's army and how tactical you are), when you start to factor in soft scores you detract from the competition. This is the reason a lot of people are put off attending GW's events. I've been to independents where soft scores are used too and I find it frustrating to win all your games but lose out to someone else who painted unit markings on their models. There's a painting competition and a tournament. Never the twain shall meet in my opinion.

"Consider that, by comping in the style you suggest, you may be forcing people to buy extra units. Most players I know only have a limited pool of units to choose from, and certainly don't own all the options for each FOC for whatever reason." - Creidhnan

This. This is where the debate about comping ends for me (indeed it was the last comment on the post). It's easy for me to sit here with 5 armies which contain pretty much every option from the codex and tell people that they can't bring a particular list. Whatever comp system I come up with would penalise those players with one army and not a lot of options. 

Blog Wars has always welcomed new players to the tournament scene, the idea that I'd be putting off people who can't afford to buy a new army just for my event just isn't right. It's easy to say "this is an expensive hobby" and write off how much it actually costs to buy the necessary new units. 

Conclusion

Ultimately I feel that Blog Wars has a firm identity as a friendly tournament with compulsory special characters and scenarios loosely themed around them. I'm not sure I want to be known for running a heavily comped event. 

Over the course of the discussion in the comments section people were saying about comp penalising one army over others but so does everything in 40K. However, what sealed it for me was the thought that comp affects certain players over others. To use an analogy from elsewhere, think of the Premier League, the top flight teams are always the ones with the most cash to splash around. It's the same in 40K, to keep competitive (especially with the rate at which new books are coming out) you need to own several different armies and have the spare cash to buy the latest powerful unit. I could've easily gone out and bought a ton of the new broadsides to make the HYMP list but I didn't for two reasons. Firstly because I can't afford to drop £270 on three units (before discounts) and secondly because it simply isn't any fun to play. It shouldn't just be about who has the most cash but it is. Like in football, the system is flawed, there's little that can be done about it.

Most of the ultra-competitive lists out there aren't any fun for anyone involved. You can't tell me you enjoy just sitting there pointing to units and rolling dice. My current Tau army may have a lot of firepower but it has to be played well to get the best from it. Net-list armies that are point and shoot aren't fun, simple as that.

I'm never going to be able to prevent people from bringing something cheesy. It's the nature of 40K. There will always be someone. What I would hope is that those attending would write their lists in the spirit of the event. Use Blog Wars as the opportunity to try something fun out that you would never use at another event. Bring that unit the internet tells you is useless and have fun finding out that they were probably right. However, you might be surprised when they achieve more than you expected.

Blog Wars 6 will not be comped any further than it already is. I think it's the best decision for the identity of the event and the enjoyment of the players. Top prize at BW5 was £25, with a £15 ticket Franco essentially made £10 which was probably spent on drinks and travel anyway. I can't imagine he enjoyed his games that much. However, someone (I forget who) showed up, played their games and win or lose, walked away with a Wraithknight from the raffle. Who really won?

Ideas for Army List Restriction at Blog Wars 6

At some point I'll write up the apocalypse battle so keep an eye out for that but for now I wanted to discuss some thoughts I've been having about Blog Wars 6.

It's always my intention to make Blog Wars a fun and friendly event. However, I always want to have prizes that are worth winning too. In the past I've reduced the top prize in order to try and discourage people from bringing a top flight tournament list to this event and easily taking 1st place against lists that simply aren't competitive. Now obviously Swiss Pairs goes some way to match people up with an equally skilled opponent but we all know it's not without its problems. I don't want to insult anyone who's won Blog Wars (that's only two people) but most of the time I've looked at the pairings and known what the outcome will be. Of course you can always do that to some extent but it's a problem when you look at the lists before the event and know who's going to win before any dice are rolled.

Ideally everyone would bring something more on the fluffy than competitive side but you simply can't force people to do that and it would probably put people off. Blog Wars 5 was probably quite an extreme example where there were very few purely competitive lists or players. Ultimately I want everyone to enjoy the event and of course losing is never fun but when you know from deployment how it will go then you're going through the motions for how ever long it takes you to get tabled. I don't personally think it's much fun to play with some of the top lists. Surely if there's no challenge to it then you can't enjoy it?

What I'm trying to get at (slowly) is that I'd like to find some way of levelling the playing field a bit. There obviously isn't anything stopping one of the less competitive players from bringing a competitive list but it works the same in reverse too. There are two solutions that immediately spring to mind. Firstly, remove the "cash" prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. That way it becomes more of a club night than a tournament. I have to say I don't like this idea as I'm a firm believer that a tournament should be competitive and that the prizes should be worth competing for.

The second option is to "comp" the event. Blog Wars has always been sort of "comped" in that special characters are compulsory but what I'm talking about here will go further. Everyone knows that 40K is a system that likes multiples. If something is good, take as many as you can. I'm talking about riptides, heldrakes, wave serpents, flying daemon princes, annihilation barges, etc. To counter this kind of multiplication requires some amount of tailoring. For example, that triple heldrake list won't be much good against pure terminator armies or riptides with skyfire and intercept.

The solution then is to restrict the number of each unit you can take. This means that you'd only be able to take one of each unit in a particular FOC slot. Thinking of Tau for a minute that would mean you could take a riptide, a crisis team and a stealth team in your Elites slot but you couldn't take two of any of them. You could of course take a second crisis team as a bodyguard for a commander. Similarly you couldn't take 3 heldrakes. Of course with the advent of supplements there's the potential to squeeze one heldrake into a CSM list with a second in a Black Legion allied list. This wouldn't be acceptable should I impose this system.

Realistically, unless you make everything scoring, you can't limit the number of Troops people are allowed and several codices have only two options for Troops units whilst others have several. Therefore Troops would be exempt from this restriction as are their transports. Now, I appreciate this doesn't solve every problem. A Necron player can still bring 7 flyers (6 night scythes as transports, 1 doom scythe in heavy). He could potentially still take a unit of deathmarks in a night scythe too. Similarly a Eldar player could end up with lots of wave serpents without breaching the restrictions.

The other problem with it is that people who want to bring themed armies will struggle. Their armies may not be particularly competitive but may still have multiples of particular units. That's probably the biggest problem for me as I always enjoy seeing an army built around a theme.

It's not perfect then and that's why I'm not simply enforcing it without discussion. Of course there will still be dirty lists but it should encourage players to think outside the box a bit more and hopefully generate some interesting combinations.

I really want to hear feedback from people, even if they aren't coming to Blog Wars. Are you all for this idea or do you think it would be too restrictive? Will it even work? Comments and emails on the subject will be gratefully received.