Battleground Tournament Army Lists

[Loranus]

I don't know how other Tournaments handle it so I am putting this up for Chase and/or Sam to answer when they get to it. A message has been sent on Facebook to them so don't go harassing them please.

Using Army Builder when you choose a Psyker such as a Space Marine Librarian it has you select your source of powers then you select the specified powers you want. These include from the Disciplines in the book the ones you Randomly Select by replacing powers you have. Concerning Tournament Lists my question comes from if I want to use Discipline Powers should I select 2 Space Marine Codex Powers to have on the list. For Example Avenger and Might of the Ancients. And then during the Tournament Before Each match roll off to randomly replace them as you would during a normal game if it is desired?

[Librarian]

for right now at least the GW offcial way of determining psychic powers is to decide on which disciplin and roll on it before each match. There has been a good amount of talk on various message boards about this the the general agreement is that you pay for and or choose your powers from your normal codex list and then before each match you are allowed to swap them for the random powers in the core or stick with the choices listed with your army.

this grants some tactical versitility to some psykers, blood angels librarians for example could choose two close combat oriented powers from there list and then swap them for divination during matches where he feels close combat is less effective.

but regardless you roll for powers after terrain and sides have been determined but before deployment you roll for your powers, this should occur before each match at a tournament.

[Chase]

Did we ever answer this for you, Pat?

Personally, I agree with Josh and would like to see things handled like that.

[Loranus]

I talked to Sam yesterday and this is something that should be settled.

He told me that you need to specify whether you planto use the codex or disipline powers. If you use the codex powers you can not switch them for discipline powers. If you plan to use discipline powers you will need to randomly roll before each match.

I dont plan to use a psyker now but I felt this needs to be cleared up before lists are.due.

[Grimwulfe]

Im not sure im seeing the confusion here.  you purchase your powers and before the game starts you decide to replace them or not.  You cant mix and match them hich is what Sam I believe was referencing.

[Loranus]

No. Sam is saying If you plan to use the Discipline Powers you can not use Codex Powers at all during the tournament. Thats how I understood it. You have to say on your Army Sheet Your using Codex or Discipline powers for each psyker.

[Grimwulfe]

Considering thats against RAW I dont think that will be the case.  But Sam's word is law so I would wait for him to chime in.

[Benjamin]

We should get it in writing from our Adeptus Arbites, because it is an important distinction.

[Sir_Prometheus]

You guys may be talking about to separate things.

1) No psyker that I know of may only switch out "some of" their powers.  They always switch out ALL their powers for BRB powers, or none.  However, according to the main book, you may choose switch out your powers, or not, each game, and if you had more than 1 power, could even use multiple disciplines.  Moreover, you can choose what table to roll on for subsequent powers after rolling your first power....i.e., pick your first power from telepathy, see what you get, and based upon that choose whether to do Telekinesis or Biomancy next, etc. 

2) Sam has decreed that for tournaments, all powers must be picked in advance (whether to switch them out, and for what disciplines) in advance, for the whole day.  This is so as not to "tailor for your oppoent", and is similar to how they do it fantasy.

Personally, I'm wicked against that, actually, as all the disciplines, aside from divination, are horribly underpowered (oh, look, remember I wrote a post about it?http://prometheusatwar.com/2012/08/the-problem-with-psychic-disciplines-and-rulebook-powers-in-6th-edition-40k-2/) there's not much problem with people "tailoring their powers"; they're generally paying too much for too little, anyway.

Is there a way to campaign against this artificial restriction, either with Sam or Chase?  It's not much skin off my back, I'm likely to take divination 95% of the time, and otherwise it would be codex powers I had a specific plan for.  But generally speaking I think people without access to divination should be able to tailor their powers to their opponents....it's one of the few things they have going for them. 

[Chris]

I completely agree with Sir_Prometheus on this, and I think that Sam is wrong on this.  You are supposed to be able to exchange your base powers for discipline powers each game.  You are supposed to be able to "tailor for your opponents" with your psykers, this is to give psykers some flexibility as most are fairly expensive units; and it is how the BRB say to play it.

[Rurouni Benshin]

Maybe if BG were to host a tournament where this house rule was changed would fix the problem?  That way everybody gets a chance to play with the house rules of their choice?

I think the fairest way would be to put it to a vote, and see how the results turn out.  And if Chase, Sam, and whoever else is running the BG tournaments think it's a venture worthwhile, it'll more than likely happen. 

Because you know...  Chase and Sam are cool like that. 

[Benjamin]

I think the fairest way would be to put it to a vote, and see how the results turn out.  And if Chase, Sam, and whoever else is running the BG tournaments think it's a venture worthwhile, it'll more than likely happen. 

Voting and fairness are not mutually inclusive.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I think the fairest way would be to put it to a vote, and see how the results turn out.  And if Chase, Sam, and whoever else is running the BG tournaments think it's a venture worthwhile, it'll more than likely happen. 

Voting and fairness are not mutually inclusive.

This is true, and a big chunk of what political science is all about.

Anyway, my gut feeling is that no one will feel terribly used and abused by people being able to pick what psychic discipline to roll on based on their opponents list.  I don't think it will have a terribly large effect, at all, because, and this is my whole thesis: BRB disciplines are random and suck.  Except divination, divination is awesome all the time, so there. 

More importantly, the BRB very specifically allows you to pick disciplines, not only for each battle, but in fact after each power you roll.  And I thought the prevailing philosophy at BG was to follow RAW unless given a very, very good reason not to?  And sometimes not even then.  (Scarab farms and conga lines come to mind)

[Loranus]

On another note you have to consider. Sam doesn't play 40k as much as the rest of us if at all since Sixth Edition. He has looked at the book and considering when I asked him the question we didn't pick up the book he answered me. This is the first tournament and there will be hiccups but this is why I think its great that its aimed at Casual players so they can sort those out.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I completely agree with Sir_Prometheus on this, and that Sam is wrong. 

BTW, please don't make it sound like I said Sam was wrong.  I said I disagreed.  It's a small but important difference.