Whatever else we may think, I'm sure we can all agree on one thing, which is that Bill is a complete and utter ass. To wit:
1. He has been repeatedly referenced in this thread as the 'the guy to beat at Plainville'. Why he feel the need to pay people to say this about him is beyond me, but facts are facts.
2. While I was away, he went ahead and said what I was going to say and, to add insult to injury, was all reasonable about it. But, in an effort to undermine his tyranny, I'm going to say it again, because god knows I love to read myself type.
Doubling the force org slot is bad for at least two reasons (which isn't to say that we shouldn't use the double force-org; rules are rules and all that).
A. Allowing a double force-org allows for more powerful armies. It doesn't need to be the case that any of these armies are broken (although I suspect that there may be some), but an increase in the power level of possible armies will increase the differential between the maximally powerful armies and the average armies. There will always be people who, for one legitimate reason or another (I like the fluff of this army, this was the army I spent 100 hours painting, I've always been a Sisters player), and the less they get stomped by the guy with the tweaked out list, the better. Tournaments, like it or not, (and I like it) are partially populated by those who, in addition to winning, have other concerns. There isn't any reason to give them a bigger handicap than they've given themselves. To put this point another way, the more you increase the potential power of lists, the more you decrease the ability of people to win with substandard lists by being superior generals. The degree to which games should be decided by generalship skills as opposed to list-building skills is an entirely subjective thing, and I rather like that list-building is part of the game, but in my terribly humble opinion, it is already a big enough part of the game.
B. Whether or not one thinks that a double force organization chart allows for more powerful lists, it certainly allows for more one-sided lists, particularly one-sided lists that people will think (perhaps erroneously) are good. I have no doubt that at double force org tournaments, we'll see 17 Razorbacks and 6 Riflemen and god knows how many Vendettas. Now these lists may not be good, so they may not win tournaments, but that doesn't mean they can't lose tournaments for their opponents. Having a balanced list requires you to be able to take all comers, and by widening the pool of possible comers, particularly in imbalanced ways, makes it harder to have a balanced list and makes it easier to lose to a weird army simply because it isn't something that you could possibly have planned for. In fifth, I always had to make sure I had a plan for the 5 LR army and the Orc Horde and all the other odd lists you see. I don't relish the fact that the list of weird opponents I might face has gotten so much longer.
