whoooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

[andalucien]

So a big issue here seems to be that GW is threatening the "indirect way" that stores like Battlegrounds try to make money off of hosting tournaments.

You pay $10-$15 or so to play in the tournament.  Battlegrounds pays a couple people to administer the tournament for 8-10 hours and then gives a significant portion (most?) of the entry fee back in prize support to the winners.

There's an unwritten implication that if you play in these tourneys, even if you pay to do so, you "owe" the store and should, where possible, buy some or all of your gaming materials from the store rather than online.  But, even more indirectly, providing a healthy tournament scene makes the game BETTER, so it makes people more likely to buy models AT ALL, and makes it more likely that more new players will start to play and in turn buy more models.  But it all comes back to the idea that more 40k being played means more books and models being bought FROM THE STORE.

In this age of online shopping (hell, I buy things like pens and printer cartridges from Amazon Prime now rather than driving 10 minutes to get to a store that sells them), that chain of cause and effect was already worth worrying about a bit.  And GW's latest actions are making it much scarier, they are actively encouraging people to bypass the store, and calling into question even more whether in the future  the "math will still work" to make it worthwhile for a business to host decent sized 40k tournaments.

But, stores like BG continue to offer one thing that GW cannot compete with anymore:  A fun place to play with lots of people!  Is it possible to profit a reasonable amount from that directly? 

How about eliminating prize support from tournaments?  I can only really speak for myself… but I know that when I am trying to decide whether to go to any tournament, prize support doesn’t really factor into it AT ALL.  Basically I go to tournaments to play some quality 40k and to check out all the cool models.  Honestly, you could drop ALL of the prize support from BG tourneys and I would still go to exactly the same number (which is as many as I can carve out a free day for .   This is coming from someone who has won a couple prizes, and has probably almost broken even lifetime in terms of prize winnings vs BG tournament fees.   You could also probably raise admittance somewhat without making me blink… I mean if it was $30 for a day of entertainment… I could have done what instead?  Gone skiing?  Played golf?  Shooting range?  Sports game?  All those things are WAY more expensive than that.

Is there someone out there who would decide not to attend a Warhammer tournament because there was no prize support?  The idea seems sorta foreign to me… such a person would certainly be into the hobby for very different reasons than I am.   I mean, if it’s about money, you’d be way better off just working an extra day at any decent job than you would going to a tournament, even if you were the best player there!

What about charging a $5 cover for things like Thursday night 40k?    Could one take that as a chance to “bling it out”, making sure there was always an active campaign that people could contribute to, or something?  I just wonder if there is a way to effectively charge directly for the service that is actually being consumed by people who go to these things, rather than relying on future purchases.

[Benjamin]

What about charging a $5 cover for things like Thursday night 40k?    Could one take that as a chance to “bling it out”, making sure there was always an active campaign that people could contribute to, or something?  I just wonder if there is a way to effectively charge directly for the service that is actually being consumed by people who go to these things, rather than relying on future purchases.

We've been working on events for the store that will be run on Thursdays, with some charge. With the limited time frame of 6-10 and a strong desire to keep the evening casual, there are limits too.

But the reason I'd say no to cover charging for Thursday 40k is that I know for a fact it comes back to the store many times over through purchases. It's an introduction for new players, which is both essential to the community and the bottom line. It's been a worthy investment.

[Thefallen]

I know being able to play for free on thursday nights has gotten me to spend lots of money on new units, dice and paints, that I probably would not have if I only played at home or a friends. Charging people for table time for a friend game would deter new players from getting into an expensive hobby. It would have put me off from the hobby and I wouldn't have spent over $1k on stuff at BG over the last few years. Now charging for a league would be fine specially if there was a prize for winning at the end. 

[the_trooper]

GW couldn't be thinking about taking money from tournaments. They have already said repeated they don't care about tournaments and have actively shown so (cancelling GTs, cancelling 'ard boys). It's about "forging the narrative". There is much speculation as to why but GW has said time and time again that they are a miniatures company first that happens to make rules. GW isn't trying to take money from local stores, they are just trying to maximize profits regardless of sacrificing past partnerships.

The more they find the electronic rules to be profitable, the less they will care about having to print them. I suppose the simple answer here is, don't buy them. Even if you want to field 5 riptides of 4 heldrakes, don't do it. Wait for the print copy. Use army builder until the hardcover makes it's way to BG. If it never comes, work within the community to allow Armybuilder to be "good enough" for tournaments.

40k is your game. The Battleground Community has already shown they are better at supporting 40k and it's inclusiveness than GW has. Just continue down the path with these discussions.

At the end of the day, it really just comes down to allowing stuff not being bought at BG (but still part of the game system) to be played at BG. BG has never disallowed using FW (or other knock off) units standing in for normal 40k units in tournaments, unsure why this really changes all that much from what has already been decided.

[MM3791]

Army builder only displays points and stats, not special rules. This is done on purpose to make people buy the book.

[Vermillion]

GW couldn't be thinking about taking money from tournaments. They have already said repeated they don't care about tournaments and have actively shown so (cancelling GTs, cancelling 'ard boys). It's about "forging the narrative". There is much speculation as to why but GW has said time and time again that they are a miniatures company first that happens to make rules. GW isn't trying to take money from local stores, they are just trying to maximize profits regardless of sacrificing past partnerships.

The more they find the electronic rules to be profitable, the less they will care about having to print them. I suppose the simple answer here is, don't buy them. Even if you want to field 5 riptides of 4 heldrakes, don't do it. Wait for the print copy. Use army builder until the hardcover makes it's way to BG. If it never comes, work within the community to allow Armybuilder to be "good enough" for tournaments.

40k is your game. The Battleground Community has already shown they are better at supporting 40k and it's inclusiveness than GW has. Just continue down the path with these discussions.

At the end of the day, it really just comes down to allowing stuff not being bought at BG (but still part of the game system) to be played at BG. BG has never disallowed using FW (or other knock off) units standing in for normal 40k units in tournaments, unsure why this really changes all that much from what has already been decided.

Have to agree here. As no small part of the 40k consumer community, the way we funnel the money into GW will have an affect on how they produce their products. They produce digital codex's because people asked for/bought them. The digital codex's that are in high demand will go to print version (like the farsight enclave), that's the time to buy them. At least that way it'll be easier to show the rules to someone during a game A, and B it'll actually support the store.

As for the current digital codexes, frankly its a matter of getting into good habits with people you play with. Don't make assumptions about what you know, you have to be ready to ask questions. I learned it the hard way last time I was in a tournament when I assumed how certain systems worked and made bad decisions. "So, I haven't had a chance to look over the new codex for your army. What do I need to know? Does this rule still work the same? I don't recognize this piece of equipment, what does it do?"

[andalucien]

So now it's official... Inquisitor Eisenhorn will be a playable special character in the new Inquisition codex...  that's just cool... I read all the Eisenhorn books, they're pretty good.   

[MM3791]

Eisenhorn is Finkle, Finkle is Eisenhorn.

[andalucien]

So this "codex" is kinda garbage.  Looks like about 8 hours or so of copy-pasting + editing work.

And, the iBook version of the Sisters codex was updated so that Condemnor Boltgun contains the version of the rules that GK version was FAQ'd to do (only works on unsaved wounds).  But there was no updated eBook version of the book.  No announcement was made anywhere about a change.   So different people actually have current electronic books with different rules for the same army.

So far black library digital is not exactly blowing people away with their quality.   Might factor into a discussion about their suitability for tournaments.

[Benjamin]

So far black library digital is not exactly blowing people away with their quality.   Might factor into a discussion about their suitability for tournaments.

A lack of quality has never stopped us from using GW codices.

[andalucien]

Sigh, This is soooo stupid.

The effect of this book is that any existing Imperial army can just buy Coteaz (exactly the same as he is in GK book) or 55 pt divination librarian and plop them right into their own army as a Battle brother, WITHOUT NEEDING TO MAKE ANY OTHER INVESTMENT.  No other unit needs to be bought along with them, or anything.   You can have another allied army and STILL buy Coteaz.  It's just extra force-org-free units available to ANY imperial army.

You thought there were a lot of coteaz's before, eh?   Stupid stupid..... sigh.

[andalucien]

Oh, and you know that "Eisenhorn is in the book!" promo they did?  Pretty damn close to true false advertising.  Eisenhorn is not playable in this codex, instead there is a picture of him and a 1 paragraph writeup in the fluff section.

[Ian Mulligan]

Oh, and you know that "Eisenhorn is in the book!" promo they did?  Pretty damn close to true false advertising.  Eisenhorn is not playable in this codex, instead there is a picture of him and a 1 paragraph writeup in the fluff section.

That is really disappointing. Despite not playing for a while, this codex got me pretty pumped. Bummer.

[andalucien]

Hmm yeah been thinking about the coteaz thing....  now that Celestine was nerfed he's almost certainly the most undercosted character in the game.   It really seems like he should be in EVERY single imperial army, thinking purely from a "trying to win" perspective...

Comparing him to a level 2 SM librarian in terminator armour out of the brand-spanking-new codex:

Pros for Librarian:
+1 Toughness
+1 Strength
5+ invul save
Chapter tactics
ATSKNF

Pros for Coteaz:
Access to Divination
15 points cheaper
Battle brothers with ALL imperial armies.
Doesn't use a force org slot or require you to choose his codex as either your primary or allied detachment.
You can buy scoring Henchmen units if you want them (yes this still applies if you buy the codex inquisition version of Coteaz)
Stubborn
Master crafted Nemesis Daemonhammer
We've been expecting you
Re-roll steal the initiative (you or your opponents')
+1 Wound
+1 Attack
Assault d6 bolter


.... still seems like he should cost 200 points.

So, get ready for a lot of Coteaz-on-coteaz action

[Benjamin]

Things like this make me want to put in a Legend rule, like they had in Magic the Gathering. You're both playing special characters? They cancel each other out and are consigned to the graveyards, and now go about your game!

Well, I'm semi-serious. Even Magic got rid of that rule.