So we will cater events toward competitive players who no longer play a game that is no longer competitive, and we will abolish all paint scores to avoid any and all impropriety.
Ben this is where I have to strongly disagree with your assessment and train of thought. These are your opinions that the game is no longer competitive. There are hundreds of players like myself who consider themselves competitive that still play. BG has not had a true competitive event in a while so you tend not to see them. Relying on thursday game numbers cant give you a true count of how many people like me are out there. The very nature of the game is competitive regardless if some rules are trying to make it otherwise.
I wont deny there has been a decline in gamers but that has more to do with the timing, lack of solid tournies etc. It is fairly easy to make 40k a competitive game by not allowing titans etc. Im not going to get into those details here as I am not trying to address that directly. But to outright deny a large player base the tourny structure they desire is a mistake.
For instance BG has a good event this saturday. Will it have a large player base probably not for several factors. Another store in CT is running a competitive event on this same day. Where do you think players like myself and other competitive players are going to go?
This area in general has one of the best GT going communities I have seen. GT's are the epitome of competitive play and they are selling out left and right. So this proves on some levels that the game is still competitive and still has a large competitive player base.
As for painting I think the best way to do it is limit the amount of time someone can win in a row if this is an issue. I personally don't see that as one but I am a small fish in a big pond and of one mind because I am a reaper of the awards. Do I think that Matt's rat daemons are super badass and deserve best appearance? Hells yes I do but brother needs a display!! LOL
Long winded I know but my point is BG had a great player base and is losing that player base because of so called non competitive views of the game. Look at tournies like NOVA, Adepticon, Templecon all of these were able to take the game make minor adjustments and make then super competitive awesome events. To outright ignore that and only do events that cater to non toruny friendly formats is a mistake. It has been proven regardless of specific armies having advantages that this game can and will remain competitive. I mean hell I took SW to Adpeticon and was able to compete with all the grav star and super tigerius SM armies out there and I claimed Best Imperial showing. Something I am super proud of and got mad props on because I did it with an older codex.
BG's format of doing events for all competitive and non competitive is the way to keep going. Ignoring one or the other will lose your player base. Do I wish there were more competitive events hells yes BG is super local and I prefer this store over all others. But to get rid of competitive events will make it hard to justify me coming to BG and I am sure that is the same for people who have the same mind set as I do.
