EDITORIAL: I For One Welcome Our New TO Overlords
Good morning 40k meta jerks, It’s Jstove , and you don’t read this part and neither do I.
But let’s talk about something you do read.
REECE ROBBINS AND ALL THE OTHER 40K TO’S ARE RUINING THE GAME AND CONSPIRING TO COME TO YOUR RESIDENCE AND BURN IT DOWN.
Capslock. It’s like writing, but louder.
Right now what we’re all crying about is how we’re going to fix, or not fix, or whine about, competitive 40k meta. Some of the super badasses think there’s nothing wrong with re-rolling 2+, and they can defeat it, some of them say its a good thing that the TOs are getting together to swing the nerf bat, and some of them are just tired of reading about it.
Well too bad for you screws in the last category, because that’s what we’re talking about today!
I enjoy competitive 40k, and I am very excited about TOs taking control of the game and deciding how it should be played so that everyone can play it competitively, not just the three guys who show up to every tournament with screamerstar or draigowing or missile fang spam or whatever the flavor-of-the-meta is whenever you read this article- By the time you see this, it will probably have changed.
Why am I happy that TOs are defining the architecture of GW’s rules now, even though I’m probably not going to their tournaments?
Because GW doesn’t do it, GW isn’t going to do it, and GW never has been and probably never will do it.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane here- List off every army that was a real hoser at one point or another- Draigowing, razorspam, screamerstar, seerstar, Cron Air, serpentspam, flying circus, double dragon, leaf blower, bugzilla, taudar, 5 riptides, 12 wraithknights, your mom, the kitchen sink, now I’m just making stuff up.
And it doesn’t have to be whole armies either, it can also just be items of wargear, single models, random crap that’s just goofy- The Book of True 2++, the black mace, rad grenades, 2nd edition assassin hi-jinx and virus outbreaks… Who remembers 3rd ed six marine las-plas squads? 5th ed mech lists? The history of 40k is chock full of wacky crap, tipsy models, and hiccuping rules.
and over almost 30 years of 40k, over all the goofy, loose, poorly written rules, there has always been 1 constant, 1 thing that always stayed the same.
GW never stepped in to clean up. Sure, they changed editions and got a little better when they did that, but that was never about the rules, that was about selling you a new codex.
How many of us remember reading FAQs where Gav Thorpe just told us to ‘roll for it’?
How many of us remember GW not having FAQs at all, even in the age of the internet?
GW has always held the stance that they are a model company that happens to publish a war game on the side. They have habitually shirked the responsibility of making the game function properly and fallen back on their standard line.
For some players, this is okay. Some of you don’t mind shoddy, nebulous rules and are okay with the game being a little fast and loose.
Do you know what I think though? Do you care? You don’t, but I’ll tell you anyways- Arguing about rules sucks. Not knowing rules sucks. Trying to play a game that isn’t tight, that doesn’t function, that has you going through your giant 400 page hardcover 40k bible every other phase of the game sucks.
This is the difference between competitive players and casual players when it comes to the rules.
Casual players can swallow the fact that sometimes the rules are shoddy and they live with it.
Competitive players want the rules to be tight so the game plays better- And that benefits everyone. It benefits the casuals, it benefits the competitives, it benefits the tournament players and the guys who just roll into the shop on saturday for a pickup game. Nobody loses by having a smarter, better, tighter rules system.
Here’s another great comeback- “If you want to play tighter rules, go play warmahordes.”
Well thank you. Yes I will, and I do. The reason Privateer Press blew up to the heights it achieved is primarily because it was offering a ruleset that was concrete, tight, and cohesive, when GW wasn’t. Does anyone remember first generation warmachine sculpts? They looked like crap. Nobody was playing that game because of the models.
But this isn’t about warmahordes, this is about 40k.
We now have more game material in 40k than we ever had. GW has joined us in the 21st century and has been shoving data onto the internet and through the publishers every month since the dawn of sixth edition, and that’s not even counting Forgeworld’s contributions. That by itself is pretty awesome. Having more toys is always good.
But these toys aren’t regulated, and they never will be. A codex a month, an advent calendar, 2 new expansions that allow us to use superheavies and pillowforts? Supplemental codices? Is there anyone on earth who still believes this stuff is actually playtested? Because I don’t. Not at the rate they’re pushing it out the door.
GW isn’t regulating the game. They’ve admitted as much themselves through their own recent release of their event pamphlet. As far as they’re concerned, everything is legal- Even all the stuff they invented overnight and shoved onto your ipad.
One thing should be clear to you now, if it hasn’t been clear to you for years- Its time to take ownership of your hobby and your game. GW might sell you toys, but once you pay for them, they’re yours. Its on us as players to regulate 40k and decide what kind of game we want it to be, and I for one don’t have a problem with the TOs taking that burden onto themselves and running their own ships.
Just look at the polls for Las Vegas Open, Reece’s baby and one of 40k’s biggest games. These are all players that have invested significant time, effort, and money into attending that event, and their polling data speaks loud and clear. They are voting with their wallets and they know exactly what they want to play. They aren’t afraid to tell GW what they want the game to look like, and GW isn’t watching anyways. The future of 40k is not decided by the game designers alone. We as the community decide whether or not we’re going to put up with shoddy rules, wacky force org chart splitting, and spat-out unbalanced overnight game data.
PS this is a work of satire perpetrated by none other than JStove himself, with zero input from myself. I will not ban you for playing screamerstar or nerf your bugs (mostly) -MBG
