40K: Grand Tournament USA – 5 Things To Know Before You Go
Games Workshop is taking some interesting stances for their USA GT. The bar has been set for a new 40k GT Standard.
It’s been a long time since Games Workshop hosted a GT in the USA so we’re pretty excited to see what they do with the one they are hosting in Grapevine. TX August 10th and 11th. They have released their Event Packets and while they are pretty standard fare, you really should read some of the details. We’ve gone through and made a list of the 5 biggest impacts that you might not be excepting if you’re coming from other events.
Game Size = 1750
Games Workshop is choosing to run 40k games at their GT at a points level of 1750. While that’s not that odd of a points level, it’s certainly not the 2000 points many of the large Independent Grand Tournaments run. I don’t think you should read into this one too much, as this could just be a function of wanting folks to finish games in the time limit allotted. Plus they are planning for 5 rounds plus a final game for the Finals. A 6 Round tournament over 2 days is a lot of games for sure. Maybe they are trying to tell us all that 1750 is the sweet spot between army size and game length.
100% GW Models – No Third Party Models or Bits
Before you think we’re putting words in GW’s collective mouth, read that second sentence in the paragraph above one more time:
“With this in mind, all miniatures in your collection must be 100% Citadel or Forge World miniatures, and be full assembled, painted, and based.”
Note that while they didn’t say “no third party models or bits” they DID say all your miniatures must be 100% Citadel or Forge World. I don’t know how you can interpret that differently. I get that it’s their event and they can create whatever rules they want, but is this overly harsh? Depends on your point of view. They are the manufacture and this is one very targeted way to cut down on third party models and bits. Hey, they might not of won the lawsuit, but that doesn’t stop them from making rules for their events! Now, how are they going to monitor and enforce that? Guess we’ll find out…
Distinguishable Detachments
This paragraph goes under their Model Requirements goes into a bit more detail about specific detachments and painting. Similar to the one above it, this one explains that different Detachments must be clearly distinguishable from one to another. It can be something as simple as “different coloured carapace” but they have to be clearly distinguishable. Furthermore, going back to the paragraph above, if your army is painted to match a specific army (like Salamanders) then they must use those rules.
Now, I’ve never seen anyone paint their army as Salamanders and then try to use them as say Blood Angels – but I have seen folks bend the detachment rules to their advantage. Like running two (or three) identically painted squads but they were from different detachments and thus used different rules. This is clearly something that is designed to address that problem. It’s also interesting because this stance could move players towards painting their armies in non-traditional schemes so they don’t get pigeon-holed into playing one particular “chapter” of Marines or Hive Fleet of Tyranids or [fill in the blank].
Mission Scoring
GW is going clean and simple with “old school” scoring rules. 10 points for a win, 5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. You can also get secondary objectives – but those 3 only function as Tiebreakers! You also need to record the total points value of enemy units that were destroyed – this will impact rankings at the end of the tournament. Furthermore, you can get up to 10 points for Sportsmanship and Army Presentation.
Sudden Death Rules
Okay, so the first two paragraphs are things that I thought everyone should be doing anyhow…that’s just good tournament etiquette. The thing you should know in terms of scoring is that if you concede, you forfeit ALL points for the game, your opponent gets credit for all 1750 points of your army, and your opponent gets credit for all three secondaries: Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, and First Strike. That’s pretty huge! So even if you manage to wipe out 1/2 their army and even if you get slay the Warlord and/or First Strike, you don’t get to claim credit if you concede. So don’t quit unless you have a really good reason!
Bonus: The Awards
Hey, it’s nice to know what you’re playing for, right?
Are you planning on attending the GT? Are you ready for these requirements?
