Take a break from Nid rumours, let's talk about tourney restrictions.

Alright, well Nids have taken over the internet this week, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Anyway, time to talk about changing times, and tournament restrictions.

In the past few weeks, we have had some big game changers, namely:
- Introduction of Formations and Dataslates.
- Escalation.
- Stronghold Assault.

Alright, so I was one of the first people to be horrified at the prospect of a Super Heavy being legal in a tournament, and I still am.....in some ways. The main problem is that there is no balance between the different Super Heavies. I must have seen at least five people tell me that the AV12 Revenant can be destroyed by normal firepower, which it can....normally. However, when you stick it on a Skyshield landing pad, you're giving it a 4+ Titan Holo field save, followed by a 4+ invul.....which, alarmingly, can be re-rolled with Fortune! Not so easy now is it? No. Now compare it to a Baneblade. Half the price, most don't have Destroyer weapons and, overall, are actually not that broken.

I'm not in favour of flat out banning them. I know a lot of tournament players who come to show off their painting/theme of the army. If they want to bring in a Baneblade then I say let them. All that's really needed is a tournament FAQ about the destroyer weapons. Making them Str10 Ignore cover blasts still has the potency to destroy a lot of stuff. Furthermore, it may also mean opening up the rest of the Lords of War options from forge world. Of which, they just released this:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/L/lordsofwar.pdf

Taking an Eldar Cobra, or Lynx isn't overly broken if the Destroyer Weapon rules are changed. It will take time though, the T/O's have to mix and match rules in order to balance the game themselves. So I can definitely see why they want to just flat out ban them.

Another hot topic is Dataslates and Formations. Personally, I don't think they are broken. They just add more options. I wouldn't ban them from events at all.

Stronghold Assault is, surprisingly, one of the few "accepted" expansions that might make it into tournaments. It's surprising because it is the only one that has a "please ask your opponent before use" clause. However, a lot of players don't see them as game breaking - okay, the escape hatch is pretty annoying, but not too bad. 

It's going to be an interesting year. Even now, there are tournament organisers drafting up restrictions on their tournaments. Are we going to see a move back to comp? Maybe. I don't think they should have too much of a hand in restricting what people want to take, but rather, how those units play - namely D-Weapons.

Hopefully it gets sorted out soon.

- Out.