# New Throne of Skulls Format = Bollocks.



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

The new throne of skulls GT grandtournament pack has been released...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1240205a_ToS_Rules_Pack.pdf


In brief its now a case of playing versus the same armies as yourself and beating the mean average of that armies points by the biggest margin.

The winner is never the guy on the higher tables at the end.

There's also some kind of "favourite army" voting system which for me seems way too high. 

3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss.

Over 5 games you can score up to 15 points. 

Bonus points are awarded for every coach that picked you as their best for whatever reason out of their 5 opponents. So, for example if your opponent has tits she'll get more points... Don't deny it, geeks will vote it. 

If you get 1 vote you get a bonus point, 2 votes you get 3 points, 3 or more votes you get 5 bonus points. Yum. Total bollocks.

Also you only get 5 games now in a two day event. 5 for the price of 6. Result!

I missed my first ever GT last year and frankly don't intend to ever attend another.


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## OddJob (Nov 1, 2007)

The GTs sold out super fast- they were popular and worked. Now this. I can't fathom the boy in a bubble mentality (or pure arrogance) that has brought this about.

They already had campaign weekends, why did they need to take away the only GW event I actually liked?


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Not sure to make of the line players can only use "*in print*" codex , do they mean codex thats available to buy in printed format or does it include PDF codexs?


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## KarlFranz40k (Jan 30, 2009)

What. The. Fuck.

So say I got some mates to bring...what would the least popular army be...tomb kings? And we agreed that they would all play terrible on purpose and I would play my best so that they kept the average score for tomb kings very low and I would be well above it. Then even though I didn't score as high as the best player - lets say dark elf - I could win because I'm so high above the average.

But what do I care anyway? Never been to a GT and never intend to.


Edit: BTW, how much were the tickets to this thing?


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## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

KarlFranz40k said:


> What. The. Fuck.
> 
> So say I got some mates to bring...what would the least popular army be...tomb kings? And we agreed that they would all play terrible on purpose and I would play my best so that they kept the average score for tomb kings very low and I would be well above it. Then even though I didn't score as high as the best player - lets say dark elf - I could win because I'm so high above the average.
> 
> ...


Its a valid point though. The system is so open to abuse. It's crap.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Calling that system FUBAR is like.... okay I can't compare it to anything, thats just plain dumb.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

If eight players got together at the Local Store, and all played different armies and each other, and all agreed to give one opponent best player he'd win without actually winning a single game it would seem!


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## fynn (Sep 19, 2008)

so you turn and play armys the same as you. so if im the only player who turns with say, a radical DH inquisitor army, does that mean i get 5 auto wins??
it does leave the tourny open to abuse and some possible score/vote rigging


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## Underground Heretic (Aug 9, 2008)

Fynn, you would be playing against random opponents, but the overall victor is determined by the margin of victory of the best person playing each army. The person with the greatest margin over their comrades would be the overall winner. The situation you are proposing is actually one of the biggest weakness of the system.

Lets say you are the only person playing army X in this ToS tournament and you score Y points. To determine your margin of victory you first find the average.

Your score (Y) points / Number of players for your army (1) = Average score for your army (Y) points.

Therefore the average score is your score. Then you subtract the average score from your score to find the average.

Your score (Y) - Average Score for your army (Y) = Your margin of victory (0).

It is therefore impossible both for a player who is the only person playing their army to lose Best Player Army X and to win Best Overall, even if they table their opponent every game and never lose a model. That is why ToS is a horrid system.

EDIT: Disregard that, valid point though I believe it is, I neglected to finish the packet to where GW artificially sets the average at a draw every game. Still not a system I like, but at least they realize they would bollocks that one up if they hadn't put that in there.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

Look at it this way. You come with Orks, and there are 10 other ork players, they average 5, and you have an 11, then you get a 6, even if you never played anyone. This is a blatant "Mech Guard Always wins" poke, becuase if Mech guard win every round, and everyone averages 15, and the winner of guard gets 16, he wins a delta of 1. If you come with Eldar, and there's one other player, and you get 15 by massively good playing, and the other guy averages 3 cause he's just not that good, then you win by 12, taking the tourney by storm. Even if your win/loss ratio was worse than the mech guard.


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## The Sullen One (Nov 9, 2008)

So let me see if I've got this right, your graded not based on your overall performance, but against the players using the same race as you?

So if I get this, then let's say out of twenty players, you've got ten playing Space Marines, three each playing Chaos Marines and Orks, and then two Eldar, and two Tau players. 

Let's say that one of the Space Marine players wins all five games, and one of those playing as the other races wins all five as well, let's say a Tau player, then the Tau player would win the tournament, right?

Seems a strange way of determining the winner to me, but I suppose it's intended to encourage people to be more diverse in choosing which race they play, still and odd system.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Not forgetting that stupid bonus point addition.... As said, pretty much if you've got boobs, you've won.


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## ItsPug (Apr 5, 2009)

GrizBe said:


> Not forgetting that stupid bonus point addition.... As said, pretty much if you've got boobs, you've won.


Clarification: If you are female with boobs - congrats you've won. If you are a male with boobs - not so much.k:


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## March of Time (Dec 4, 2009)

With luck it could mean more players will come just too have some fun games.


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## Ensanguined Priest (Feb 11, 2009)

ItsPug said:


> Clarification: If you are female with boobs - congrats you've won. If you are a male with boobs - not so much.k:


Aww darn! Thought i mighta been in with a chance there...


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## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

March of Time said:


> With luck it could mean more players will come just too have some fun games.


Isn't that what campaign weekends are for?


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## Drax (Sep 19, 2007)

i'm not a big fan of the GTs mainly because i'm more of a campaign weekend player but also because i'm a bit of an uncompetitive (pronounced shit) gamer, however it strikes me that if you intend to have a tournament have a bloody tournement. don't try a wargaming version of a special school sports day where everyone gets a pat on the back and a rosette to make mummy proud.

and what the hell is the friday registration crap all about? are you supposed to get there and hand in your roster a day early or is it an optional thing to speed things up if you are able to do so?

does anyone remember the Standard Bearer article a year or two back when JJ stated his son had started attending tournements. anyone wonder if he wasn't doing so well?

as for the boobs thing, hell they don't need to face me on a gaming table to get a prize!


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## Primarch Lorgar (Jul 11, 2009)

so then if another player in my race sucks ass I have to pay for it??!! WTF ??!! Grrrr.... %&(&*^&*&*( %##%^


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## SeerKarandras (Jun 24, 2010)

Hmmm Now I know why the GW tourneys here in that states get little attention and its all about the big Wargame conventions. Adepticon being the big one near me. These rules are stupid. In theory GW could have whoever they wanted to win take home the prize with some trickery and well placed people. Or just making suggestions.

Whatever happened to just stomping your opponents and calling it good. being the best Orc or Guard player does not make you the best in the tournament, unless there is only one other guy playing your army and doing crappy apparently.


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## elkhantar (Nov 14, 2008)

Primarch Lorgar said:


> so then if another player in my race sucks ass I have to pay for it??!! WTF ??!! Grrrr.... %&(&*^&*&*( %##%^


Nope! it is, indeed, the opposite; if the other player in your race sucks you will win by a larger margin than him, he's doing you a favour. The problem is, if another player with the same race as you rocks, even if it's the least powerful race out there, you both hinder each other by rising the average.


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## OddJob (Nov 1, 2007)

I think I’ve narrowed it down to the bit that annoys me most- completely random draw. You used to be sure that whoever had won all their games had played four or more tough games. Now it’s likely that people who win all their games have mostly played chumps.

The draw used to be a significant but minor aspect of doing well. Now it’s everything.



March of Time said:


> With luck it could mean more players will come just too have some fun games.



I think this is the rationel behind the changes. However, I'm a grown up- I don't need to be told how to have fun (in fact I find the very notion amazingly arrogant). I go to the GTs for competative games- thats what I enjoy, thats how I have fun.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

It strikes me that the main root cause driving such a change would be GWs inability (unwillingness? £$£) to balance it's armies. The starting point for any tournament is that all players are on equal footing (tooling costs asside M:tg), then it's all up to the players skill/luck/flexibility.

GW is not the business of tournament play so has never made an effort to balance armies, furthermore it's simply not good for them as if every new release was just as powerful as those before why would a competitive tournament player (not that many exist as far as I can tell) not simply go with whichever army costs the least in money to build.

If GW want to run tournaments then they have to accept that its an uncompetitive environment - or overhaul all of its armies, look at a successful tournament game such as Magic:tg and see how often rules are tweaked, things are erratered/banned/restricted or simply nerfed with the next release to get a pretty edgy balance.

The only way I can see GW getting a good tournament scene going would be to make all the codices/army books free and on their website and issue errata as necessary - but the likeliness of this happenning is similar to them removing space marines from 40k!


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## Adeptus (Aug 12, 2009)

Has anyone heard of a more a more abusable system going .Seriously whose idea was this ?


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## nocturnalK (Jun 15, 2010)

haha just had an idea, 
Why dont w make entirly new codexs for these armys and usae them as house rules.
Im talking about doing this like some Computer games with fudge the names a bit i.e Space marine would be Galaxy Trooper and then assign new posints cost to all the units and mod the rules.
If they are good enough then several clubs may alow there use though an offical GW torni would not


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Codex balance, while an important issue, is actually not important at all at a GT. Any player who stands a chance of winning a GT has built an army specifically to do so, using one of the "good" lists. Actually there are quite a lot of codexes at the moment in 40k that can produce competitive lists, though there is a bigger problem in warhammer. A tournamant system that worries about codex balance is missing the point entirely.

It's hard to pick which part of these rules I hate the most. I think it's just the overall effect, which is to take away the whole fun of the GT. Like Oddjob, I go to tournaments to play competitive games. If the good players stop going, or if I don't get to play them because the swiss system is abandoned, then there is simply no point. 

The actual winning system doesn't bother me as much to be honest. Everyone knows it's meaningless and it will be ignored. I've won proper tournaments so I don't have to worry about whether I get a prize just for showing up, or don't get a prize for winning all my games.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

If anyone wants to read a rant about the new Throne of Skulls rules that contains excessive profanity but is freaking hilarious, read this: Link

The comments are especially amusing.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Ammusing, and sums up every sane persons thoughts on it 100%.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

@Someguy - having not attended competitive 40k (tbh I can't see how it could work) I will bow to your experience, but seriously how can codex balance not be a major factor in people selecting only certain lists and armies, in our current play group its marines and orks that bitch slap the other players and it seems to be unit costs and stat lines that get the most discussion as causing half the problem. GW can't change these easily so would have a hell time balancing anything.
If someone made a "killer" list, if it was possible I think it would have been done by now, and it didn't use any silly cheese then GW have few options to stamp it out.

On the actual tournament structure, its weak, I am however looking forward to the dissapointed sounding blog post on GW site when bitching about the "spirit of the game" etc when a whole games club turns up to a GT and skews the results soo hard the system is shown to be the mockery it is.

Surely a swiss pairing tournament, with a ladder, sportsmanship award, best painted army and a most original list award would please all the minority players and still let the competitive players get on with it.

GW need to understand that games tournaments are for some players about beating others for ego, and that some players will never sit top table and in all honesty (like me when I played M:tg) don't care as thats not what they are there for


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## CaptainBudget (Jun 14, 2010)

^ your points about the Swiss pairing system sound good. I played in a mini-GT style tournament about 3-4 years ago and thought the system was brilliant. I had a [email protected] list (it was my first competitive tournament) but I still had fun as the games were often close, exciting and some of the best I've played for ages. I intended to go to a GT at some point soon, but if this is the system they'll be using then sod that!

That isn't a tournament, it's an organised games night. Like Oddjob and others if I go to tournaments I want tight, down to the wire cometitive games. There is no sense of that spirit in those rules at all, more the "school sports day" ethos someone mentioned.

What exactly was wrong with the original system that's been used since long before I started collecting (which was a year or so after 3rd edition 40k came out)? Which clown thought this was the way forwards? 

As for balance, when I started playing in 3rd edition most lists were actually reasonably well balanced I thought (Chaos Marines was the exception I felt, but they were beatable), and for half of 4th edition it was too. When the new Chaos codex came out is when things started to go wrong. The chaos list is significantly underpowered and most of the other lists released after this have been increasingly overpowered (Blood Angels anyone?). Standards have been slipping, and this for me is a bridge too far. They are effectively covering this big blunder of balance up with the complete annihilation of proper official competitive tournaments.

[/rant]


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Warning, long post inc, in which I try and explain what tournament players are about.



Bubblematrix said:


> @Someguy - having not attended competitive 40k (tbh I can't see how it could work) I will bow to your experience, but seriously how can codex balance not be a major factor in people selecting only certain lists and armies,


Not quite the point I was making. Yes, obviously people pick the more powerful codexes. I just don't see that as a problem if everyone is doing it. It's a fair tournament because everyone has access to the same books and can do what they want. More variety would be nice, but it doesn't actually break the event if nobody brings dark angels. There are lots of codexes you can pick powerful lists from, and there's enough variety that you could easily play 6 games against proper competitive opponents without playing the same type of army twice.

It's also worth pointing out that talking in terms of powerful codexes is slightly incorrect, at least for GT armies. Lists are powerful, not the books they come out of. At average level there isn't a lot of difference between the two, as armies comprise fairly random selections of units taken from the books but at the most extreme edge it is only a fairly rarified selection of units that are chosen. Units are chosen for synergy, for excellence in a particular area or for necessity and the balance of power between books is not the same at all levels of the game. This is because some books have a lot of blunt power but lack flexibility, and a player's skill makes more of a difference with a flexible army - even if it is objectively less powerful.

Wierdly, when an army is obviously dominant in the way that Iron Warriors and Ulthwe were in 4th (and no army is at the moment in 40k), it becomes hard to win GTs with them. So many people bring them that they mostly play against each other. Then somebody turns up with a metagame list designed to beat them, and wins.



Bubblematrix said:


> GW need to understand that games tournaments are for some players about beating others for ego, and that some players will never sit top table and in all honesty (like me when I played M:tg) don't care as thats not what they are there for


The "beating others for ego Ego" thing is a misunderstanding, at least in my case, at least in part. Not to say that I don't feel good about myself if I win a tournament, I do, but that's not the whole thing. I probably don't enjoy winning or hate losing any more than a casual player. I do enjoy the process at least as much as the result.

The thing is, if I wanted to beat people at 40k I easily could. I know that at my local GW there are a load of people I could play, and not one of them could even make a game of it (I'm aware this makes me sound like a prick, but it's still true). I don't do this because free wins are no fun for either of us. I go to tournaments looking for games against people who are on the same level as me, and GTs deliver that. For me, the fun comes from the competition itself at least as much as the outcome. The planning beforehand and the analysis afterwards. This is not "fun" in the same way Jervis thinks about 40k, as a thing where you get a few friends together, roll dice, drink beer and see what happens. 

Actually, outside of tournaments I lose a lot of games. If I was able to work out the results of all the games I've ever played, I might well have lost more than I've won. That's because outside of tournaments I'm generally trying things out to see if they work, and fairly often they don't. I'll try out new units, configurations or whatever. I'll even do things that I know are the wrong decision, if I'm interested in seeing the outcome of a particular combat or whatever. Then when I do try to win games I'll know exactly what my units are capable of and nothing will be wasted.

I know that my way is no better or worse than Jervis', and the fact that I'd easily beat him at the game is not relevant to whether my opinion matters more than his. I think everyone's preferred way of playing the game is valid, including my own, and there should be room for us all to do our thing instead of trying to cram everyone together. This format just makes it more likely that I'll get drawn up against somebody like Jervis, which would be a waste of both of our money and time, and make neither of us happy.


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## CaptainBudget (Jun 14, 2010)

:goodpost:



> I think everyone's preferred way of playing the game is valid, including my own, and there should be room for us all to do our thing instead of trying to cram everyone together. This format just makes it more likely that I'll get drawn up against somebody like Jervis, which would be a waste of both of our money and time, and make neither of us happy.


Nail. Head. 
This is the sort of thing that happens at my local GW. There isn't really any other organised club so everyone gets crammed in. Like you, I look for other players of the same ability level. The problem I find is that there aren't really any who produce good, fun games outside of an old-style tournament. Quite a lot of the people at my local GW are arrogant kids who go on about how good they are how they'll "pwn me" completely, and then get all arsey when I beat them (bad sportsmanship is one of my biggest bugbears). That might sound a bit arrogant, but I'm not exactly a GT legend (I'd have probably finished towards the bottom if I ever got the chance to go). You do get the more grown-up players who are a joy to play, but they don't tend to come much, probably for the same reason I don't.

This is why I prefer organised tournaments (I used to go to smaller ones), for all the above reasons Someguy has said. You generally get paired against players of the same kind of skill level so it's a close, hard fought game, and most people are really nice so we have a good laugh. The "have a beer or two, throw some dice and have a laugh" approach (which is equally valid and good fun with the right mates) was catered to with campaign weekends. As others have said, scrapping one and merging it with the other just spoils the fun for so many people. I wanted to go to the GT for years, pretty much since I started collecting, now I won't touch it with a bargepole.


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

campaign weekends are organised independently, not by gw.

theres no reason why people cant organise there own tournaments, similar to the gts of yesteryear if thats what floats your boat. 

im not sure why they didn't organise these alongside the GT format, but i dont think they will be any less popular.


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## Shadowvast (Jun 11, 2008)

ummm sportsmanship scores anyone? I know a lot of people are hardcore, and all about crushing your opponent. There is a time and place for that, but this is 'Ardboyz with sportsmanship and painting. You gotta play nice to win. period. end of argument.


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## Drizzt_13 (May 22, 2009)

Shadowvast said:


> ummm sportsmanship scores anyone? I know a lot of people are hardcore, and all about crushing your opponent. There is a time and place for that, but this is 'Ardboyz with sportsmanship and painting. You gotta play nice to win. period. end of argument.


Sportsmanship is adding subjectivity to the tournament scene and can be abused. People often give low sportsmanship scores out in order to cripple their opponents or just if their pissed off cause they lost. It may punish bad sports but it also allows bad sports to punish everyone else. 

In addition the wording on sportsmanship scoring is often phrased around how much fun you had playing the guy, now if you got totally crushed, but he wasn't cheating or being a dick you still probably didn't have that much fun so low scores for him. 

In addition there is an excessive amount of sportsmanship in these tourneys, in a 3 game tourney sportsmanship is 50% of the total score and 25% in 5 game. That's can be a lot more then a tie breaker with degrees of victory so reduced.


The more I read stuff about the tourney scene the more Impressed I am with NOVAcon, way to acknowledge that painting and sportsmanship are part of the hobby, but not let the winner of the tournament be decided by anything but win loss. They have a separate award which combine all three and is called renaissance man.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Its much more sensible to have a Swiss ladder... Then have seperate awards for best painted etc... That Renaissence man award sounds like a great idea.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

Someguy said:


> Warning, long post inc, in which I try and explain what tournament players are about.


Well explained from a perspective other than mine and informative.

I was not however stating that ALL the top table are out for ego gains, just that from other games and much tournament experience there are those that that is their only real pleasure in the game, not having fun, not prizes just kicking some other guys arse.

I also understand its not the end of the world if a certain army/list has no representation, its just that this new format seems to be forcing that issue.

The trouble is when a system is created to try and take the "tournament" out of tournaments it kinda sucks. Silly balancing acts for armies doing badly in tournaments is waay worse than balancing the armies in the first place and then coupling it with trying to push poor players (or casual, not that interested in placings players) up the rankings is just weak.

People need to understand that some players are better, tournaments give rankings and that if you want to rank then get a good list and learn to play well - otherwise accept the ranking you get.

As I understand it independant tournaments with their own errata and adjustments function much better, maybe the solution for GW if they want to sanction tournaments and not just games days would be to do the same and have "tournament errata" to balance points etc for the purposes of getting a balanced tourament, that or accept that 40k is not really a good tournament wargame.


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

Oh, ffs.

Look, if they want to run this kind of casual crap, then they need to stop calling it a tournament. If they want to provide prize support then they should have the balls to come out and openly state that the swag is all psrticipation/door prizes. It wouldn't cost them anything to be honest about their little casual gaming things. Magic has a thriving casual _and_ a thriving competitive scene.

Every time I feel bad about my army's unpainted and somewhat unassembled status I just come online, read about the newest stupidity and feel better about procrastinating. It makes me feel much better about not taking the hobby seriously. It's a shame, since it's a hobby that could be as satisfying for clever people as magic is, but... meh. It's their product. They can shit on it if they want to.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

Amen to that 

But I am actually working towards an assembled and painted army, tbh this game is never going to go beyond casual for me as I cant see that a sensible tournament structure can be pulled out of the tight hole that is GWs arse


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