Tournoment Rules Question

My apologies if my initial responses seemed harsh. I did miss that part – often times people come here and just try to agitate others with this touchy subject.

Infinity isn't played on the same level as any of those things you've listed. It hasn't gone under as much scrutiny as a million dollar industry sport or a world wide event as the olympics. Video games are also binary – unlike real life.

Look up the recent NFL change "The catch rule". they changed the definition of completed pass to something more nebulous, ultimately leaving chancey calls to the discretion of a ref. Football is also played differently at different league levels. Little league has slightly altered rules than the NFL, which obviously is a much larger extreme than your basement games with your friend versus games at interplanetario, but there is that level of difference none the less.

If you're really curious about this, one of the main points of contention is the meaning behind this bit in the rules:

 

Personally, I think that box is what started this whole issue in the first place. The language/word choice used there could really use a clean up.

Hypothetical: You and I are playing a game. I want to move a model to a corner to attack one of your troops. I know from quick glance at the table that I can achieve LOF to my target with said move, but I'm less sure about whether it would provoke another (LOF) ARO from a different troop. For the sake of this hypothetical we're assuming no ZoC interactions.

I ask you, "Can that guy see over here?" You respond with "Move and find out." (I'm basing that response on the quoted post and others I've seen from you regarding this topic. Please correct me if my impression is wrong.)

I walk around the table and check for myself, spend the Order or not and the game continues.

Wouldn't it have been just as fast (or faster) to answer my question? Or do you think I shouldn't be able to come and have a look at all?

 

It’s just a game. All the things are gonna die. I’ll happily tell you where my models are facing. I won’t help you move your troops. It takes a second to decide and move. I’ve been lucky in all my years playing to not have to play someone so determined to not lose at any cost that they have to try and predetermine points on the table to skirt line of Fire.

 

I absolutely agree with what you’ve said. People read into things what they want.

 

Just playing casually with friends, yeah. Also, most of the time it's pretty easy to see the point you need to be to avoid unwanted AROs anyway, and the intent debate only applies to a minority of the engagements that happen in a game.

ITS rankings and ELO scores promote the mentality of "try hard". IMO. I doubt this would be as much of an issue if we weren't being publicly rated against each other. If your group doesn't use ITS, I can see how the intent debate would become much less important.

EDIT: Generic "you" in the second paragraph.

 

This is chicanery to sidestep the fact that the rules are not, in fact, clearly defined.

 

Touché.

Yup, the rules are about getting people to spend money on miniatures. That's why you have game rules.

But it is also fair to say that more people buy more miniatures when more people play more games. The ITS system is designed to encourage gameplay by being a 'universal language' infinity players can speak. In theory, one should be able to go to any ITS tournament and play by the same set of rules.

In practice, however, this is not the case.

 

Is this really the case? Admittedly, I play mostly with one other person, but I've traveled to three other areas for games and did not encountered any "oh, that's how you do that " situations. Maybe it's just a Midwest thing, but I have had Zero trouble getting games with different groups.
Unless CB comes out with official terrain packs listing explicit rules and table configuration templates, there is always going to be some level of variation.

 

ITS exists because that's a recognizable market segment of the people who buy miniatures to play them. If it didn't exist, stuff like ELO would have sprung up for those players to satisfy that desire. Hell, 40k players continued to host and play in tournaments in tournaments whether or not Games Workshop sponsored tournaments, issued FAQs, or even publicly dismissed the tournament scene.

If you look at the ITS seasons, the Privateer Press Steamroller yearly editions, and the tournament packs for other games, the big content element is that you have updated and changing missions. So if you play regularly, the game doesn't become a solved problem.

 

CB drops enough new units/armies each year (especially last year) to also help with solving the game. The yearly changes to ITS also add to the equation, but I think they could do a little more to use the ITS to change up the meta.

The competitive scene benefits the most from ITS. I'd like to see the yearly narrative event packs become something more regularly seen. Maybe something like the ITS season documents, but designed to play as a narrative event, with the mission packs released at the same time. Or they could release several of the narrative mission sets each year to go along with the current story arch. As the story for that year advances they could release a new narrative tournament pack with some really off the wall missions.

Just to clarify, I'm talking about missions, not the event packs with minis in them.

 

@solkan, how are we not saying the same thing?