Ok ran month 4 and the top player came from out of town ran a fleet with Klingon and romulan ships. Klingon, Romulan and Dominion Upgrades, Kahn and I think Chang as Captains and declared himself Federation.

Kind of annoying, the fleet was good but the faction thing annoyed me. (this player also wants to use proxies) We are doing a second Month 1 and after much thought I am disallowing the Admiral's Orders. Some of the players were surprised and were abused by them and there is much discontent across the Webs. I had players who were there complain about the non-Faction ships and such being in a faction that was not used and I have been hit by players after the fact so I added that your build must be made up of 50 points of the Faction you play as.

The Question; Is this a harsh request?

And Does this punish out of town people?

I put the build requirements in our local group community and on the Store community section for all to use but I have been told it punishes people from out of town and will drive off new players. I know many places run strict factions and I know the one guy, who may OR may not come back has a great deal of ships so I am not sure exactly how it hurts him.

Thoughts? Oh yeah one more question; Should a venue consider it's player base MORE or someone who has come elsewhere who may OR MAY NOT come back or bring others?


Please do not make this into a XW vs AW battle I know XW doesn't allow cross factions.

OK, while I don't really get the motivation for running an entirely non-Federation fleet, and declaring Federation allegiance, I also don't get how it impacts the event, negatively or otherwise.

Am I missing something, regarding faction allegiance in OP games?

Either way, the restriction of 50-point minimum of your declared faction seems reasonable to me.

No, since your venue's restrictions are clearly posted, I think you're in the clear. It might deter out-of-towners, but it doesn't punish them.

Unless you have a very small player base, but regularly get a decent number of out-of-towners (but not the same people), then player base seems like the obvious answer here, assuming that the player base is unanimous, or at least has a strong majority opinion.

After Month 1 I have 6-8 players show up each and every time and they are people who I taught the game to. I had one guy come out from DC during Month 2 and the person wanting to use proxies come down the road with his GF/Wife for Month 4.

The funny thing the guy giving me the most hassle is a local player who feels that it might somehow "hurt" the venue. His base arguement is that in Warhammer they restrict certain pieces and builds to keep them from winning while I am thinking just more thematic. Also the player in question has 2 or 3 copies of each ship so it really shouldn't hurt his build ideas at all should it? With multiple copies of the starters and the expansions you have the ability to pull multiple copies of cards.


I am not trying to drive people away or hurt builds I am trying to figure out a way to stay towards the idea of the game. If Factions were not important then there would not be any real limit or "penalty" for cross building.

I was kind of accused of using Draconian rules to force or punish players into playing a certain way. I don't feel a 50 point majority is either but then the person saying so is a bit of a hot head.

Declaring he is Federation has no impact on what he runs in the standard rules. If you want to change it up so that whoever they declare they need to run that is your choice as the TO.

He mixing of upgrades again is allowed, but he would not have been allowed to use the Admiral Orders if he did so on that build.

As long as you publish what the build requires in a reasonable amount of time before the event, I don't see what the hot heads issues are.

As far as Proxies, I say NOOOOOOOO to that and would hold firm on that.

If I were a player at your venue I'd urge you to continue with the rules we started with. Assuming you haven't been changing them from OP to OP already. If they have been changing then I'd just adapt again. If a change is necessary I'd prefer to start with a clean slate.

Absolutely no card proxies at Tournaments is the rule I'm used to. If a player had ship mods and you could still identify the ship and they weren't so big they made things difficult, I'd let him use them.

I'm personally not overly fond of the Admiral Orders in OP events so I'd be supportive of that decision.

It isn't a harsh request. I know several organizers that have put forth fleet restrictions. The only thing I'd ask is rather or not this really needs to be implemented when there are only 2 events left?

If it is posted clearly for everyone to see, in store or online, then no. If it is something your regulars only know because you told them then yes.

As a tournament organizer, your goals are to provide a fun experience for your players while also growing your gaming community. It's a fine balance to maintain. That being said, I always try to accommodate my regulars the most. They are the ones coming back, week after week, supporting the venue beyond tournaments. That helps us keep a location to play at.

On the proxies, however: absolutely not. Either you won't the stuff (or borrow it, I don't care) or you don't play it.

Like I said this is a redo month not Month 5 or even a Month 4 just redoing Month 1 because we have the extra kit. I did add the AO for Month 4 because they were new but beyond that no real biggie. The funny thing is the guy giving me most of the bs plays Klingons, he used the Month 3 because he had won that ship but ran it pretty much empty. Does not really impact him or others. The guy who ran the other wonky fleet is from elsewhere and said he might be down so not sure if I can count on him being there or not.

Depending on what I see Sunday, and I try to look at the builds to keep it all good for the players I have, I might just left it be whatever they want but pretty sure I might skip the AO's. They seemed more to hurt many of the players than help most people.

I should amend this. I think instead of a 50-point minimum, you should just say they have to spend more squadron points on their declared faction than on any other faction. That still allows for unrestricted cross-faction fleet building, it just means that your allegiance is determined by which faction you spent the most points on, and ensures that you have at least one ship of your declared faction.

I still don't actually get what bearing your fleet allegiance has on the OP outcome, though, if any at all...

There is no reason for it so far but they want you to declare it for some reason. I wish they would. Thinking of doing something for my venue for the winning team.

I had thought of just a majority but at this point a good many have gone back to 2 ship teams, at least the ones that came from outside and 50 points is the majority

Our venue runs Faction pure on each ship, no mixing with one exception. We are allowed a max of two Factions in our build, including Neutral as a Faction, and that is the pure Faction ship exception. Thus allowing Khan and other Neutrals on a Fed ship with Fed upgrades, while the rest of the fleet is Fed pure. Or, Fed pure ship(s) alongside one other pure ship Faction. We have out of area players show up every week, and have never had any problems with them storming off in a huff. So, I'm voting not too harsh.

As the judge, you have to do what ever it takes to keep the venue's player base strong and if possible growing. I specifically added the 'venue player base' because this is the players who support the venue and therefore make it possible for the tournaments to happen. If an out of town players, who does not regularly support the venue, want to join in occasionally, fine, but they should not be your primary concern. With that in mind, I would strongly recommend that you post any restriction also on WES, and if the venue has a web page, I would post events and restriction there.

As for your 50 point rule, I like it; but I am biased against mix factions. What we have done is mix up events so some are faction pure, some are mix, and some a partial mix were all upgrades on the ships have to be the same faction as the ship; not including independents.

We ran with it and no one had any real problem going to sound them out and see what they would like to try it again next month. Mostly the person cheesed off was someone who didn't mix. I forgot my friend is a bit of a troll