I wasn't dirrecting anything at you, but more at most of the other 'faction' pure purveyors. Some, like Enforcer, were saying it is obligatory on us that are pro newbie to give them our pieces, which is ludicrous. Others are talking faction pure all the time.

I'm for it for events like Faction Wars only if you allow mercs. I'm a die hard merc player from CBT, back to 1986. People whine about ROTS being left out of CA, or HL getting less units. Mercs got completely shafted for Faction Wars. That mission is EXACTLY what you hire mercs for. Why not have just done Geo Keane, or some other merc unit and allowed merc pure? At least let us include mercs. You know, I'd sooner trust someone like the 21st Centauri, or the Kell Hounds then I would DF or HL units to take an objective, and be worth their pay.

or why do older, more established, better trained, and better equipped units (ala all the mercs other then Ronin we have right now) not have access to formations????? What the hell is up with that? Only the highlander go back as far, and they dismantled where as the other mercs did not. That's so wrong it's ludicrous.

XmanPB ever since DA was released, we've played 500p faction pure at my venue, on large 4x4 tables. As I said, in the first set I was against this, but with the variety added by the merc units, I came to like FP better.

I understand your point about unrestricted events and I agree that having an extra event/month might be difficult. The main focus of my post though, is that WK should find a way to encourage FP play, through the current organized play system. Letting the players/BMs decide is all fine and well, but that doesn't do much for promoting a faction pure tournament scene.

I wouldn't like to take away a BM's creativity and say "change unrestricted events to faction pure events". I don't know what kind of attendance junior tournaments have, but in any case I wouldn't like to chase the younger players away. I think though, that between the two, on a month-per-month basis a FP event could fit in the approved play program. One month you have a junior and a FP, next month an unrestricted and a FP, next month a junior and an unrestricted etc... Anyway, that might not be the best solution, it's just from the top of my head.

Bottom line (cause I'm starting to rant again :o), I believe that WK needs to actively promote faction purity and not stand passively, essentially degrading it to a simple house rule. This poses no threat to non-FP play. It's an addition, not a replacement.

if you want to promote faction purity, or faction pure type events. Why not give a single faction ability, or 2 to faction pure armies. You could simply have a bonus if you play faction pure (like 10% off unit prices if all units are from the same faction or mercs). Do something similar and you'd see more faction purity at events, without hurting those who can't or won't play faction pure.

If it was an across the board thing such as an extra command per turn, or a +1 to any one stat once per turn it would be alright.

1. A single newbie has said that.

2. My first tournament I won with:

:^^: Spider
Fetenant Eryman
:^: Jes
:^^: Gnome

against Kendrick and a bunch of SW CBA's. and Cavaliers

New players can be competitive, It's hard, but it can be done.

no i disagree with faction purity because when newbies enter the game it will be #### hard for them to play because you need 300 points of decent faction to play just to play i could do it i wouldnt mind doing it once in a great while but all the time no thats not right for the beginners this isnt a country club that you have to do certian things to belong to its a simple game played for fun

Instead of enforcing faction purity, why not introduce faction ablilities as they did with Liao. This may 'guide' people towards pure faction without actually enforcing. Just a thought.

@Maniac: That would be nice, but the word is that it can't be done because it's not factored into the point cost of the units. I suppose though that if all factions get the same ability (a command roll for example) the point cost will remain unaffected. Anyway, I'm talking more about organizational promotion - unneeded rule changes should be avoided IMO.

@ravern: 1)rearly's and turmoil005's posts are both on the last page of the poll, not to mention those that speak of the newbs in their venues without being newbs themselves. I'll add my own experience here, since I've played faction pure since I was a newb. :) I didn't check the rest of the pages, but I suppose there are more.

2) The question is: Could you win a tournament with this army now? Is being a newb now the same as being one in DA? No I don't think newbies can be competitive in this game (unless their first booster contains Arnis ;)).

Also- and this is probably more important- I think that a newbie's mixed army vs an experienced player's mixed army has the same "quality gap" as a newb's faction pure army vs an experienced player's FP army. Both are equally un-competitive IMO.

Last but not least: Is any of this really relevant if we're talking about one event per month?

I'd say yes. Make faction pure part of the rules. For new players who don't have that much units could be made exceptions. But generally: faction pure!

I play faction pure only with Mercs, and I play Spirit Cats and Republic... but in the near future after CounterAssault I might be forced by Wizkids to play not faction pure. After CA and the 3cap flying transport, AA guns are almost a must have in every army. Since the Cats only have a very very weak one, and the Republic got no one and will not get one in CA (thank you very much again Wizkids) I might be forced to use an AA tank from a foreign faction just to survive. The ROTS will loose very badly against an army of flying tankdroppers and against an army fielding AA tanks and strong attack VTOLS..... they shoot the ROTS Balacs down, then the VTOLS wreck the rest of the army. The ROTS also has no repair vehicle. Bad bad bad for faction war. In normal games I use the Merc one instead. But the Merc didn't get an AA tank.

So generally: Yes, faction pure with Mercs with the above mentioned exceptions.

Here I come......

I have to agree with David Wilson. A Faction Pure event would pe perfect. There is a general consensus at my venues that there is no such thing as "cheese" if you are playing faction pure, you are just taking advantage of your faction's strengths (so a faction pure SS army can use 3 of their otherwise AA Artillery w/o anyone complaining)

As a Side note, I ALWAYS play faction pure w/o Mercs. Not that I have a problem with playing Mercs, but rather that I build my forces to deal with the weaknesses that my factions have (in all 3 cases, it is lack of artillery), and as Maniac can attest to, I am pretty successful doing so.

How can anyone believe that playing mercs with the Spirit Cats or Steel Wolves is faction pure. Clanners would never higher mercenaries. That's one thing that Delrio got right. When Dagger Di offered Kerensky the use of mercenaries she threw it back in her face.

The clanners believe death in battle to be the greatest death, so why would they send in mercenaries to take the place of their own warriors, denying their own warriors the chance for a glorious death and the possibility of using there genes in further generations.

Not even Wolfs-in-Exile would higher the Kell Hounds to fight their battles. They might fight beside them for someone else, but it's clear that they fight their own battles with their own Touman.

If you play faction pure for the fluff angle then using mercs and clans defeats any moral purpose of it. Other than that why do it?Maybe you want the extra challenge of playing Faction pure against mixed armies. And if that's true then taking away mixed armies takes away the challenge.

Well, I Play Liao, BR, and the DF. I would NEVER concider playing Mercs with the DF, because of the way that the Draconis Combine feels, or at least felt about Mercs in the past, and with Katana being a traditionalist and all. However, I would concider it with BR and Liao.

Yeah, all the inner sphere factions would use mercs with no qualms. I could even see Katana doing it because, even though she's a traditionalist, she also seems like an intelligent enough woman to realize where the old rules went wrong. Though DF hardly need mercs as they are the best faction pure army.

I would only be in favor of enforcing faction pure armies if

1. All factions are balanced
2. Wizkids sold faction pure boosters

Seeing as 1 will NEVER happen and 2 is highly unlikely, I vote 'no' on faction purity.

I have a couple questions for all the faction pure advocates. Not trying to be sarcastic or anything, just genuinely curious:

1. Why do you play faction pure?
2. Why do you want to impose faction purity on your opponents?

I play faction purity for the challenge and to give other players a chance to win. I know this sounds arrogant but it really is true. When I play my cheese armies I am nigh unbeatable. Something like 47-3. I'm not kidding.

And most faction purists won't play regimental pure. In fact they avoid the issue while attacking cheese players. I've won two tournament with my all Scourge (Elite Banson's armies) and O5P armies are hard to beat too.

And regimental purity makes real sense when you think about it. But again most purists skirt that issue.