Presence of Faeit is a weekly editorial by myself. I generally report during the week what is going on, and today is my day to comment on what exactly it is that I am thinking of.
Pre-Releases for August
Here is a copy of what is on the pre-release list for August. These are probably not US dollars, could someone please varify, as these were sent to me via a link.
(UPDATE). Someone mentioned that these were Singapore dollars.
Games Workshop
Aug 2011 Pre-Orders
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon $87.90
Vampire Counts Cairn Wraith $20.90
Vampire Counts Tomb Banshee $20.90
Aug Vlad Von Carstein $27.90
Aug Konrad Von Carstein $27.90
Inquisitor Karamazov $87.90
Dark Elves War Hydra $96.90
Dark Elf Dreadlord on Cold One $27.90
Wood Elf Spellweaver with Staff $27.90
Garden of Morr $62.90
pg2
Chaos Daemons Battalion Battleforce $149.90
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc of Tzeentch $56.90
The Changeling $27.90
Chaos Daemons Bloodthirster $87.90
Chaos Daemons Lord of Change $87.90
Dark Eldar Ur-Ghul $25.90
Dark Eldar Medusae $25.90
All of these are listed as needing to be pre-ordered by August 6th to be released on August 20th.
Grey Knights and Tournaments Not Allowing Special Independant Characters
I read a ton of battle reports, tournament results etc. Just so you know one of the best places for tournament results is Blood of Kittens. Link here is ya need it. http://bloodofkittens.com/.
I noticed that at the international tournament that just occurred not too far back, no special characters were allowed. I read this, and I was like WTF, are we still playing 3rd edition? After I gathered my thoughts, I started thinking of how this changes the way 40k is played.
Special Characters in 5th edition are one of those things that are meant to help give a codex flexibility. They really do not add a "now I can kill everything" type of army. In fact most codex's even say, (I only say most, because I have not checked them all) "you can use the model and rules for a named character to represent a character of your own invention".
So aren't these characters really integrated into the codex, so that removing them is like taking out a good section of the codex? I believe so, and I think that tournaments that do this are hampering the game play. Sure its within their rights to do, but for a large scale public tournament to do so seems ludicrous.
What it in fact does, is give some codexes a very large advantage. Look at how powerful the new Grey Knight Librarian is. If you missed this article from yesterday, link here. http://natfka.blogspot.com/2011/07/most-powerful-model-in-game.html.
I think Tournament Organizers who are doing this really are shortchanging the game, and giving unfair and un-thought of advantages to certain codexes.
End of the Week
There really isn't a whole lot more here today. I am working on my Dark Eldar as normal, and my Grotesques are primed and ready to be painted tomorrow evening.
Out of all things, my truck won't start (been years since I have had car problems). Otherwise, its been one of the best weekends weather wise all summer, so its barbecue time, and time to sit back and enjoy. So no more 40k today. Have a good rest of the weekend.