Ork tourney experience and some rules questions (FW)

[Grabula]

I put this in general since it covers a couple of topics.

First, went to a tourney for the first time with Orks and had a blast. It was actually the first time I'd played Orks lol. I built the list more for fun than anything else but it worked out for me. Here's the list:

Big Mek, KFF
Nobz x 10, painboy
2 boyz mobz, 21 boyz a piece each with a nob/powerclaw
Deff Dred CCW's
Deff Dred rokkit launchas
2 Killa Klans mobs with 3 a piece, mix of weapons
Stormboyz x 15, Boss Zagstrukk
10 Lootas, Mek

I went 1 Draw, 2 Wins aginast Eldar, Tau and Plague Marines respectively. The tourney was well run and the scenarios were inventive and fun. The scenarios built on each other story wise. The first was that for every unit destroyed, an obkective marker was dropped, whoever held the most objective markers won. The Eldar player and I ran out of troops by the end of the game so it ended in a draw, however I'd have to give the game to my opponent as he had destroyed more units and still had Avatar plus Wraith Lord on the table and I had really nothing to answer it.
The second game against Tau started out ugly. I thought I was in trouble when he'd destroyed 4 out of 6 kans and took 3 weapons off one dred before I had killed a single model. Third round he missed a lot of crucial shots, allowing me to get some units into close combat. Ultimately he never managed to kill a full unit of anything and so never scored any KP. This scenario involved crashed space junk in the form of cups with dice underneath. Each objective was worth D3 KP's and you didn't know how many points was under each objective until the end of the game.
Final game was against a CSM plague marine army. Not sure why but I felt like I had the advantage in army builds. His army contained Typhus and Sorceror, 2 squads of plague marines in rhinos, squad of plague bikers, and termies in landraider, plus defiler. 5 Objectives were laid out and once you had a potentially scoring unit on each objective you rolled to see if you could consume the "oreum" (Oreos cookies) left over from the space junk in the last scenario. Once all of the oreum on the table was consumed the game was over, the winner being the one who consumed the most. Deployment saw us both basically owning 2 objectives immediately. the fifth objective I managed to capture on the third round uncontested thanks to my opponent failing to disembark his plague marines on a crucial turn.
All in all I thought my army build worked out better than I had planned. I lost both my troop choices first game getting too Orky (Aggressive). I also knew I was in trouble with the Avatar and 2 wraithlords but I figure I could throw dreds and Kans at them and keep them tied up while the rest of my army worked over his troops. It worked sort of like that however he ended up having slightly more squads that were effective (My lootas never played a part in the game for various reasons.). I really liked the 15 Stormboyz with Zagstrukk. They didn't get involved the third game but I didn't need them.. The first two games they were pivotal, dropping in and hitting my opponents in weak spots and basically helping to swing my games. My lootas never really made a showing, part of it was my placement but in the second game, while I had placement, I didn't have enough in the mob to take a solid round of shooting and they ran, never really contributing. Next time I may try a larger mob, or run with something else, maybe kommandos.
My opponents were all good guys, there to have fun and all three of my games were fun to play.

now to a quick rules question, sort of. I recently recieved a large Forgeworld Order and it included the Mega Dred and Mekka Dred. I was able to find the Mega Dred rules online but does anyone know where I can find the Meka Dred rules? I didn't discover until today that they're apparently in Imperial Armor 8 or something and I won't be making another FW order for sometime. I guess I made the assumption rules would be included with the models but sadly, they weren't. Help would be appreciated.

[warpcrafter]

That's why we love forge world so much, they get ya comin' and goin'. The toys are even pricier than GW, and then to add insult to injury, you need their $75 books to play with them.

[wittdooley]

That's why we love forge world so much, they get ya comin' and goin'. The toys are even pricier than GW, and then to add insult to injury, you need their $75 books to play with them.

I'm sorry. Boo. Freaking. Hoo.

[eldargal]

Forge World is for 'veterans' those with better modelling skills, more money and perhaps more willingness to accept slightly un-optimised rules in the name of fun.

[Grabula]

I'm a 37 year old who's been modelling and playing this game since it was called Rogue Trader, does that count?

My expectation wasn't unreasonable that after dropping a little over 400$ for models that the rules might be included with them. It's actually a common practice around the rest of the gaming world. I'm not going to drop another 70$ for a book plus shipping at this time because it's not worth it. I'm guessing if I found the mega dred rules out there I can find the others. I notice at one time GW carried the rules on their own website for the squiggoth, but of course those have been removed, I have to assume due to the companies nature that's because you now have to pay 75$ to get them. I'm not going to get into a big discussion about the virtues or lack thereof, of some marketing practices. I asked about rules, and thankfully a like minded individual managed to get them to me.

There's an underlying reaction in this industry by some consumers to assume that if one doesn't like a business practice they should pretty much bugger off. That sort of black and white thinking is idiotic from a consumer standpoint. Keep in mind that as consumers, we have the ability to demand a certain level of service. For example, I don't mind paying the money I did for the models, and I don't even mind at some point paying the money for the Imperial Armor book I need, however I do believe these products to be over priced, I do believe that it would be a solid marketing practice to provide rules to expensive models 'free' of charge with the purchase of those models and I don't mind using the modern tools at hand to bypass what I consider to be bad business to get what I want.

[gcsmith]

I dnt see wat the big problem about forgeworld is, Most of their stuff is designed for fun games and looks AWESOME so the price is no big problem, they are made out of a more expensive material, bigger and look amazing.

Then they put the rules in a book detailing the campaign for which these things were sculpted around. After all FW stuff is basically campaign special models, such as the death leaper originally was for COD.

[eldargal]

I'm sorry but your expectation that just because you have spent a lot you should get the rules for free is unreasonable. FW produces nice models, it then shoves the rules for said models in a book. If you want the rules, you buy the book (or get a photocopy from a friend). Complaining about what is a perfectly reasonable and common business model just smacks of an overbearing sense of entitlement. I'm not trying to be rude, but there it is. The rules are in the book, FW spends a lot of time producing said book with quite high production values, they have a right to expect people to pay for it.

[Grabula]

eldargal - unreasonable? self entitlement? really? It's certainly not an "industry standard". I've been wargaming for a long time and it's a much more common practice to offer rules with miniatures that are meant for gaming systems. Typically they're either offered online or in sheets of paper that come with the model. In point of fact, even FW does it to some extent by providing a small sample of random rules for their models on their website.

And it's not specifically an issue with FW, I bought the miniatures after all and intend to buy more down the road. The point of annoyance is actually more at a consumer base more willing to accept the type of marketing a game company like this sometimes offers. I'm generally pretty reasonable when it comes to understanding that this hobby is a luxury and companies can charge what they want and sell how they want. however, I'm not so myopic as to think I have to concede to what I consider nearly unreasonable (purely subjective eldargirl) business practices. They're not breaking any laws but they could certainly offer more for the money they charge. They definitely offer a good product but there are other companies out there offering very similar products for cheaper prices. You're fooling yourself if you think FW or GW has to charge what they do to survive, they charge what the market will bear. I'll continue to play the game, mostly while avoiding complain, but when it comes to it, I'll on occasion choose to bypass those practices I consider unreasonable and utilize other means to get what I need. The desire would be to see the community as a whole "vote" with their actions and let these companies know that occasionally they need to bow to the consumers whim. If you don't understand, or wholly disagree with what I say (notice I say wholly, not partially and whatnot) then you don't really understand what the nature of the relationship between consumer and producer is. As an example it's an obvious and extreme example to say that if everyone suddenly stopped purchasing GW products, they'd go out of business correct? I think it's sad to think that over the years an entire community has generally written off some pretty draconian business practices as acceptable. however I'm realisitic enough to know that the average consumer does so without much real thought to the power they really have.

Ultimately it's even more sad to me that this thread went the way it did, considering the fact that the vast majority of my post was about an excellent tourney experience I had.