Picking Favorites - Sportsmanship the Open.
I'm normally a pretty RAI guy and you may have to make some tough rulings on some of the ambiguity that people spout when new books come out just to keep things in check. You may need some extra staff on the fantasy side to handle some of the questions and as good of an FAQ as you can handle. I've got to say you need to just suck it up and go with the new version(barring some crazy change that has people re-cutting movement trays and going back to first principles). We are all going to be dealing with this new change. The good news is, for the most part everyone is in the same boat. The bad news is that you will have people showing up playing their first or second game of 8th fantasy so it is gonna be like watching a deer learn to walk. If you think of your casual gamer he may have 6 or 7 games under his belt by the time he gets to the tournament and I can tell you from experience he is still gonna be in the weeds. In the gaming world this is pretty short. I said essentially the same thing to Mike when he told me of the release date and it does sit outside the 4 week period, by 1 week. "On the other hand, many tourneys use a 4 week rule, and this edition release sits outside that 4 weeks." People not wanting to sign up for a tournament so soon after edition releases more rules questions the day of if the tournament organization team doesn't properly evaluate them all and address in a FAQ again though somewhat irrelevant due to use of comp for 7th ed, people have to build new armies due to deep structural changes to the game most probably will be a better liked edition due to any glaring problems not yet fully realized (or maybe there won't be any) New system used in a major GT may generate interest and sign-ups from people eager for something fresh and new, and eager to put their new army list ideas and armies to the test in a system where less people have number crunched it into the obvious power lists / etc.
Safe and known - we don't have to come up with much of a FAQ, we have a "tested" comp system in the form of ETC, and most people know exactly how to build an army in 7th rules and how their army books work pro of "don't have to change their armies for tourney" is mitigated somewhat by the fact that we have comp, so that's not really a "pro" or a conĪ widely unpopular Fantasy edition is now replaced, with the rulebook viewable for 9 weeks prior to the tournament, meaning people may not want to waste their time and $50 + travel going to a tournament to play a defunct, disliked edition that uses a comp system to boot There are pros and cons to each of these, and it presents an interesting question for a tournament organizer Play it new - aggressively study and react to the 8th edition rulebook, put up a FAQ for any of the likely errors / etc., and go with 8th edition, loosening the painting/wysiwyg requirements just a little to encourage people that they'll have their army changes ready Play it safe - go with 7th edition, a system generally unpopular and requiring an extensive composition system (with 2250 points level played by some armies at 2600 and some at 2000), but where people for the most part don't have to rebuild their armies to fit the tournament (except that to fit into the comp many may have to). That also means preview copies are probably out 4 weeks before that per usual, for a 9 week period of people looking at and adjusting to the new Fantasy rules prior to the Open. The expected release date at present is July 10, exactly 5 weeks prior to the Open.