Nerdrage: The "2-Source Limit"

I know, right? We haven't put out a nerdrage in AGES. Anyway, I want to talk about something that really has been annoying me of late, and how I think it's bad for the 40k hobby.

I'll preface my rant by saying that TO's have full rights to demand that participants play in whatever manner the TO decides, which is why we have a zillion sets of composition rules (comp.). John and I discussed that, for the most part, 7th edition is a sandbox of rules from which TO's can pick and choose what they want to use. That's their prerogative of course, but to me that doesn't make it any better.

The 2-source limit. Warhammer 40k tournaments have been all flustered by the new changes in 7th edition, what with "any ally goes", Lords of War, and so on. Because of that, "big name" tournaments have adopted a certain set of rules that, unfortunately, are seeping through the channels to many smaller 40k tournaments, fouling the experience along the way.

So, what is the "2-source limit"? Quite simply (not), it means that you can only use two "sources" to create your army. A source consists of any codex, supplement, or dataslate published by GW. However, even that isn't agreed upon by different events; some use different aspects, some include parts, not others, and so on.

I'm not quite sure what prompted its origin. Perhaps some yearning to keep playing 6th edition? That would make sense, because simultaneously, nearly all tournaments restrict players to a single Combined Arms Detachment (C.A.D.) and one Allied Detachment (A.D.). Sure, we only had 6th edition for two years, but 7th was required because of all the supplements that were being released. I understand the desire for unchanging and static tournament scenes, but...wait what?? Who in the history of ever said that change was bad in tournaments? From my experience, players want there to be constant changes so that armies don't stagnate and become homogenized across all events. The ultimate sandbox edition of 7th provides for just that sort of desire, without any arbitrary limits. Let's move on and embrace the new and awesome.

After all, whenever has the implementation of limitations ever led to more diversity? Reducing the number and types of choices does not encourage diversity in the slightest. "-" =/= "+".

Add to that, the 2-source limit isn't even really aware of 7th edition. For instance, I could build a Battleforged army, of one CAD and one AD, with 8 sources: [CAD] Codex + Codex Supplement + Lords of War Supplement + Fortification Supplement + Forgeworld sourcebook, [AD] Codex + Codex Supplement + Forgeworld sourcebook. Does that make it "broken as sin", or "thematic"? I guess it depends entirely on the units.

Two sources is incredibly limiting. Not including Forgeworld or LoW (because what tournament has ever included such "scandalous" units?), that means you can only have the following combinations:
- Codex + Codex Supplement (ie, one CAD from the supplement, with no allies or fortifications)
- Codex + Fortification Supplement (ie, one CAD from the codex and their fortification)
- Codex + Codex (ie, one CAD and one AD, with no fortification)
- Codex + Formation (ie, one CAD and one "other" detachment, which may or may not be allowed)

In terms of what this means for specific armies, you cannot use the Crimson Slaughter supplement to have a daemonic Chaos Space Marine force with Chaos Daemon allies, because that's three sources, despite the massive fluff appeal. They likewise cannot have any fortifications, because all of the fortifications are now in a separate supplement (ie, source) instead of the big rulebook.

Stronghold Assault (the Fortification Supplement) is never specifically stated as being an exception to the 2-source limit in any of the events I looked at. Now, maybe that's on purpose so that people are forced into the choice, but I know that's not true in a couple cases, and in some it gets even more silly.

The Bay Area Open's CAD rules say:

- Detachments may be produced from a maximum of one Codex / Codex Supplement
- Example - You may not selectively include units within one Combined Arms Detachment from both Codex: Tau and Codex Supplement: Farsight Enclaves, despite them being within the same Faction per the Detachment creation rules in the 40k Rulebook.

So what this says (I think) is that you can use either a Codex or a Supplement, but not both, in a CAD. The very real problem is that, to be able to play the supplement in the first place, you need to use both the supplement and the codex, which is made illegal by the "example". I don't understand the reasoning behind backwardly banning supplements in this manner.

The BAO is definitely a big influence on the national tournament scene, and quite often what they say will be echoed through the others, and this is evident in many upcoming events. It seems like they blindly accept the rules from on high, slightly modify them to their tastes, and move on. Since the original rules are so badly written and don't take into account the actual rules and what they're saying, this leads to twisted sets that are really quite confusing for a rules stickler like me.

It'd be quite bothersome to be in a game, thinking I could only have my Crimson Slaughter, where across from me I see a Farsight army with a Skyshield. That's illegal by the 2-source limit, but actually isn't because the Fortifications supplement is an unlisted exception to it.

All of this leads to a massive amount of inconsistency between events and in events themselves. If the bigger tier tournaments are meant to be scale ratings of players to produce a national champion of sorts (or prove who has the best score/biggest wiener/etc), how could it possibly be valid? When every event has a different set of house rules, the only marker for being a strong player is that they are adaptable to different environments, not that they are good at 40k.

For the rest of us schlubs that get stuck with undesirable house rules in events that should normally be fun to attend, we're left without an outlet for playing our themed armies. The 2-source limit, in my mind will only serve to stifle creativity and reduce variety in the big wide world of 40k tournaments. Perhaps if TO's took the time to take all aspects into account and wrote their rules clearly and simply (some do this, and thank you for being awesome!), there wouldn't be such an issue.

I think the inconsistent 2-source limit nonsense can be entirely replaced by the [x] Detachment rule, where "x" is any number you want (prefereably higher than 2). Consider that, as is, armies now are more limited than in 6th edition, and even just saying two detachments is more limiting than before, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

And that, my friends, is my nerdrage. Do you agree? Disagree? Let's discuss it in the comments section!