The venue has more than enough capacity for this many players and it also means more money in the pot for raffle prizes and to add the Best Conversions award to the painting competition. This will take the form of a certificate and a £15 Element Games voucher. I'm also going to increase the prize for Best Painted Army to £20 (from £15). Not quite as much as winning the tournament but still a decent recognition for the effort it takes to produce a winning army. This means the prize pot for the "tournament" prizes now stands at a total of £100.
Daemonology
Whilst I'm on the subject of Blog Wars 9, I wanted to discuss some thoughts on Daemonology. I may be biased in this particular area but personally I can't stand the conjuration powers in any form. I dislike the notion that any army in the game (except GK & Nids) can summon Daemons. Sure, you can justify it by saying they don't intend to summon them, they're just a by-product of manipulating the warp when using regular psychic powers. Trouble is, it just doesn't sit right with me that a non-Chaos psyker would be conjuring Daemons into existence. Ignoring the fluff issues I have with the system I think it's an overly abused mechanic in competitive play. You can look at someone's army list thinking you know what to expect only for his psyker to start conjuring Daemons. Finally, if nothing else, I think it's boring to play against an army like this.
There are two questions that need answering then. Of the people coming to Blog Wars (or thinking of buying a ticket), who thinks there should be restrictions on Daemonology? Secondly, how should it be restricted?
Here's my suggested answer to the second question. I'm already limiting Warp Charge to 12+D6 each turn. This should help minimise the amount of Daemons that can be reliably created. However, I want to go further and limit the use of Malefic Daemonology. Of course Daemons should be able to use it but what about CSM? The other question is what about Sanctic Daemonology? If I'm limiting Malefic it's only fair to limit Sanctic too right? Perhaps only GK should be able to use it. I really want to know what you guys think as I'm not sure what's the best thing to do here. Ultimately I'd hope that people would see Blog Wars as a friendly tournament and therefore not run cheesy summoning lists but I know that people will be tempted. Any comments are appreciated, even if you aren't coming to BW9.