For a while now, Warhammer World Events have produced a rules-based House Rules document prior to our events in order to help players answer some of the burning rules issues of the day. To manage and deliver this consistently, even with the help of some fantastic volunteers from within the Community and Games Workshop, has been problematic to say the least.
First and foremost, our events revolve around the integrity of the Core Rules, which are written on the understanding that they can't possibly cover every single eventuality that may come up during a game. An important point to emphasise is that as grown ups, we are all more than capable of reaching an amicable agreement with our opponents for how something should be resolved during a particular situation; in the rare circumstances where we can't then it's time to call in a Referee to sort it out.
This is important because it reinforces the Referees position within our events; they are the rules experts on the day, and are more than capable of solving with any queries as they arise. If they can't find the answer, then they will use the Most Important rule to ensure that play is resumed with minimal disruption as fairly as possible.
To this end, as of the 17th of July 2009, Warhammer World will no longer be offering a rules answering service as part of our event offer. We will be refocusing the House Rules Document onto providing clarifications to the event and any other information we think that players need to know in order to take part in our events.
The reasoning for this is simple; as our events are founded on the integrity of the Core Rules, Army Books, Codexes and Official Errata that Games Workshop produces, anything that comes from another source confuses what is official and what's not. From now on, rules clarifications will come from one source, and that's the same one that writes them in the first place. On the day of an event, the Referees still have the final say in any rules matter, even if their rulings go against the established norm.
We realise that we are potentially removing a valuable source of material for future Errata updates by not answering any queries that come in by email, but there is a simple fix for this. If anyone sends in a rules query via the Events email address, we will be happy to forward it on to an apropriate person on their behalf.
This is on the understanding that no immediate answers are available, but that the query will be read and where appropriate, be included into the next scheduled update for the Official Errata Documents. If the issue does come up during one of our events, then the Referees will be more than happy to sort it out for them there and then.
If you have any questions about this or anything else to do with Warhammer World Events, then please get in touch with us via: whworldevents@games-workshop.co.uk
All that's left to say is good luck and see you there!
Andy Joyce
Warhammer World Events Manager
