Somone was asking in another thread (that is now locked) about tournament composition's and such. Here are a few I have seen over the years.

The original RT one was something like this

ARMY COMPOSITION

[] Does the army have more TROOPS selections than any other single category? {this means actual army list TROOP selections, as in the 2+ compulsory to 6 max, not individual Troops MODELS within the Troop selection...}

[] Do TROOPS selections make up at least 40% of the total points of this army?

[] Have they not spent more than 25% of their total points on Fast Attack, Heavy Support or Elites? {this is not a total of all three categories, but each individual category}

[] The units and characters have names, designations, etc.?

[] Has the player spent less than 20% of their total points on anything from the "Armory" page?

[] Do the TROOP selections not fall into the min/max category? {meaning has the player not taken the minimum Troops options at the least amount but maxed out the weapon/special options}

[] Is this list the same one being played?

[] Was the army list turned in on time and in the correct format?

[] Is the army list correct?

[] Plus one point if nine previous were received.

Heres another one I've seen (I think this one was RTT combined with GT):

ARMY SELECTION:
PLAYERS -
[] Does the army have more Troops than any other single category?
An easy one to calculate. To score on this question, add up the number of Troop selections (they must have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 6). Is it more than any other single category (HQ, Elites, Fast Attack, or Heavies). Note army lists like the Saim Hain wildriders count fast attack as Troops, these do count as Troops when calculating this score.
[] Do Troops selections make up at least 40% of the total points of this army?
This question is fairly easy yes-or-no mathematical calculation that should be already done on their army list.
[] Have they not spent more than 25% of their total points on Fast Attack, Heavy Support or Elites?
Note this is not a total of all categories, but this is each individual category.
[] The units and characters have names, designations, etc?
This is a question about putting character and imagination into an army. Have you tried to create a specific army for example, the Ultramarines, the fighting 54th from planet Zod, or the Hive Fleet Abominable? Not every model, hero, or squad has to be named, but enough for you to feel the army is personalized and distinctive.
[] Has the player spent less than 20% of their total points on anything from the “Armory” page?
Wargear and special equipment (This includes anything bought on the “armory” page or whatever the particular army call it) are a cool part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but a player’s focus should be on his army, not just on specialty equipment! If the army contains less than 20 percent give the player points! This will include Vehicle Upgrades, Psychic powers for Eldar, Hard Wired systems for Tau, etc. The only Codex (currently) that has no “armory” page to date is Tyranids.

JUDGES ONLY -
[] Do the Troop selections not fall into the min/max category?
Min/Max is defined as taking the minimum number of Troop selections or minimum squad sizes while taking the maximum number of upgrades options (i.e. heavy weapons, special weapons, veteran sergeants and skills) or Fast Attack, Elites and Heavy Support choices.
[] Is the list the same one being played?
Look at the table as he is playing, is the army list here the same as the one he is using?
[] Was the army list turned in on time and in the correct format?
Was the army list turned in during registration or did they have to go make a copy? Is it legible and in the correct format, laid out in a similar fashion as the GW RTT sheet?
[] Is the army list correct?
Do the math.
[] In your opinion does this list capture the spirit of the army being played?
This is an objective question for the judges. If playing an Ork army, does it capture the essence of waves and waves of Ork mobs? Or does the army list feel like the cream of the crop was only chosen or a specific tactic (“one trick pony”) was the thought behind this army.

And another:
Army Theme Judging Criteria

Each check is worth 2 points. If they’ve only partially satisfied the criteria, but not ignored it, Judges may award 1pt at their discretion. If a player was completely ignorant of these criteria, for whatever reason, award them 5 flat points assuming they at least have an army list. If they are ever caught playing a force that does not match their list, or switching wargear mid-game, they automatically get 0 Theme points, and may even be Disqualified if the action is grievous enough.

[] Was their Army list turned in on time, properly presented, and completely correct?
Format should be typewritten, in tabular format, with no manual corrections of any sort. Those that must correct their list prior to the event, but otherwise meet standards, should receive 1 point.

[] Does the Army list have unit and character names, background details, or other additions to distinguish it from a flat, boring, standard list?
Some armies may not be suited to proper names (i.e. Necrons), but background stories or clever list embellishments may fulfill this criterion instead.

[] Does the Army list represent a well-rounded or classic force for the army being played?
Have they avoided min-maxing in favor of fielding a list that represents a typically “real” force, where Generals can’t always get three of every good unit. Overuse (3 selections) of a single, highly effective non-Troop unit should not gain this criteria, unless it represents that Army’s feature strength (i.e 3x Raptors in Night Lords, 3x Dreadnoughts in Iron Hands, 3 x Leman Russ in a Guard army). Also, if they included units that aren’t typically taken, or are viewed as ineffective, this may counterbalance otherwise min-maxed choices.

[] Has this player included innovative, imaginative, or extra special details in their army?
This includes “counts as” forces that don’t veer too far from WYSIWYG. Or fleshed out lists which include extra fiction, ongoing grudges, illustrations, fancy presentations, humor, or extra clever background. Simply put, did the player go the extra mile to put their army and background above average?

[] Is this Army list one of your Top 3 Favorites?

So lets dig them all out and take a look at them and discuss pro's, and con's. I personally don't like any of those above compositions.

Another question is what exactly does comp mean to the player. First I would like to say that comp and theme are two completely different things. And usually having comp will affect peoples abilities to do a theme.

So I'll start off with my opinion of composition. To me a balanced composition army is one that utilizes all aspects of the force org chart. So in my minds eye to have a balanced comp army it should have fast attack, elite, troops, hq, and heavy support. This is why I say that comp impedes theme. Deathwing, ravenwing, iyanden wraith armies are all thematic, all cool, but I wouldn't rate them high as a balanced composition army. Now what is everyone elses definition of a balanced composition army?

So then how would I build comp into a tournament? One of the stores in southern colorado has been discussing this very topic, wanting to introduce two different tournament types. A gladiator tournament, and a more hobby/comp driven tournament so that everyone can play in the types of tournaments they would like to.

This was my suggestion for a comp friendly tournament for them to think about since I didn't really like any of those above scoring criteria.
Everyone starts with their obligatory HQ and 2 troops. You can then add up to 1 troop, 1 fast attack, 1 elite or 1 heavy support. You cannot add a 2nd of any of those or another hq until you add 1 of all of those slots. Once you have filled in one from each force org type you can add a second. You cannot have 2 of the same HQ type.

So for example this would be legal:
1 HQ
3 Troops
1 Elite
1 Heavy Support
1 Fast Attack

but this is not:
1 HQ
6 Troops

So what does changing the game like this do. First it ruins the "theme" of some people's armies. Deathwing can't field termies, dreads, and land raiders. A Sam haim windrider host can't do all troops and fast attack. I'm sure there is a multitude of other theme's that are not unfair or beardy at all that would get hit by this. It's also drastically altering the basic rules of the game. So for the people that dislike the INAT faq they should probably dislike this as well.

The question is does this solve the main reason of comp. To exclude beardy lists from competition and encourage a more balanced list. At a quick glance it removes a lot of the top abusers and you would definitely see very different structed themes but I'm sure there are still abusable combo's out there. So if people want to hammer it by all means do so.

The last question would be. So you've decided to include comp. What percentage of the total points should it be? Or should it be standard. I have a feeling that if you are going to go down the comp route you can't actually just dock people points for not doing it, because you will still get the people that just want to enter the tournament to beat down other people. So I think you would have to enforce it and say no deviation from the comp rules.

Please note that this is put up as an example comp rule for a tournament. I haven't tried it out, I'm not sure if I would want to try it out. But it definitely seems interesting.

So what is everyone elses opinion on composition, and if you think it should be in a tournament, how would you score it?

You would remove the lists that are "dominating" elsewhere and create new lists that would be dominating under these conditions instead.

It is very very hard, not to say impossible to impose your own limitations to the complete game without messing up the balance somewhere else. In Sweden for some reason the comp crowd is rather big but it still gets pretty much the same results when the conditions are determined beforehand, people abuse the things that are allowed. While when using a total softscore system you usually get bias involved(from either the judge or the people you played, depending on who puts the score down) or at least accusations of it. I have still to see any working system that uses composition scores, doubt I will. GW havent manages to make their system balanced to start with. (they dont even try anymore)

So for example this would be legal:
1 HQ
3 Troops
1 Elite
1 Heavy Support
1 Fast Attack

so
1 warboss
1 nob biker squad as elite
1 nob biker squad as troops
2 units of gretchin or orks.
def copta
zap gun
unit of lootas

see perfect comp

basicly any comp system makes new best broken lists.

But I would contend that the list you posted skipper is no where near as nasty as 2 nob biker squads as troops.

For kp missions you've added in 2 very easy to get kp's in the copta and gun. And only one biker squad counts as troops which cuts back on the lists ability to hold objectives. You also don't get the extra warboss for spreading around insta death wounds.

I'm not saying it isn't a tough list, just not as tough as the standard tournament build.

I do agree no matter what comp scoring you come up with people will bend it to the max. So if you were going to do comp what would you do, instead of just trying to shoot holes in mine

First off, I think that any "modern" (i.e. 40k5) comp system should do away with any percentage calculations. Percentages are a carryover from 2E, in which we built armies based on percentages.

A modern comp system should focus on FOC choices and the variety of choices taken, for example:
[] 3+ Troops
[] More Troops than any other category
[] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[] No dupe non-Troops
("no-dupe" applies to entry name, not options)

But comp shouldn't be a restriction or requirement, simply an option. A player can field a bad-comp army, but should be penalized for doing so.

Personally, as Comp is a 0-10 scale, I'd convert it into a percentage and then multiply the Battle score by the Comp ratio. So if you score 5/10 on Comp, then you only count 50% of your Battle points.
____

updated: "no dupe entries" to "no dupe non-Troops" to not penalize SM, Necrons, DE, and other limited-Troops armies...

skkipper wrote:basicly any comp system makes new best broken lists.

That is precisely the point. A comp system attempts to take the edge off of the most broken lists and encourage less-broken lists.

skkipper wrote:1 warboss
1 nob biker squad as elite
1 nob biker squad as troops
1 units gretchin
1 units orks.
def copta
zap gun
unit of lootas

[+] 3+ Troops
[+] More Troops than any other category
[-] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[+] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[+] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[+] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[+] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[+] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[+] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[+] No dupe entries

That's 9/10, so you'd score 90% of your Battle points with this army. Not bad!

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Personally, as Comp is a 0-10 scale, I'd convert it into a percentage and then multiply the Battle score by the Comp ratio. So if you score 5/10 on Comp, then you only count 50% of your Battle points.

That's a very interesting idea on how to adjust battle score based on comp! I'll have to play around with some number's and see what it comes up as. That I think is one of the biggest problems is trying to figure out how to adjust someones points for comps. But maybe instead of going negative it might be better to make it a positive. So basically instead of incurring a negative modifier, you incure a positive modifier for matching the comp guidlines. So someone with perfect comp could get 150% of total possible battle points.

Doing this means the comp rules will have to be extremley clear cut and not allow any room for subjectivity.

Nah.

If you field 0 Comp, you get zero Battle points.
If you field 10/10 Comp, you get full Battle points.

How is that not fair?
____

Also, assume that Comp is as above - something that each player knows going into the event.

the comp system I suggest is

1-2 hq's
0-3 elites
2-6 troops
0-3 fast attack
0-3 heavy

any comp scoring does little to increase the enjoyment of the games. you want to have fun make top tables really bizarre. nob bikers on a all difficult terrian table wouldn't be fun.

Best comp concept right here:




Like that idea? Me too.

Oh, yeah, assuming a "tournament" 2 Nob Bikers army with 2 Warbosses, I get...

[-] 3+ Troops
[-] More Troops than any other category
[-] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[?] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[-] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[?] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[?] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[?] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[-] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[-] No dupe entries

Max Dupe HQ costs 3 possible Comp points (HQ, Max, Dupe), and Min Troops costs another 3 possible Comp points (non-Min, more Troops, most Troops), so the player can have max 4/10 Comp, and therefore going to score, at most 40% of their Battle points. He'll probably win out, but will 40% be enough against the other list scoring 90%?

And as the opponent, which would you rather face?

Decisions, decisions...

so the list of 9 penitant engines and 9 death cult assasins with 2 inquistor lords, really needs to be punished.

Actually, yeah. It's boring.

Seriously, the point can't be made with 1 Lord, 3 DC Assassins, 3 Penitent Engines and something else simply for variety's sake?

comp systems all favor marines.
they have good troops and a wide range of useful choices in other slots.

last year I played a 32 man chaos terminator list.
so 2 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
3 squads of ten terminators
2 small squads of troops

not a uberlist by any stretch but it would made pretty much useless under most comp systems

but my list this year
sorcerer with lash
demon prince with lash
4 squads of berzerkers
2 squads of obliterators
dreadnaught
squad of raptors
scores well and it is a much meaner list

JohnHwangDD wrote:
A modern comp system should focus on FOC choices and the variety of choices taken, for example:
[] 3+ Troops
[] More Troops than any other category
[] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[] No dupe entries
("no-dupe" applies to entry name, not options)

Okay.

Warboss with toys
5-6 squads of Boyz, 30 men each, with nobs
15 lootas
Snikkrot and his sneaky gits.

Full comp points. Must be a fun, fluffy, army to play against. Where do I sign up.

Comp is silly, counterproductive, and ultimately fails at its goals. Any universal comp system is also biased and favors certain codexes over other codex, and essentially changes the game from Warhammer 40K to (insert local venue here) 40k.

If you're going to play apoc style, play apoc style. If you want to play competitively, don't complain when your opponent is more competitive than you.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Actually, yeah. It's boring.

Seriously, the point can't be made with 1 Lord, 3 DC Assassins, 3 Penitent Engines and something else simply for variety's sake?

If your criteria is 'it's boring' rather than 'it's powerful' then you have no business having the Best General (Or battle points in general) determined by comp scoring. This includes the the one above where how many troops you have determines what your score is. Troops-based comp doesn't work to determine what is powerful, and in fact it tends to encourage more boring lists. (The real reason Troops aren't taken - They are often the most boring units in a list)

I wouldn't be so sure of that having favoritism - Marines are expensive, so I'm not so worried.

Here is an army I once saw at a GW RTT back in 3rd edition:

Fleshtearers (using the old IA list rules):

Chaplain/jump pack
6x (9 tactical Marines & naked sergeant - rhino)
2x Vindicator

The DC was 15 strong when I played him plus he had four power fists in that unit. He got a perfect score for comp.

G

Centurian99 wrote:
Warboss with toys
Snikkrot and his sneaky gits.
15 lootas
5-6 squads of Boyz, 30 men each, with nobs

Full comp points. Must be a fun, fluffy, army to play against.

You do NOT have full Comp:
[+] 3+ Troops (5)
[+] More Troops than any other category (5>2)
[+] More Troops than all non-Troops combined (5>3)
[-] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy (no FA/HS)
[+] Non-max, no-dupe HQ (boss)
[+] Non-max, no-dupe Elite (2)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Fast (0)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy (0)
[+] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[+] No dupe non-Troops

I re-score that at 7/10.
____

Re-scored based on corrections.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Chaplain/jump pack
6x (9 tactical Marines & naked sergeant - rhino)
2x Vindicator

I score it as 5/10:
[+] 3+ Troops (6)
[+] More Troops than any other category (6 > 2)
[+] More Troops than all non-Troops combined (6 > 3)
[-] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy (1+ Hvy)
[+] Non-max, no-dupe HQ (Chap)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Elite (not taken)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Fast (not taken)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy (2 Vindis)
[+] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy (1 / 0 / 0 / 2 OK)
[-] No dupe non-Troops (dupe Vindis)
____

corrected score

skkipper wrote:l
sorcerer with lash
demon prince with lash
4 squads of berzerkers
squad of raptors
2 squads of obliterators
dreadnaught

[+] 3+ Troops (4)
[+] More Troops than any other category (4>3)
[-] More Troops than all non-Troops combined (4<6)
[-] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy (no Elite)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe HQ (max)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Elite (not taken)
[+] Non-max, no-dupe Fast (1 Raptors)
[-] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy (max, 2 Oblits)
[-] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy (max Hvy)
[-] No dupe entries (dupe Zerks & Oblits)

3/10
____

So far skipper's initial Ork variety list is doing quite well...

The rest of you are basically all at 3/10 or 4/10, which makes sense, as your lists are designed for a comparable level of competitiveness.

IMHO comp is just a new set of 1-2, 2-6, 0-3, 0-3,0-3.

The force org is the restrictions set for games, and comp is a new set of restrictions, usually tighter ones. So it doesnt really make any sense to me personally. I never understood why tournies took the basic force org and changed it. Like others have said it just makes the game more bland. If it aint broke dont fix it.

But Im the type that thinks if its legal its legal, and just sports painting and battle would be fine with me. If a 22 ork biker (or whatever flavor of "cheese" you prefer) list wins then good for him. There is no list that can be made with the existing force org that is a guaranteed win by a LONG shot.

I don't see the problem with changing the game from Warhammer 40K to (insert local venue here) 40K. If you feel that 40K is broken as a tournament game, and you want to try to fix it when you run your tournament, go ahead. People often do this by trying to create missions that (hopefully) try to create new, fair, interesting games...or sometimes they create missions to try to hose certain power lists. Creating a comp system is another way to do it, and its fine. I'm not in love with JHDD's comp checklist, but it's not bad either.

Yes, you'll create some other new abusive armies in the weaker environment, but that doesn't make your goals bad or wrong, and you may very well even out the playing field and make things more fun for everyone. Not everyone has the time and money to go and buy/model/paint armies from the newer, better codexes (Orks and Daemons being good examples of newer+better, imo...SM maybe not) but that shouldn't necessarily bar them from being competitive in the tournament. When you do it like JHDD is doing it you get a better chance of avoiding any power armies because you're forcing a TON of diversity int he lists, and you get a BIG penalty for violating it (even one or two points off is a big handycap since it's 10 or 20% of your battle points).

That being said, some codexes just get reamed by these rules. Some have nothing but crappy FA units, or only two troops choices so how do you non-dupe troops and get 3+? Do Space Wolves automatically lose a point for having max HQ? Etc. But it's a decent start, and there's really no reasonable argument for saying that just using the base Force Org charts and Codexes is the only correct or realistic way to run a tournament and call it 40k. Should you also only use the rulebook missions? Not every tournament needs to be the 'Ard boyz, and we're already putting up with Sportsmanship + Painting being half the score anyway, to reflect the complete hobby - maybe restricted list building reflects that to some people too.

How about:
HQ:
Farsight+7 samurai

Troops:
2x 6 FW squads in Devilfish
1x 8 Gue'va

Elites:
1x 2 crisis suits

FA:
6 pathfinders in devilfish

HS:
2x broadsides, 2 shield drones (one squad)
1x Railhead

This is as close to 10/10 as I can get, since Tau won't even have the option to not dupe troops and have three with farsight.

JohnHwangDD wrote:A modern comp system should focus on FOC choices and the variety of choices taken, for example:
[] 3+ Troops
[] More Troops than any other category
[] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[] No dupe entries

Given people are trying to poke holes at the sample Comp system I cobbled together, I think it's worth spending a moment to discuss what it's trying to do and why it does what it does.

In general, this is trying to encourage a GW-style batrep army. If you look at GW batreps, they rarely have duplicates, except when absolutely necessary due to army list constraints, and even then, those dupes tend to be Troops (GW likes Troops). GW tries to maximize variety, which has the pleasant side effect of showcasing the maximum number of types of models (for sales purposes).

So I start with Troops, which would be non-minimum, and preferably the bulk of things. I award points for having non-max, non-duplicative HQ, Elite, Fast, and Heavy. And then I award bonus points for the full variety, no (non-Troop) max, and no duplicates.

If you are shooting for max 10 points, you must take:
1 HQ
1 Elite
5 Troops (5 different flavors)
1 Fast
1 Heavy

If you want a second Elite, Fast, or Heavy, you will need a 6th flavor of Troops.

In general, I think an 8 or 9 is a good target to shoot for, as not all armies have enough Troops options to allow for 5 or 6 different Troops.

What defines a "flavor" of troops here? How many armies even have 4 different troops choices, much less 5 or 6?

Orks? Two, plus extras you can get for certain HQs

Tau? Two, unless you use non-codex units

Dark Eldar? Daemonhunters? Necrons? (Hah)

Anyway I like the other ideas, no problem. Got to work on the non-spamming troops, it just doesnt seem to work or eliminates whole codexes.

GMMStudios wrote:IMHO comp is just a new set of 1-2, 2-6, 0-3, 0-3,0-3.

The force org is the restrictions set for games, and comp is a new set of restrictions, usually tighter ones.

It depends on how the Comp system works. I don't like restrictive Comp that mandates certain builds - players can play like what they like. But I don't think that they should be rewarded for taking the easy road of min-max armies, either.
____

lambadomy wrote:I'm not in love with JHDD's comp checklist, but it's not bad either.

When you do it like JHDD is doing it you get a better chance of avoiding any power armies because you're forcing a TON of diversity int he lists, and you get a BIG penalty for violating it (even one or two points off is a big handycap since it's 10 or 20% of your battle points).

That being said, some codexes just get reamed by these rules. Some have nothing but crappy FA units, or only two troops choices so how do you non-dupe troops and get 3+? Do Space Wolves automatically lose a point for having max HQ? Etc.

It's just a strawman that I threw together in 5 minutes, so it's definitely not perfect. Never will be, either. But it's not bad for point of discussion, as it seems to do an OK job of highlighting problem areas with lists that people might complain about. It's actually doing a better job than I would have expected.

I don't think I've seen anything else that links Comp to Battle as intimately as I've done it. Right now, Comp isn't a big deal, as the penalty for "bad" Comp is low. If Comp lacks teeth, then meh, who cares?

I don't think any Codex is totally hosed by them, although, there is usually a point or two that you're probably not going to be able to get. If you have bad FA, then you probably suck it up and field the cheapest option available just to get the comp points, this brings the power level down in your opponent's favor. Amusingly, Marines and Necrons are going to lose at least 1 point for needing duplicate Troops, but they should still take plenty of them for Comp purposes. Similarly, SW would probably lose the HQ point today, but as their Codex is pending revision, it probably won't work that way later.

Honestly, the biggest problem with the old comp system is that it's become somewhat obsolete; at one time it was the elite choices and tooled up characters that won the games, but it's increasingly becoming an issue of powerful troops; massive amounts of nob bikers, battle sisters, boys, plaguemarines, etc.

Penalizing people for spending a lot of points on, say, their grandmaster seems kind of unfair when another player can bring a whole bunch of Battle Sisters with no comp penalty while probably being a better choice overall.

lambadomy wrote:What defines a "flavor" of troops here?

How many armies even have 4 different troops choices, much less 5 or 6?

Got to work on the non-spamming troops, it just doesnt seem to work or eliminates whole codexes.

A "flavor" of Troops would be an army list entry that can be taken as Troops.

I don't know, and I don't think it matters so much - I wouldn't recommend requiring 10/10 Comp precisely for that reason.

But the idea that you lose a point for having duplicate Troops won't elimiinate an entire Codex. It just means you lose 1/10, which isn't so bad.

Even if you're playing CSM or Eldar, you have to choose between fielding many, varied "bad" Troops, or a narrower selection of "good" Troops.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Honestly, the biggest problem with the old comp system is that it's become somewhat obsolete; at one time it was the elite choices and tooled up characters that won the games, but it's increasingly becoming an issue of powerful troops; massive amounts of nob bikers, battle sisters, boys, plaguemarines, etc.

Penalizing people for spending a lot of points on, say, their grandmaster seems kind of unfair when another player can bring a whole bunch of Battle Sisters with no comp penalty while probably being a better choice overall.

I agree with this, Orkeosaurus.

I think anyone who disagrees with this doesn't have any idea what they're talking about!

"How desperate would someone have to be to make a user just to agree with them?"

JohnHwangDD wrote:"How desperate would someone have to be to make a user just to agree with them?"

I don't know, but I think you posted in the wrong thread.

This is the comp scores thread, you should be posting in that crazy "sock puppets" thread.

I dunno.

It seems like we're gonna be overrun by sock puppets here!

JohnHwangDD wrote:
You have:
- max HQ which costs you 2 points
- no Fast
- no Heavy
- no Elite+Fast+Heavy
- dupe Troops

Next!

Ah, I misunderstood the rules. Having said that Snikkrot is not an HQ. And you're biasing the list against armies that have a limited number of selections in any given type.

So now that I understand the rules, here's another one that breaks your system:

Fateweaver
Optionally, Any herald
Flamers
Bloodcrushers
Bloodletters
Daemonettes
Plaguebearers
Horrors
Nurglings
Any FA unit
Soul Grinder or Daemon Prince to flavor.

Max points, simply because the CD codex has five different troop selections, and because Heralds only count as half a HQ slot.

Or of course there's chaos - six different type of troop selections. Yep Chaos Space Marines need to be helped as much as Chaos Daemons do.

You're not a "competitive" player, John. At least, so you've claimed. If you're not competitive, than why care about limiting power builds?

JohnHwangDD wrote:First off, I think that any "modern" (i.e. 40k5) comp system should do away with any percentage calculations. Percentages are a carryover from 2E, in which we built armies based on percentages.

A modern comp system should focus on FOC choices and the variety of choices taken, for example:
[] 3+ Troops
[] More Troops than any other category
[] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[] No dupe entries
("no-dupe" applies to entry name, not options)

But comp shouldn't be a restriction or requirement, simply an option. A player can field a bad-comp army, but should be penalized for doing so.

Personally, as Comp is a 0-10 scale, I'd convert it into a percentage and then multiply the Battle score by the Comp ratio. So if you score 5/10 on Comp, then you only count 50% of your Battle points.

Welcome to bland JohnDD 40k he knows and loves where all the armies look the same and poor poor Tau get hosed on comp and in battle as well. Necrons have as much choice as Dark Eldar. I dont even want to consider guard under these restrictions. The current system would fail and armies that have limited choices in their codex suffer with battle modifiers that you introduced.

You know DD, it reminds me of playing Street Fighter 2 where my Younger brother would get thrashed and then tells me not to use Ryu or Ken, next I beat him with Chun-li and he then tells me not to use special moves. I just jump kick him all the time and then tells me no jump kicks to the point he finally beats me with his rules. After all that is taken away, you got just a very bland, very boring style of play. Your version of 40k might as well be called checkers. I got a set in my basement for ya.

I like taking bizarro lists that handicap myself enough. I really don't need another layer of handicap tacked on.
should a chaos monsters list be punished by comp?
2 demon princes
3 dread
3 defilers
1 greater demon
2 units of spawns
troops to fill
this lists gets zero
why?
why should you punish this fun list?

Centurian99 wrote: you're biasing the list against armies that have a limited number of selections in any given type.

Max points, simply because the CD codex has five different troop selections, and because Heralds only count as half a HQ slot.

You're not a "competitive" player, John. At least, so you've claimed. If you're not competitive, than why care about limiting power builds?

I presume that GW intended for certain armies to be limited or weak in certain areas, so forcing players to take non-optimal units helps to emphasizes the full nature of each list. When players only take the "best" units, as opposed to some mix of of the "best", "good", and "bad" units then that presents a fuller, more representative picture of each army as it was designed.

I have no idea what you mean by "half a HQ slot". If a Herald is a HQ entry, then it's a 2nd HQ, so it's max HQ slots used. As for the Troops, perhaps the notion would be to ignore duplicate Troops. It's a minor modification that apparently could make a number of people happy.

I'm not a competitive player any more, but that doesn't mean I can't have a certain theoretical interest in Comp. It's an interesting thought exercise.
____

thehod wrote:Welcome to bland JohnDD 40k he knows and loves where all the armies look the same and poor poor Tau get hosed on comp and in battle as well. Necrons have as much choice as Dark Eldar. I dont even want to consider guard under these restrictions. The current system would fail and armies that have limited choices in their codex suffer with battle modifiers that you introduced.

Your version of 40k might as well be called checkers.

IMO, you haven't got the slightest clue what you're talking about, and you haven't got the slightest clue as to how the comp system I presented works. Bland isn't having several kinds of things on the board, doing a variety of different things - bland is having 3 kinds of things all doing essentially the same thing.

Presuming that we ignore duplicate Troops, which appears to be the biggest problem, then having limited Troops (or other) choices isn't any concern.

And of course, there aren't any "restrictions", as you'd be free to field a 0/10 army for fun - just don't expect to score top points.

As for Guard, I think they'd do fine:
1 HQ = Command Squad (100+)
1 Elite = Veterans (100)
5 Troops = Platoon (250+), AF (170), 3x Grenadiers (210)
1 Fast = Hellhound (130)
1 Heavy = Demolisher (190)
That's a 10/10 army that fits in as little as 1200 pts, with *plenty* of room to grow the Command Platoon or Infantry Platoon for 1500 pts. If playing 1850, you can add a 2nd Platoon and an Indirect Basilisk and still score 10/10. Is it the strongest Guard list? No. But it will score 100% of Battle. But then, Guard aren't a top tier army anyways.

Now you say CSM rocks under this, but Cult Marines are very expensive at 20-25 pts each, plus Champs and Upgrades. If you're playing 1500 pts, I think CSM are hard pressed to build a strong 10/10 army. At 1850, things open up, but dual lash (Prince & Sorc) is going to be maximum 8/10 from the max HQ, probably 7/10 or less.

I suggest you take a deeper look at how the proposed system works. It's really not nearly as limiting as you think.

Your comp system is limiting on what the player wants to bring to perform well at your hypothetical tournament.

Who are you to tell people how to play their army? The game designers tell us how to play our armies by making restrictions on what we can or cannot take.

The current comp system will make for bland gameplay as people who try to conform to your comp system so they can have a remote chance of winning.

Some armies such as Eldar and Tau rely on their non-troops to win their games. Dark Eldar will do poorly on comp since filling out troops will only take 700-800 points leaving them with no choice but to max out on HQ and only have 1 real viable HS and elites (not that you care much for DE). You admit the guard army you posted wouldnt be as good. Necrons too have little choice in their codex and would be forced to take all warriors for an 8/10 comp and have the most boring of games ever.

Your comp system would also make some fluffy armies take hits on their comp such as a sternguard list with Kantor or an Ironhands list that has maxed out elites and maxed out heavies and only 3 troops and a master of the forge. An all Nurgle Deamon army would score a 2-3 at best along with any single mark army. These armies have a theme built in them and yet would score little or nothing with the comp system while lash armies would score higher than the above mentioned armies.

A comp system is calling cheese in a passive aggressive way. Your system is flawed and can be exploited with some careful planning. I suggest you never run a tournament.

skkipper wrote:I like taking bizarro lists that handicap myself enough. I really don't need another layer of handicap tacked on.

should a chaos monsters list be punished by comp?
2 demon princes (~250)
1 greater demon (100)
3 dread (270+)
troops to fill
2 units of spawns (160)
3 defilers (450)

this lists gets zero
why?
why should you punish this fun list?

If you're taking bizarro / "fun" lists, then you're not playing for top marks, you're playing just to play. Ergo, scoring doesn't matter so much - why do you care?

Just filling your "fun" stuff is around 1250 pts. In 1500, you can barely play with 2 minimum Troops.

Actually, yes, it should. As the Nidzilla guys showed, killing lots of MCs isn't easy, and they field no more than 8. You have effectively 9. How is that "fun" for your opponent?

OTOH, if you were to be monster-themed and high comp, then the army looks like this:
1 DP
1 GD
1 Dread
6 Troops
1 unit Spawns
1 Defiler
That's <600 pts in "fun" stuff, leaving 900 pts for you to field a full 6 Troops for full comp points.

you can still do a 4 land raider spam list and get 8/10 points.

any comp system out there. there will be lists that abuse it.

thehod wrote:Your comp system is limiting on what the player wants to bring to perform well at your hypothetical tournament.

Who are you to tell people how to play their army? The game designers tell us how to play our armies by making restrictions on what we can or cannot take.

The current comp system will make for bland gameplay as people who try to conform to your comp system so they can have a remote chance of winning.

Some armies such as Eldar and Tau rely on their non-troops to win their games. Dark Eldar will do poorly on comp since filling out troops will only take 700-800 points leaving them with no choice but to max out on HQ and only have 1 real viable HS and elites (not that you care much for DE). You admit the guard army you posted wouldnt be as good. Necrons too have little choice in their codex and would be forced to take all warriors for an 8/10 comp and have the most boring of games ever.

Your comp system would also make some fluffy armies take hits on their comp such as a sternguard list with Kantor or an Ironhands list that has maxed out elites and maxed out heavies and only 3 troops and a master of the forge. An all Nurgle Deamon army would score a 2-3 at best along with any single mark army. These armies have a theme built in them and yet would score little or nothing with the comp system while lash armies would score higher than the above mentioned armies.

A comp system is calling cheese in a passive aggressive way. Your system is flawed and can be exploited with some careful planning. I suggest you never run a tournament.

A "no comp" system is just as limiting (if not moreso) on what a player can bring if they want to do well at a tournament. How many top lists are fielding Possessed CSM, or Eldar Storm Guardians? How many top lists are packed with Vanguard SM or IG Ogryns & Commissars?

Did I say that you can't field dual-Lash triple-Oblit CSM? No, I make no such restriction. The only likelihood is that you won't score top marks, whereas a guy who brings something that is a bit more balanced and fun for the opponent to play against probably will.

I make no bones or apologies for shifting the scoring system. Tell me this: Why should 40k tournaments devolve into a contest to see who can create and pilot the most broken list? Why shouldn't 40k tournaments emphasize generalship of a mixture of units? Why can't there be hi-comp tournaments as well as no-comp tournaments?

Where did I ever say that an army must be 10/10? I said that 8+/10 would be typical. So those Eldar / Tau players would just have to make some smart or clever choices about what breaks they want to have. But the thing that you miss is that those Eldar / Tau / whomever probably aren't winning the tournament under no-comp, either. So it's not a big deal from that perspectve. However, rather than having to gear up with lots of non-Troops for power, in a lower-power environment, they might do just fine.

How does a pure Nurgle Daemon army not score a reasonable comp? I have:
GUO
Beasts
Nurglings / Plaguebearers
(converted Furies)
DP
That's 10/10. If I pull the Furies for no Fast, that's 8/10.

Dual-Lash triple Oblits??
2 Lash (--)
(elite)
4 Troops (-)
(fast)
3x Oblits (--)
With 7 non-Troops, the best score possible is 5/10, clearly worse than the purist Nurgle 8/10 or the Nurgle themed 10/10.

As for Theme, not all themes are good or balanced and deserving of Comp rewards. I think the old triple-oblit quad-pie Iron Warriors proved that pretty conclusively. Now one could score Theme separately from Comp, but that's a subjective thing, unlike the purely-objective checkbox Comp I have here.

As for being breakable, I don't doubt that to be the case. But what I put up appears to do an adequate job at clamping down on the obvious max-(good) / min-(required) / no-(bad) armies that annoy people to play against. And that's all that one can expect of any comp system.

As for "passive-aggressive", I don't know what your issues are, but IMO, I think you're taking things a bit too personally...

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I presume that GW intended for certain armies to be limited or weak in certain areas, so forcing players to take non-optimal units helps to emphasizes the full nature of each list. When players only take the "best" units, as opposed to some mix of of the "best", "good", and "bad" units then that presents a fuller, more representative picture of each army as it was designed.

That's crap, with absolutely no evidence aside from your own feelings on the subject. The studio has created a way to construct armies...it's called the Codex. They've chosen not to use 0-1, 0-2, or other similar restrictions when they could have.

Who are you to say that your way of playing is better, or more correct?

That argument sound familiar?

Any comp system can be abused. Your system doesn't really resolve any problems - all it does is create new ones. On top of that, you screw armies that have limited selections in their codexes.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by "half a HQ slot". If a Herald is a HQ entry, then it's a 2nd HQ, so it's max HQ slots used.

Read the Chaos Daemons codex. Heralds are half an HQ slot, so Daemon players can take four of them, or two plus a Greater Daemon, etc. Yet another flaw in any universal comp structure - its almost impossible to fairly deal with the variety and breath of different codicies.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As for the Troops, perhaps the notion would be to ignore duplicate Troops. It's a minor modification that apparently could make a number of people happy.

Okay...then you're just rewarding those armies that have solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops, at the expense of those that don't. Congratulations, you've just created a new problem! Well done.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm not a competitive player any more, but that doesn't mean I can't have a certain theoretical interest in Comp. It's an interesting thought exercise.

That's one opinion. Another opinion is that comp is a way for less-skilled players to excuse their inability to win games, while somehow claiming the moral high ground for because they're playing "correctly" while us beardy gits abuse codexes to find the most effective ways to outfit and construct army lists. And to be honest, I'm sick of being accused of powergaming and of not wanting my opponents to have fun, simply because I construct and field strong armies. And I'm really sick of people who do so, trying to act like they're somehow morally superior because they field sub-optimal armies.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with fielding a sub-optimal army. But if you're going to do so, don't try to claim that you're somehow playing a better game because of it, and don't penalize players who are playing legal armies that just happen to be better constructed.

skkipper wrote:you can still do a 4 land raider spam list and get 8/10 points.

any comp system out there. there will be lists that abuse it.

Can you post the list and points value? That would be helpful so I could check the scoring.

I'm not necessarily bothered by 4 LRs or other lists scoring 8/10. The goal of the proposed comp system was to punish WAAC lists that depend on min-max listbuilding, and so far, I think it's more-or-less doing that. Is it perfect? Of course not. It's OK, and that's probably enough. Couple it with player-scored Theme and Judges bonuses, and it's probably no worse than anything else that does comp.

Here's a 9/10 Land Raider Spam list

HQ: Brother-Captain
E: Ordo Malleus Inquisitor /w retinue in Land Raider
E: Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor /w retinue in Land Raider
T: Ordo Malleus =][= Stormtroopers
T: Grey Knights
T: Sisters of Battle
T: Ordo Hereticus =][= Stormtroopers
T: IG Armored Fist Squad
FA: Seraphim
HS: GK Land Raider
HS: GK Land Raider Crusader

You can squeeze that into 1750 points. If you drop to 8/10, you can make the list much more competitive.

[X] 3+ Troops
[X] More Troops than any other category
[] More Troops than all non-Troops combined
[X] 1+ Elite, 1+ Fast, *and* 1+ Heavy
[X] Non-max, no-dupe HQ
[X] Non-max, no-dupe Elite
[X] Non-max, no-dupe Fast
[X] Non-max, no-dupe Heavy
[X] No max HQ, max Elite, max Fast, *nor* max Heavy
[X] No dupe non-Troops

I'm not necessarily bothered by 4 LRs or other lists scoring 8/10. The goal of the proposed comp system was to punish WAAC lists that depend on min-max listbuilding, and so far, I think it's more-or-less doing that.

That's the whole major flaw in universal comp systems - it doesn't punish WAAC lists (which term, in and of itself is a way to make yourself morally superior to other players) but it simply creates new ones. To come up with a realistic comp system, you essentially have to re-write each individual codex.

You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game. Something to be admired and sought-after.

When did we start calling white black, and black white?

If someone's models are not painted as well, they will not score as highly.

If someone's tactics are not very good, they will not score as highly.

If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I presume that GW intended for certain armies to be limited or weak in certain areas, so forcing players to take non-optimal units helps to emphasizes the full nature of each list. When players only take the "best" units, as opposed to some mix of of the "best", "good", and "bad" units then that presents a fuller, more representative picture of each army as it was designed.

That's crap, with absolutely no evidence aside from your own feelings on the subject. The studio has created a way to construct armies...it's called the Codex. They've chosen not to use 0-1, 0-2, or other similar restrictions when they could have.

Who are you to say that your way of playing is better, or more correct?

Any comp system can be abused.

Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?

Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

And while GW has Codices, they also expect players to exercise some restraint in listbuilding, hence TMIR. GW gives examples of such armies, and they even give a Fluff OOB in the SM case. A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:
Company Command (w/ Razorback)
1 Dread
5 Tactical squads (w/ Rhinos)
1 Assault squad
1 Devastator squad (w/ Rhino)
Interestingly, this scores 10/10 under my comp system. Given that this Fluffy force is 10/10, whereas the Kantor Sternguard force isn't, I'd say that GW would probably agree that my system does a better job.

And once again (like a freakin' broken record), nobody would be forced to change their list. They just won't score full points. How is that a problem, again? Is the tournament about a total experience, or just winning? And once again, how does any given comp system preclude no-comp events from being held?

At least you're not arguing that no-comp isn't abusive, or less-abusive than my version...

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by "half a HQ slot". If a Herald is a HQ entry, then it's a 2nd HQ, so it's max HQ slots used.

Read the Chaos Daemons codex. Heralds are half an HQ slot, so Daemon players can take four of them, or two plus a Greater Daemon, etc. Yet another flaw in any universal comp structure - its almost impossible to fairly deal with the variety and breath of different codicies.

OK, then I read it properly. Max HQ slots used. And if you play GW games, then I'm sure you're well aware that a minor "flaw" doesn't invalidate the system. After all, you're willing to gloss over an umpteen-page FAQ that significantly rebalances 40k and the Codices in many fundamental ways... I understand that it seriously screws themed Dark Angels, so clearly, we ought to invalidate Yakface's FAQ, right?

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As for the Troops, perhaps the notion would be to ignore duplicate Troops. It's a minor modification that apparently could make a number of people happy.

Okay...then you're just rewarding those armies that have solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops, at the expense of those that don't.

And this is different from things as the they currently stand today, how, exactly?
____

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm not a competitive player any more, but that doesn't mean I can't have a certain theoretical interest in Comp. It's an interesting thought exercise.

That's one opinion.

Another opinion is that comp is a way for less-skilled players to excuse their inability to win games, while somehow claiming the moral high ground for because they're playing "correctly" while us beardy gits abuse codexes to find the most effective ways to outfit and construct army lists. And to be honest, I'm sick of being accused of powergaming and of not wanting my opponents to have fun, simply because I construct and field strong armies. And I'm really sick of people who do so, trying to act like they're somehow morally superior because they field sub-optimal armies.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with fielding a sub-optimal army. But if you're going to do so, don't try to claim that you're somehow playing a better game because of it, and don't penalize players who are playing legal armies that just happen to be better constructed.

Except, if you look into that SM Codex and the notional OOB, along with the sorts of varied armies that GW actually fields by example, then these kinds of varied armies actually *are* more "correct".

And the fact of the matter is, if you're focused on trying to field the most effective way to outfit or construct army lists, then by definition, you're powergaming. Now if you were building your army because you had an interesting theme in mind, and thought it would be a fun challenge for your opponent, then that would be a different story, but that's not what you're doing, is it. Look, if you're a powergamer who doesn't care whether your opponent has fun - the least you can do is man up and admit it.

Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. How you can get satisfaction from winning with a clearly superior list is somewhat beyond me. I actually have to ask if you can still win without the crutch of a power list, whether you actually have the generalship ability to play a weaker list and still win without a starting advantage. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

And really, why should players who field Fluffy lists be penalized by a "no-comp" system? Can you explain that to me?

It seems to me that the best player is the one who can take a Fluffy, opponent-friendly list and win with it.


Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

Centurian99 wrote:Here's a 9/10 Land Raider Spam list

You can squeeze that into 1750 points. If you drop to 8/10, you can make the list much more competitive.

I'm not necessarily bothered by 4 LRs or other lists scoring 8/10. The goal of the proposed comp system was to punish WAAC lists that depend on min-max listbuilding, and so far, I think it's more-or-less doing that.

That's the whole major flaw in universal comp systems - it doesn't punish WAAC lists (which term, in and of itself is a way to make yourself morally superior to other players) but it simply creates new ones. To come up with a realistic comp system, you essentially have to re-write each individual codex.

I really don't see your 9/10 4 LR list as so bad. There's a lot of soft, squishy stuff there, too.

Re-writing each Codex isn't feasible at all. And I don't think it would produce "perfect" comp, either. Perfect comp simply isn't possible, re-write or not.
____

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

If someone's models are not painted as well, they will not score as highly.

If someone's tactics are not very good, they will not score as highly.

If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

I recall the categories to be Generalship, Sportsmanship, Painting, and Composition.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Funny how you instantly equate "power builds" to "power gaming" John. More amusing how you're not responding to what Doc Thunder actually said, but simply strawmanning him out of existance.

Still folks he continues to reframe things, redefine things, and vilify anyone who disagrees with him so they become bad and he becomes the one on the moral high ground, arguing from a point of self righteous bulls**t.

I'm sorry, I can't be the only one to see it - he does it in every f***ing thread?

(Just like I follow him around to point it out).

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?

No, I simply make a practice of heaping scorn on inexcusably silly ideas.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

Or they simply make up stuff that sounds cool, do some rudimentary playtesting, ignore comments that contradict what they think, and move on, because they're Not Interested in getting everything perfect, as long as it sells models.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And while GW has Codices, they also expect players to exercise some restraint in listbuilding, hence TMIR.

TMIR?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW gives examples of such armies, and they even give a Fluff OOB in the SM case. A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:
Company Command (w/ Razorback)
1 Dread
5 Tactical squads (w/ Rhinos)
1 Assault squad
1 Devastator squad (w/ Rhino)
Interestingly, this scores 10/10 under my comp system. Given that this Fluffy force is 10/10, whereas the Kantor Sternguard force isn't, I'd say that GW would probably agree that my system does a better job.

That's a joke, right? If that's how GW wanted the game to be played, they could have very easily made Tactical Squads 3+, Assault Squads 1+, and Dev squads 1+. Oh look, they didn't. Why is that, I wonder?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And once again (like a freakin' broken record), nobody would be forced to change their list. They just won't score full points. How is that a problem, again? Is the tournament about a total experience, or just winning? And once again, how does any given comp system preclude no-comp events from being held?

What exactly is this "total experience" you speak of. Painting? Modeling? Thematic Armies? I saw a gorgeously painted Pedro Kantor Sternguard army at a tournament a few weeks ago...why should my opponent have been penalized because he didn't build an army to someone else's arbitrary comp system, when he followed all the rules in the codex, and obviously put hundreds of man-hours into ridiculous amounts of freehand details on his figs?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
OK, then I read it properly. Max HQ slots used. And if you play GW games, then I'm sure you're well aware that a minor "flaw" doesn't invalidate the system. After all, you're willing to gloss over an umpteen-page FAQ that significantly rebalances 40k and the Codices in many fundamental ways... I understand that it seriously screws themed Dark Angels, so clearly, we ought to invalidate Yakface's FAQ, right?

Where I come from, 1.5 does not equal 2.

And when it comes to the INAT and DA, you might want to actually read it before making comments, because a lot of the complaints of DA players were addressed when we reviewed it.

A larger point, however, is that we could do that...because the INAT addresses questions for a specific army in light of that army's codex. Any universal comp system is Epic Fail, because it can't do that, or else its not Universal. You could probably come up with separate comp lists for each codex in the game...but then you're essentially re-writing the codex.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As for the Troops, perhaps the notion would be to ignore duplicate Troops. It's a minor modification that apparently could make a number of people happy.

Okay...then you're just rewarding those armies that have solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops, at the expense of those that don't.

And this is different from things as the they currently stand today, how, exactly?

Because the armies without those solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops can rely on other force org slots to pick up the slack. Under your proposed system, they're penalized for doing so.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except, if you look into that SM Codex and the notional OOB, along with the sorts of varied armies that GW actually fields by example, then these kinds of varied armies actually *are* more "correct".

Or maybe they construct armies for the codex and OOB (whatever that acronym stands for) and WD because they want to show off a variety of models so that they'll sell more models.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And the fact of the matter is, if you're focused on trying to field the most effective way to outfit or construct army lists, then by definition, you're powergaming. Now if you were building your army because you had an interesting theme in mind, and thought it would be a fun challenge for your opponent, then that would be a different story, but that's not what you're doing, is it. Look, if you're a powergamer who doesn't care whether your opponent has fun - the least you can do is man up and admit it.

Never denied the fact that I'm a competive gamer. Just sick of non-competitive types feeling morally superior.

Because here's what it boils down to. Non-competitive gamers who really aren't playing to win, don't care if they win. So-called friendly-gamers who decry people who play power lists are really saying, "I want to win, I just don't want to have to deviate from my own limited vision of how the game is supposed to be played in order to win." To me, there's a small whiff of hypocrisy there.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. How you can get satisfaction from winning with a clearly superior list is somewhat beyond me. I actually have to ask if you can still win without the crutch of a power list, whether you actually have the generalship ability to play a weaker list and still win without a starting advantage. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

I have to laugh at that. Nice attempt to tar me, but although it really doesn't matter, here are the armies, I've played.

My first army was that powerhouse of 3rd edition...Dark Angels. Which eventually became a regular Deathwing and Ravenwing force. True power armies there. Winning with those armies was so easy and simple.
Then I built a Guard army. But not just any Guard army. I'm a powergamer, so of course I built...a Jungle Fighters army. Because taking a Catachan Veterans force to a GT was a guaranteed recipe for success.
Then I played Nids for a while, sold 'em, and decided to pick up Tau when they were released. Because we all know how overpowering Tau were in 3rd Edition.
After playing Tau, I decided I needed an even more overpowered army, so of course I built a Daemonhunters force.


When 4th Edition came around, I still used the Tau and Guard, but I thought I'd like a new challenge, so I played Night Lords, which we all know was the most broken of all the Chaos Space Marine lists in the Pete Haines codex. Yep, taking four fast attack choices was an auto-win in 4th Edition.
And then I went back to tyranids...well Stealer Shock became considered a power list. Why did that happen?
And now I'm playing Chaos Daemons, which we all knew, absolutely,positively, that they were going to rock the house. As soon as the codex came out, you could hear the cries: "Most broken list ever."

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And really, why should players who field Fluffy lists be penalized by a "no-comp" system? Can you explain that to me?

It seems to me that the best player is the one who can take a Fluffy, opponent-friendly list and win with it.

Maybe because that's the way that GW has written the codexes. Why should "fluffy, opponent friendly" (as if there was a widespread agreement on fluff, or what's opponent-friendly) get advantages over players who use equally-legal lists?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

In other words, because you can't defend your points, besides making accusations about things that you honestly know nothing about, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and hum.

I have absolutely no issues with comp, as long as you accept it for what it is- changing the goalposts. Every legal list is subject to a certain degree of comp just by adhering to the codex and FoC. Currently under these rules there are certain winning codi (sp) and lists. If you change the rules there will be other winning codi and lists. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. Introducing a bit of a change is generally fun, especially if you play in a lot of no comp tournaments. It allows for new list optimisation and takes the net-lists out of the equation, making proper list construction a skill again.

At it's most base level this acceptance of what comp is makes devising the system so much easier. It could be as simple as changing the points level. Bottom line is that it doesn't have to be 100% balanced, just different.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

....

Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

I really couldn't disagree more.

To the first statement...What? They don't, they really don't and have often expressed that their checks and balances just don't take extreme lists into account. Orcs appear to be the most internally balanced codex, but thats just because they are so imbalanced externally (nob bikers asside ). Try playing competatively and this will become quickly apparant. If GW do such a good job of balance how can there be WAAC lists?

To the second comment... It's really apparant that you aren't a competative gamer Jonny. That is of course your perogative, but if you don't play with/against the big boys how do you know it is boring? I for one love WAAC tournament games, but can also relax into storyhammer if I need to. To an extent you limit your 40k experience by admonishing one side of the game.

--edit--
5th Ed completely invalidates oldskool comp based around troops. Turns out the armies with the best troops are the best in the game now...go figure.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Funny how you instantly equate "power builds" to "power gaming" John. More amusing how you're not responding to what Doc Thunder actually said, but simply strawmanning him out of existance.

Still folks he continues to reframe things, redefine things, and vilify anyone who disagrees with him so they become bad and he becomes the one on the moral high ground, arguing from a point of self righteous bulls**t.

I'm sorry, I can't be the only one to see it - he does it in every f***ing thread?

(Just like I follow him around to point it out).

BYE

Emphasis mine. I see it too. I just quoted everything so he could see it.

Oddjob. wrote:5th Ed completely invalidates oldskool comp based around troops. Turns out the armies with the best troops are the best in the game now...go figure.

This is one of the big problems I have with comp systems. If people actually play with 5th ed missions (or something close at least) you end up with players who bring "balanced" armies because of the following:

Annihilation-style missions encourage players to bring big "fluffy" units rather than maxing out on small units with max-special-and-heavy-weapons.

Seize-Ground-style missions encourage players to bring lots of troops to have the best chance to control more objectives when the dust settles.

Capture and Control missions encourage players to bring a mix of mobile units and hardy static units to try to hold their own objective and capture their opponent's.

Couple these ideas with recent codex design trends (special/heavy weapon options reliant on number of models purchased in a unit) and you have an environment where comp isn't really needed.

In fact, the most abusive army lists are ones which break these "rules" by allowing non-troops units to be troops.

JohnDD.

I find your comp-system really interesting. Can you give some examples of battlepoints-spread?
If you state something like "major victory" or "massacre", please define those.

To those that believe the standard GW 1-2, 0-3, 2-6, 0-3, 0-3 is fine; cool but please leave the rest of us to work in peace. Simply stating "codex is enough" or "comp is the crutch of the weak" is not constructive input. It is simply trolling and will be reported as such.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. How you can get satisfaction from winning with a clearly superior list is somewhat beyond me. I actually have to ask if you can still win without the crutch of a power list, whether you actually have the generalship ability to play a weaker list and still win without a starting advantage. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

On rereading some of this thread this tid-bit jumped out at me. Completely and utterly false. Anyone in the running for a decent tournament knows that in the first round or two you might come up against a chump. So be it. But from that point on everyone has the big dog lists (of which there are many more variations than the interwebz would have you believe) and knows how to play them. Power lists are only a crutch if nobody else has one- if everybody does the game becomes infinately more tactical. Your sentiments suggest that you never really played competatively, just turned up.

I generally find poker to be a decent analogy to 40k. Just because you can't see the gambits and ploys that allow the same people to be at the final table doesn't mean that they aren't there, it just means that you have to raise your game before you will understand them.

This is all a bit OT- Though I do really like *Cents* first pass at comp way back in the first thread.

*Oops- I obviously meant warmasters original post.

To warmaster I would not take anything JohnWongDD say seriously. No one else here does.

D

H.B.M.C. wrote:Funny how you instantly equate "power builds" to "power gaming" John. More amusing how you're not responding to what Doc Thunder actually said, but simply strawmanning him out of existance.

Still folks he continues to reframe things, redefine things, and vilify anyone who disagrees with him so they become bad and he becomes the one on the moral high ground, arguing from a point of self righteous bulls**t.

I'm sorry, I can't be the only one to see it - he does it in every f***ing thread?

(Just like I follow him around to point it out).

BYE

My hero strikes again.

grizgrin wrote:Best comp concept right here:




Like that idea? Me too.

Agreed. Or everyone plays the same exact list.

Which is the more powerful list?

10 Nob bikers w/ Warboss, all Nobz are unique for wound allocation

10 Nob bikers w/ Warboss, unit has Painboy, 3x Slugga + CCW, 3x Big Choppa, 3x Powerklaw (in other words, not making them all unique for wound allocation)

By force org, they're the same. By points, they're nearly the same (throw in a couple combi-skorchas and bosspoles). Clearly 1 is more powerful than 2. But not because of list building, because of wound allocation rules.

No game is perfect. If you go back to fourth edition wound allocation, the Vet Sgt w/ Powerfist is ALWAYS the last man standing (except for maybe the lascannon).

The problem isn't in the lists people bring, it's in the rules. Fix the rules. Write Jervis a letter.

I believe the problem is in the people playing, not the rules.

Feeling an overwhelming anf completely irresistable desire to always field the strongest armylist at the exclusion (and this is really the more important part) of every other option?
Then I feel that you (generic "you") are the problem, not the game.

Now, personally, I don't play in tournaments and I play to hang out and because I enjoy the fluff.

Having said that, I don't see the need for Comp scores. All they lead to is a different set of Power Builds dominating as the same people who build powerful lists in a no-comp environment are as likely to build powerful lists that fit whatever comp guidelines exists. Indeed this is what happened back in the early RTT's & GT's that had comp scores.

I have no problem playing powerful lists, either for or against. I play to have fun, and if my opponent has Twin-Lash triple Oblits, I'm going to have fun trying (and knowing my Tau, and my generalship, failing) to overcome such a powerful list. Honestly, As long as you aren't playing TFG, just man up and enjoy the chance to play the game for a couple of hours. If you get tabled, you get tabled. There's always another game, and if it's a friendly game, you can always tweak your list for next time.

Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective. You could have 8 people look at the same army and they could award it 8 different scores.

If you want to include them, the Grading (Scale 1-10, etc.) is the worst way, because some people will give a '5' as default, and some will give a '10' as the default. And, if two people agree that something is good, one might give it an 8 and the other a 10. So, you get scores all over the place.

The checkbox system works, since it generally forces the 'norm' to the same score. But, it also gives less 'bonus points' if something is exceptional (painting, theme, etc.).

I prefer, and it's the least used, the ranking system. At the end of the tourney, rank your opponents by Sportsmanship, Appearance, Comp, etc. The downside, is it makes those 'soft scores' competetive like the game results, but it also forces everyone to give a 1-2-3 etc. result.

What is the most powerful list? People will tell you different things. Did anyone think that Necrons would win the Ard Boyz 2007? It certainly wasn't considered one of the more powerful lists, but at that point level, 3 'liths was brutal. But, if he had played 3 tau players with mass railguns - I doubt it would have worked as well. Nob Bikers are the 'power build' of the week. Until everyone is taking 10 TH/SS terminators for half the points.

In games, there will always be a more powerful list. Doesn't matter if it's a different edition of 40k, WFB, Warmachine, etc. There's always a more powerful model/unit/build for the points.

A comp. score system should be done at the start of the tournament before any games are played. People who get tabled in a game usually don't give their opponent high comp. scores.

dietrich wrote:Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective. You could have 8 people look at the same army and they could award it 8 different scores.

Which is why I find JohnDDs suggestion interesting. Not as a complete system in and of itself, but as an interesting startingpoint.

Im from Denmark and you should see some of the lame-ass army selection systems that people promote around here. Straight up codex tournaments are pretty much the exception here and I frigging hate it. Several armies and army types are impossible to make under the restrictions. Simply impossible. Maybe I should translate some of them to english just so we can have a nice laugh together.

That is most likely the reason why I am "defending" Johns idea. At least I can make any army I want (with corresponding consequences).

Steelmage99 wrote:
Feeling an overwhelming anf completely irresistable desire to always field the strongest armylist at the exclusion (and this is really the more important part) of every other option?
Then I feel that you (generic "you") are the problem, not the game.

Only when going to a competative (50 person+) tournament. Thats kind of the point of the competative environment isn't it? Lets not confuse tournament play (what we are discussing) with clubnight beerhammer.

In the UKGTs there is no comp, yet the variety of lists is pretty big among the top tables. I have no doubt that they all approximate to what the owner of the army thinks is the most competative for their given codex.

Oh, I can play this game too!

Vulkan

tac marines flamer MM rhino
tac marines melta MM rhino
SoB Hflamer melta rhino
SoB Hflamer flamer rhino

Celestines flamer flamer rhino
Th/SS Assault termies

MM Assault bike
Dominions flamerx4 HF immolator

LR Reedemer

looks like a 9/10!

Comp systems inherently favor armies with strong troops costed efficiently since nearly every comp system I've seen is weighted towards benefitting the list with the most "troops". Beyond that they're all just a bad mishmash of trying to limit powerful units (Fewer than 3 Elites/Heavies, only 3 total Elites/Heavies, bonus points for only 1 Elite and Heavy) or forcing you to take various powerful units on the premise that this somehow dilutes their power (1 Obliterator, 1 Dreadnought, 1 Possessed, not 3 Obliterators).

So in the end, all Comp does is say that the most overall powerful codices should be rewarded more than less powerful, or less power-dispersed codices.

Orks for example have a sizable advantage in any "Composition competition" because they have very good, relatively cheap troops and powerful, relatively cheap everything else to boot.

0-1 Ghazghkul
0-1 Big Mek KFF
4-6x Boyz
1-2x Lootaz
0-3x Skorcha Buggies
1x Kommandos
0-3x Battlewagons
0-9x KillaKanz

This list can have various incarnations at 1500-2000 pts and be competitive against virtually anything while achieving full composition. This is simply because Ork units are powerful and cheap across all FOC options. Compare something like Grey Knights, where the base units are very expensive and ineffective against mechanized armies. Now the GK player is penalized for not taking enough troops (Comp) or for not taking enough anti-armor (Gameplay). Clearly the GK player deserves to be dinged, though, because he chose to play a compositionally weaker overall army. Wait, what?

OddJob. wrote:Only when going to a competative (50 person+) tournament. Thats kind of the point of the competative environment isn't it? Lets not confuse tournament play (what we are discussing) with clubnight beerhammer.

In the UKGTs there is no comp, yet the variety of lists is pretty big among the top tables. I have no doubt that they all approximate to what the owner of the army thinks is the most competative for their given codex.

Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

The point here is not to debate the value of Comp, as far as I can tell. Its to discuss Comp scoring. If you don't care for Comp, then you don't have to participate in the discussion, its easy. Just as I don't jump into the discussions about Ard Boyz, Gladiators, or any of the other Tournaments that are out there. Not my cup of tea.

I prefer some type of Comp (having played in GTs from 1998 on), and seen their evolution. Were they perfect? No. Could they be done better? Maybe. Will there be a perfect one? Probably not.

Every change, whether its a comp scoring system, a new codex, or a special character that allows the FOC to be changed, has a tremendous impact on the game and the lists that can be built. Each tweak brings new stuff to the fore. It then becomes a matter of picking the 'lesser' of the evils for YOUR TOURNAMENT as the TO.

I for one perfer playing in smaller size games - i.e. 1500, the "balance point" for the game as per GW. Do the current best builds thrive there? Don't know. Do other builds thrive there, like Nidzilla? Yup.

Oh, and GW took the 0-1, 0-2, whatever off the army lists to SELL MORE MODELS. They're not going to sell lots of Sternguard if they're a 0-1 Elite choice, are they.

I'd like to return to the discussion about COMP SCORING, thanks.

What about Necrons? One troop choice, so thats a point dropped straigh off the bat. Hardly fair considering.

Then further add that in order to get the most out of their rules, they need multiples of units, plus Tomb Spyders, and just to have a functioning force they are dropping points left right and centre.

Cruentus wrote:Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

I think the biggest thing with any tourney is know 'what' the tourney will be like. Scoring and missions should be available beforehand (or at least example scenarios - ie, what we used last year).

Cruentus wrote:Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

Absolutely agreed. I would, however, attend both tournaments if I could. I see comp meerly as a different set of rules to game a list around. With this criteria in mind I realise that....

Cruentus wrote:I prefer some type of Comp (having played in GTs from 1998 on), and seen their evolution. Were they perfect? No. Could they be done better? Maybe. Will there be a perfect one? Probably not.

Each tweak brings new stuff to the fore. It then becomes a matter of picking the 'lesser' of the evils for YOUR TOURNAMENT as the TO.

...there are no evils, lesser or otherwise, meerly different rules to play with.

Cruentus wrote:I'd like to return to the discussion about COMP SCORING, thanks.

It's the nature of the discussion- if you really believe there is a 'perfect' or 'best' comp system to aim for then you are open to the debate about the validity of comp. Thats why this issue is contentious, it brings out polar opposites that believe their was to play the game is best, and both are wrong. I get annoyed with people who arrogantly get on a high horse *coughjonnywcough* and attempt to vilify those with an opposing opinion.

If you realise that all composition rules (including no comp) are created approximately equal, then the over-riding objective must be to create variety in armies being played (relative to an alternative comp setup, including none), not playing the armies that the TO wants to see.

Although I agree with Bill Kim on this issue, I'm interested in testing out John's Comp scoring in a tournament. From a players standpoint I would be intrigued in trying to fool around with the system and beat it the best I could. I am not at all convinced that the obvious army builds are the optimal builds. In this regards I will take my WAAC army building philosophy and try to bend it around the comp rules of this tournament.

From a tournament organizer's perspective I would enjoy seeing the new army lists that come from this. I'm sure some of the old standby's of 5th edition will be represented, but there shold be many more army types out there competing for the top spots than now. For that matter who knows who will be in the top spots. I mean your comp score can affect your battle points so who's to say where they will fall in this tournament.

The biggest problem I see is advertising the comp rules to players. I find several people do not read more than the date and points levels for a tournament and there will certainly be players who show up having no idea about the strict changes to the comp selection process.

I think it would be cool to give this a try. I find it fun trying to break new systems or at least see how people will try to adapt.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Given people are trying to poke holes at the sample Comp system I cobbled together, I think it's worth spending a moment to discuss what it's trying to do and why it does what it does.

In general, this is trying to encourage a GW-style batrep army. If you look at GW batreps, they rarely have duplicates, except when absolutely necessary due to army list constraints, and even then, those dupes tend to be Troops (GW likes Troops). GW tries to maximize variety, which has the pleasant side effect of showcasing the maximum number of types of models (for sales purposes).

So I start with Troops, which would be non-minimum, and preferably the bulk of things. I award points for having non-max, non-duplicative HQ, Elite, Fast, and Heavy. And then I award bonus points for the full variety, no (non-Troop) max, and no duplicates.

If you are shooting for max 10 points, you must take:
1 HQ
1 Elite
5 Troops (5 different flavors)
1 Fast
1 Heavy

If you want a second Elite, Fast, or Heavy, you will need a 6th flavor of Troops.

In general, I think an 8 or 9 is a good target to shoot for, as not all armies have enough Troops options to allow for 5 or 6 different Troops.

Penalizing for not have different flavors of troops is not reasonable. What do Necrons, Dark Angels, MArines, etc do?

In general, this is trying to encourage a GW-style batrep army. If you look at GW batreps, they rarely have duplicates, except when absolutely necessary due to army list constraints, and even then, those dupes tend to be Troops (GW likes Troops). GW tries to maximize variety, which has the pleasant side effect of showcasing the maximum number of types of models (for sales purposes).

GW-style batrep armies are made to showcase new models and make all the 12 year olds want them by playing them against another non-competitive army. You know this. It is a wholly different goal from a GT circuit army.

Okay so my take away from this is that everyone likes John's idea of comp more than mine .

I like the idea of having both comp and no comp tournaments. Remember this is basically for the local store to run. The idea here is that there are a lot of newer players or people that are interested in the painting and modelling side of the hobby. I don't know if using the word afraid is the right one or not. But you get the same people that will play in the tournaments over and over, and you won't find a lot of the new guys or the painters and modellers. When you talk to them they say it's because they don't want to have to try to tool up their lists to try to take on dual lash, or nob bikers. They either aren't interested in modelling those figs, or they have a certain play style.

Normally you could of course say tough and move on. But the thought is there that there has to be something else you can run for people that play softer kinds of armies.

I hated the comp rules under the old system. And I really disagreed with the title Rogue Trader Tournament. I felt it should have been called a Rogue Trader Event. And maybe that's how a comp tournament should be billed as a Warhammer 40k Event. It just happens to include 3 rounds of games, that figure prominently into scores.

So if you are truly trying to make it more of a hobby event/tournament what have you, how do you award points for composition and theme. This comes down to the fact that theme and comp are so subjective. Do you tell people to bring back story about what their theme is. Set aside time for all the players to walk through and look at everything and vote?

Remember this isn't something big and massive. Probably a maximum of 16 people.

Maybe the idea here would be to have the 3 rounds. But then include 45 minutes or so between round 2 and 3 for people to wander and look at theme and rate the other armies.

I'm starting to ramble here so I'll stop but what do people think?

in a 5 game event.
100 battle points
50 sportsmanship
50 paint.
200 points total

how many points should comp be?
currently it is 10 out of 50 sportsmanship points.

skkipper wrote:in a 5 game event.
100 battle points
50 sportsmanship
50 paint.
200 points total

how many points should comp be?
currently it is 10 out of 50 sportsmanship points.

Zero, but I know that's not popular.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

Zero, but I know that's not popular.

Actually no, that is the most popular. The vast majority of people don't want to lose points simply for showing up with the army they want to play.

I don't think its a good thing to have this "Comp" be such an obtuse and overly stated affector on a tournament.

The basic K.I.S.S. principle is more then enough to give all players in a tournament a run for thier money.

Bottom line, someone has to win, someone has to lose. It should be the tournament's intention to have as well rounded/ open and even keel as a tourny as they can.

Inposing things such as were given in terms of some of these features posted gives one the impression, that if these rules are played, then the tournaments are only designed for specific, already established builds.

All in all they are craptastic, and if thats how people have to win, I really seriously don't feel that the tournies that instill this gak are worth the time or the waste of oxygen.

!. What are you bringing to the table? Im bringing an army to kick your butt with. I make it as well rounded as I can so it can play well against a structured opponent that is coming for me with both barrels. If I want to bring three Baneblades, and a partridge in a pear tree, then so be it.

The TO should set the tone of the event, and if its Soft or Hard, then that should be information well available, and I can plan My army accordingly.

The GAME portion of the tourny should boil down to- How many points did you get in the game? Who you played within the tournament, and how badly did you kick thier butt?

Other parts can easily have different areas to score, but they should be stuff like Biggest loser, Cheesehead, or Gankmaister( fun, sidebar awards that are all inclusive, and give everyone a good laugh. Other catagoris should go along with Sportsmanship, like if Timmy was an Ass, or Best Painted Army or Units, but these shouldn't have any bearing on the Competition itself.

Look at Johns list, and the one you began the conversation with.

Those lists of all that crap look like my fine print on my Insurance Policy.

Comp is a new age feel good idea, from what I'm seeing here, to justify giving someone who brings whatever they thought was cool, but is pretty weaksauce, just because they "Liked the concept" when they knew in their heart that they should have played with something with a little more Omph to it, brought some more heavy weapons to deal with heavy threats, or something that resembles an army that should be played in a tournament setting.

There is a time and a place for "Spiffy", and then theres a time to kick someones teeth in for chops.

Comp seems to be an addition that is overpowering why you compete in the first place.

Thats like if I give someone a five minute head start in a 440 meter dash. Why would I do that if I want to play to win?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Actually, yeah. It's boring.

Seriously, the point can't be made with 1 Lord, 3 DC Assassins, 3 Penitent Engines and something else simply for variety's sake?

Is the point of comp scoring to promote interesting lists or to prevent power lists?

Comp seems to be an addition that is overpowering why you compete in the first place.

Comp is like government subsidiaries. We already have an overall system of regulation that we play within (the force org chart, game metatheory, codex special rules and expectations of certain armies/units) and a more or less level playing field for any person to take all of the available information and assemble their optimized fighting force to win the tournament with (beat opponents, accumulate points).

And then we have the comp rules, which, at best, amount to little more than a door prize for battle box lists to reward generity, and at worst turn into a ham-fisted attempt to railroad any list better than a battle box list back down to the level of uniform inside-the-box-ness.

As a UK based, non-competitive player I have no dog in this hunt, as Frazzled would say.

I've observed the US Comp scene from afar for several years. I haven't seen a system yet that wasn't either unfair to some armies or capable of being abused, or both. This is not by my judgement, it has been demonstrated by other users making up lists to beat the comp.

All these systems were more or less complicated and time-consuming for judges and players.

Also, any comp system which grants points is capable of being gamed and since the points awarded for comp are guaranteed (you can’t win or lose comp) it opens a new area for clever players to compete in.

These systems were aimed at preventing 'power' lists rather than increasing variety. I've never heard anyone suggest that variety is the purpose of having tournaments, though it seems a reasonable goal.

If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

The assumption, of course, is that the game rules themselves aren't just a ham fisted attempt to sell models.

I don't care either way on comp. I'll play in a tournament with or without it, depending on the comp rules. Comp doesn't (necessarily) dumb down the game...it just changes the rules. That is it. You'll either like the changes, or you won't. But it has nothing to do with government subsidies. Once there is an overall regulation, all you can do is change/add to the regulation. it's still regulated.

I think people are taking too much of JHDDs pretty restrictive comp rules and assuming THAT is what comp has to be...battle box armies, or penalized necrons, or whatever. You can make up all sorts of rules for comp that are less restrictive. You'll probably always end up with a "most powerful" army, the question is more whether the games will still be fun to play/competitive, and what the power differences are between lists, and if people still enjoy their lists. If you can make the lists closer in power with fewer overpowered lists (or just less difference between top and middle...forget lowest power they made their choice) then you might end up with a more fun, competitive tourney with more varied armies being competitve. Emphasis on might. But why not.

I don't think many people would have a problem with a tournament that avoided, say, kill points missions or modified them so IG could compete. More competitive armies = good. But thats still a rules change. Why are some rules changes a-ok but others are anathema to "competitive" gamers? I'd think if you wanted to be "competitive" you'd want balanced lists that were still fun and interesting.

Personally, my tournament wet dream is X players, 4 lists. Everyone plays 5 games, games are just 2 games List A vs List B (switching sides for the game), 2 games list C vs List D, and the last game the top table players choose which of the 4 lists they want in secret. Maybe some other variation of this, but you get the idea - no listbuilding, just playing, lists are made ahead of time by some commitee trying to make balanced, interesting lists. The more games the better. But it is of course functionally impossible, and really kind of avoids uh, the major parts of the hobby (painting/collecting/modeling/etc). But we'd see who's best (with those lists).

Kilkrazy wrote:If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

Except that (according to my games played in the last Baltimore GT), 6 out of the 10 SM armies would be Sternguard armies - all identical except for a razorback here, or an assault squad there. 9 of 10 of the CSM armies would be dual lash with minor variety on the types of ordinance, termie, oblits, and all SOB lists would be all mech. Makes for an incredibly boring Tournament. And my last GT had me facing 3 CSM armies (2 Dual Lash, identical), and 2 SM Armies, both Sternguard heavy. And thats in a Tourny of 100+ people.

Talk about bad draw, and a boring time at an expensive Tourny.

@OddJob: I didn't think that debating the merits of Comp had anything to do with the OP's post. I thought we were talking about hot to make comp work, or debate different versions of Comp to help those TOs that want to use it.

Maybe, as mentioned, you have "Tournaments" and you have "Events". Nor living in the UK myself, I've always been intrigued by the 40k Campaign Weekends that are held by the Tempus Fugitives. Maybe that kind of thing (and thinking) is what needs to cross the pond for those who like the 'hobby and fluff' aspects of the game, and just leave the Tournament scene to the Ard Boyz, Gladiators, and Comp-less tournies.

My experience is that even at a GT, you have two 'tournaments' going on: those at the top 10 tables with the netlist of the month lists, the next 10 tables for those hammered/tabled by a netlist, and the rest of the players happily playing whatever they brought (fluffy, hobby heavy, etc.) stuff. Do they want to be competitive? Sure. Do they want to have fun? Sure. Do they want the headache of uber-competition? I don't think so.

I don't need any drama in my hobby of playing with little plastic dollies. I just don't take it as seriously as some.

*edited for clarity

Regardless of the method of Comp - I think it would add spice and variety to have tournaments with different things like this added in - Not all tournaments - but different "Tweaks" for some.

JohnHwangDD wrote:bland is having 3 kinds of things all doing essentially the same thing.

I disagree. I like armies with lots of duplicates. I like a 6 dread in drop pod army. I like an army of all ork bikers. I like all wraith armies.

I think having an army with no duplicates is ugly, IMHO, especially eldar.

I have a major problem with comp though when you go to a tournement that determines comp without any kind of reasoning other than how people feel.

Example-Last week's Broadside Bash

They have 2 judges give you a score of 0-6. They then add those together and that determines your starting opponent. The problem is that this is completely subjective. There was no list that comp was based on and no guideline. The points are also equal to just short of a win (15pts) so if you managed to bring a decent army (according to faceless judges) then you started a full win ahead of most of the other guys.

The scores were available if you asked what you got and so I asked. I was given a 4/12. A 2 by both judges for having over 40% in troops (6 choices), didn't max my MC's, no section other than troops over 21% and took units generally considered majorly underpowered for tournement events.

This is why I hate comp. It isn't always posted how they work it out ahead of time and to be honest unless it is posted next year or they eliminate comp I won't be attending.

Cruentus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

Except that (according to my games played in the last Baltimore GT), 6 out of the 10 SM armies would be Sternguard armies - all identical except for a razorback here, or an assault squad there. 9 of 10 of the CSM armies would be dual lash with minor variety on the types of ordinance, termie, oblits, and all SOB lists would be all mech. Makes for an incredibly boring Tournament. And my last GT had me facing 3 CSM armies (2 Dual Lash, identical), and 2 SM Armies, both Sternguard heavy. And thats in a Tourny of 100+ people.

Talk about bad draw, and a boring time at an expensive Tourny.

You could always divide things up differently. My basic point was trying to ensure variety in a tournament is going to take a lot of aggro. If you want every army to be different the way to do it is to write all 100 lists and players who want to enter have to pick a list -- only one example of each list can be taken.

The thing is that the game is entirely designed to allow players to choose a faction then choose a list from that faction. It's only because of bad codex and unit power balance that there are obvious power lists to be 'abused'.

We know that maybe 60% of armies sold are SM. How's that for variety?

I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

lambadomy wrote:I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

The goal is impossible, because all codexes are not created equal, or even use the same structure. I'm not talking about the HQ/Elite/Troop/FA/HS structure, but rather what those units do and how they perform. An army consisting entirely of Fire Warriors is by no means the equivalent of an army constructed entirely of Boyz.

I'd want a comp list that creates for a wide variety of lists but doesn't discourage powerful list building. I like playing powerful lists.

Centurian99 wrote:

lambadomy wrote:I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

The goal is impossible, because all codexes are not created equal, or even use the same structure. I'm not talking about the HQ/Elite/Troop/FA/HS structure, but rather what those units do and how they perform. An army consisting entirely of Fire Warriors is by no means the equivalent of an army constructed entirely of Boyz.

I agree with Bill 100% here. In order to create a fair comp system you would have to have a comp scorecard for every codex available. As some people said before, that comp system bones Necrons, tau, and eldar who rely on their non-troops to win their games.

Also, is there a list out there that proves the restrictions and rules set forth by the devs arent fair enough for tournie play?

Is there a list/codex out there that wins even 75% of tournament games it takes part in?

The only one I can think of that I can imagine people answering with are Nob Bikers (and I still would disagree) but still, how many times has that list REALLY been played competitively? Do you see several in every event?

I dont think we even need comp.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Funny how you instantly equate "power builds" to "power gaming" John. More amusing how you're not responding to what Doc Thunder actually said, but simply strawmanning him out of existance.

Still folks he continues to reframe things, redefine things, and vilify anyone who disagrees with him so they become bad and he becomes the one on the moral high ground, arguing from a point of self righteous bulls**t.

I'm sorry, I can't be the only one to see it - he does it in every f***ing thread?

(Just like I follow him around to point it out).

BYE

Your not the only one HBMC. His ideas of 40k should be played might as well be called checkers.

I believe there are really two types of "tournaments," inasmuch as that word can be used. There's the type of tournament that focuses only on battle results. Here, there's no artificial comp restrictions, you bring whatever you want to bring from your codex. There's no sportsmanship score, you assume that people are going to be at least somewhat reasonable. There's either no paint score, or it has limited effect (perhaps just a secondary award, no effect on final result). What do you know - this is like ArdBoyz! The Gladiator-style tournament, where winning with armies is everything.

The other type of tournament is the one that GW, I feel, was originally trying to aim for with their RTTs. This could probably be more accurately be called a "hobby tournament." In a hobby tournament, paint, sportsmanship, "theme," and comp scores, however defined, are just as important as battle points if not more so. Comp here may be enforced with one of Warmaster's formulas or something like John's, but the point is that ideally people will get rewarded for bringing a "balanced" army, which typically will not spam non-troop units. Consider, for example, a Fabius Bile-based army, with possessed and spawn, or perhaps a player trying to recreate the Ultramarines 3rd company. Yes, there is a best general award, but the overall will factor in all the categories because it's meant to go to the person in the tournament who best exemplifies the hobby as a whole.

For the first style of tournament, comp is a 4-letter word. It has a place in the second. I'm personally in favor of comp rules that benefit players rather then penalize them - you can play a "hardcore" list and hope to make up points in your overall through battle - no one's saying you can't use x, y, or z, but you get bonus points for not. Will it be perfect? No, probably not, nothing is. People will always try to game their way around restrictions. But people should be rewarded for playing lists that are balanced, fun, and welcoming to all players in the hobby.

thehod wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

lambadomy wrote:I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

The goal is impossible, because all codexes are not created equal, or even use the same structure. I'm not talking about the HQ/Elite/Troop/FA/HS structure, but rather what those units do and how they perform. An army consisting entirely of Fire Warriors is by no means the equivalent of an army constructed entirely of Boyz.

I agree with Bill 100% here. In order to create a fair comp system you would have to have a comp scorecard for every codex available. As some people said before, that comp system bones Necrons, tau, and eldar who rely on their non-troops to win their games.

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar. This discussion wasn't supposed to be limited to one persons comp rules. It's meant to be several peoples idea and suggestions. Coming in to a melting pot.

I don't know if I like John's wholesale. But I find the concept of using them to modify the battle points interesting, and have been tinkering with it a bit to see if it would work with the ones I put above.

I didn't start the topic to discuss if comp is good or bad. I knew going into it that people are on both sides of the issue. I get the fact that you and Cent don't agree with it, that's fine don't show up to a comp tournament. But you both definitely have a lot of experience and could help to come up with some ideas, instead of just deriding everything else saying mmmmkay, comp is bad!

Give out some ideas. Maybe instead of comp you run a themed tournament, assign people as defender or attackers have specific force org slots for if you signed up as an attacker or defender. Maybe you make the comp not worth any points, you just use it to do initial round pairings.

What kind of event/tournament whatever can you have that can include the modeler's and general hobbyists that want to play three games in a weekend.

Warmaster wrote:
Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar. This discussion wasn't supposed to be limited to one persons comp rules. It's meant to be several peoples idea and suggestions. Coming in to a melting pot.

I don't know if I like John's wholesale. But I find the concept of using them to modify the battle points interesting, and have been tinkering with it a bit to see if it would work with the ones I put above.

I didn't start the topic to discuss if comp is good or bad. I knew going into it that people are on both sides of the issue. I get the fact that you and Cent don't agree with it, that's fine don't show up to a comp tournament. But you both definitely have a lot of experience and could help to come up with some ideas, instead of just deriding everything else saying mmmmkay, comp is bad!

Give out some ideas. Maybe instead of comp you run a themed tournament, assign people as defender or attackers have specific force org slots for if you signed up as an attacker or defender. Maybe you make the comp not worth any points, you just use it to do initial round pairings.

What kind of event/tournament whatever can you have that can include the modeler's and general hobbyists that want to play three games in a weekend.

Well, assuming that this part is what you were talking about (I honestly didn't see it, since the vast majority of that post was devoted to the old, thankfully gone RTT comp structure:

This was my suggestion for a comp friendly tournament for them to think about since I didn't really like any of those above scoring criteria.
Everyone starts with their obligatory HQ and 2 troops. You can then add up to 1 troop, 1 fast attack, 1 elite or 1 heavy support. You cannot add a 2nd of any of those or another hq until you add 1 of all of those slots. Once you have filled in one from each force org type you can add a second. You cannot have 2 of the same HQ type.

So for example this would be legal:
1 HQ
3 Troops
1 Elite
1 Heavy Support
1 Fast Attack

but this is not:
1 HQ
6 Troops

So what does changing the game like this do. First it ruins the "theme" of some people's armies. Deathwing can't field termies, dreads, and land raiders. A Sam haim windrider host can't do all troops and fast attack. I'm sure there is a multitude of other theme's that are not unfair or beardy at all that would get hit by this. It's also drastically altering the basic rules of the game. So for the people that dislike the INAT faq they should probably dislike this as well.

The question is does this solve the main reason of comp. To exclude beardy lists from competition and encourage a more balanced list. At a quick glance it removes a lot of the top abusers and you would definitely see very different structed themes but I'm sure there are still abusable combo's out there. So if people want to hammer it by all means do so.

As you said...it doesn't really exclude beardy lists from competition, and all it does is restrict thematic options. No Deathwing, Specific Chaos Legions are next to impossible, anything besides a standard SM battle company structure is useless.

On the beardy side:
4 troops, 2 scorcha wartrakks, 2 kannnons/battleagons, 2 HQs, 2 squads of 15 lootas...
Godzilla nids - 4 min-sized troops, 2 raveners or spore mine clusters, 3 Elite carnifexes, 3 HS carnifexes, 2 HQs

On the thematic side:
No 10th company sm, no White Scars biker horde, no Ulthwe Eldar, Ork Clan based armies, etc.

You want to restrict power armies? Than have the moral courage to go through and re-write each codex, listing disallowed combos, unit configurations, adding restrictions to the number of units that can be taken, etc. You'll probably end up with a document that's at least half the length of the INAT.

Or...run a tournament where 50% of the games are played with your opponent's army.

And remember, that cheese is in the eye of the beholder.

We had a player at our Halloween tourney give a BA player the "This is a horribly abusive army" checkbox for comp. Because at 1500 points, the guy had like 8 Death Company and the other player thought they were way OTT. The rest of the list was some jump marines and tac marines, 1 Baal predator - nothing OMG broken. But, the one player just couldn't stomach the Death Company.

I think if I were to do an objective comp system, it would just be sort of a small checklist:

Over 5 biker nobs: -1 point
Over 10 biker nobs: -2 points
Over 15 biker nobs: -3 points
3 vehicles with holofields: -1 point
Over 3 monstrous creatures: -1 point
Over 5 monstrous creatures: -2 point
Over 3 land raiders: -2 points
Over 30 lootas: -2 point
Over 100 boys: -1 point
More than 1 model with Lash: -2 points
Over 6 obliterators: -2 points
3 exorcists: -1
etc, etc, for all the most extreme combos.

(Just a rough sketch.)

I don't like Comp to begin with but if your going to have comp a predefined comp system is preferable to people wondering hey why did I get such a low comp score for having too many kill point Imperial Guard.

How quickly the call for comp turned into a call for quotas much like the American system of affirmative action with race in higher education.

I beleive Mauleed came up with a comp based points system he based off of every unit in every codex. He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Another idea would be to run a specialty tournament where you can only bring the army box of that army to play with. The points might not work out the same so some tweeking will have to be done.

I'm all for these specialty tournaments. It's a great way to get the creative WAAC juices flowiing again. We've had a tournament in the Chicagoland area called the enemy of my enemy tournament. In this tourney you can bring any army and then up to 250pts of that army can be a unit from any other codex. No independent characters allowed. So I've seen a Tau army with a Defiler or an Ork army with a Carnifex. The best part was you were also credited for converting the unit to fit your own army. I just brought a unit of Genestealers and shoved them into my Chaos Marine army (where they would ride around in a Land Raider to assault things). Redbeard brought a fully converted Carnifex which had grot handlers for his Ork army and got top points for it. I like tourneys like this that mix things up every once in a while.

DarthDiggler wrote:

He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Isn't that...what we have?

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game. Something to be admired and sought-after.
...
If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Well, that went out the window the day the internet showed up. Seriously... There might be a skill in creating a good list, there isn't a great deal of skill involved in reading forums and taking someone else's ideas though. Not to mention, some of what passes for 'good list building' is pretty obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of strategy games. Oh, a power that lets you move your opponent's pieces, yes please, I'll take two. I don't see that as being all that skillful either.

If GW would make more balanced codexes, I might believe that list building were a skill. As things stand now, spam what's good, and it's not hard to figure out the good from the bad.

Warmaster wrote:

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar.

Tau have the most crappy troops.

Tau troops can't have any heavy weapons.

The 40% rule therefore forces the Tau to be more vulnerable to H2H, and worse at shooting.

Tau fast attack choices are fairly crappy. It's not the slightest bit unusual for a Tau army to include no fast attack at all, which has never been considered abusive. In fact I don't think I've ever read a description of a Tau army as being abusive. Because of the way that Pathfinders' usefulness scales, it's very unusual to include them in smaller armies. That's 25% of points that get pushed out into something else. OTOH if you include them, you also have to take a Devilfish, which is expensive and has minimal combat value, unless you pimp it out with upgrades, which racks up your armoury/wargear score.

Depending on the points total and % breaks, it might not be possible to make a Tau Elites choice that wasn't above 25% without it being a lot below 25%, because of the high individual cost of Crisis suits.

I haven't done the sums, so the above is open to argument. It's just a quick appraisal.

Can't comment on Necrons and Eldar as I don't have their codexes.

The game has already got two built-in Comp controls: all units have point values based on their relative power, and all armies are constrained by the Force Org chart.

I've never seen Comp as anything but a boon to "poor" lists and a handicap to "power" lists. If you're not looking to limit the power game or benefit battlebox armies, then what's the point of Comp? How much you like the army? Isn't that what the Painting score is for?

Given there are only about a dozen codexes in use, it shouldn't be too much work to make a comp-approved selection for each one. Whether they can all be balanced is another matter.

GMMStudios wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:

He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Isn't that...what we have?

No it would be something like your total army couldn't be above 15pts

Ork Boyz = 2pts
Warboss = 2pts (+4 on bike)
Nobz = 2pts (+4 on bikes)
Grots = 1pt
Lootas = 3pts
Flash gits = 1pt
Battwagon from anywhere = 2pts

etc... or....

Ork Boyz = 1pt for 1-2 2pts for 3-4 3pts for 5-6

So 1-2 Ork boyz units are 2 pts the 3rd and 4th selection is 2pts each and the 5th and 6th selection is 3pts each. 6 squads of Boyz would be 12pts right there. Points don't matter as much as the selection, but take to many and the cost in army points goes up. A more diverse list would allow more units. None of this should be taken literally, it's just off the top of my head. I would have to sit down with a codex and work through all the selections for an effective points system. It would be time consuming and complicated, but it might be the only way comp can work as comp people want it to work. Don't get me wrong, I'm in Bill's camp here for the most part. I am curious to see if it can be done though and I suspect it can.

I like the idea of just rating units on a points scale with armies not able to go over a certain amount of points.

Some problems would be:

Some units are only good in combination with other specific units.

Some units are better or worse at certain squad sizes (two squads of 30 boyz is probably better than 3 squads of 20, for example).

Some codexes better units are troops, so you'd be penalizing some codexes for taking...troops. I dont see this as a problem but lots of people still view good comp=lotsa troops

Centurian99 wrote:
On the beardy side:
4 troops, 2 scorcha wartrakks, 2 kannnons/battleagons, 2 HQs, 2 squads of 15 lootas...
Godzilla nids - 4 min-sized troops, 2 raveners or spore mine clusters, 3 Elite carnifexes, 3 HS carnifexes, 2 HQs

On the thematic side:
No 10th company sm, no White Scars biker horde, no Ulthwe Eldar, Ork Clan based armies, etc.

You want to restrict power armies? Than have the moral courage to go through and re-write each codex, listing disallowed combos, unit configurations, adding restrictions to the number of units that can be taken, etc. You'll probably end up with a document that's at least half the length of the INAT.

Or...run a tournament where 50% of the games are played with your opponent's army.

I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Warmaster wrote:

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar.

Tau have the most crappy troops.

Tau troops can't have any heavy weapons.

The 40% rule therefore forces the Tau to be more vulnerable to H2H, and worse at shooting.

Tau fast attack choices are fairly crappy. It's not the slightest bit unusual for a Tau army to include no fast attack at all, which has never been considered abusive. In fact I don't think I've ever read a description of a Tau army as being abusive. Because of the way that Pathfinders' usefulness scales, it's very unusual to include them in smaller armies. That's 25% of points that get pushed out into something else. OTOH if you include them, you also have to take a Devilfish, which is expensive and has minimal combat value, unless you pimp it out with upgrades, which racks up your armoury/wargear score.

Depending on the points total and % breaks, it might not be possible to make a Tau Elites choice that wasn't above 25% without it being a lot below 25%, because of the high individual cost of Crisis suits.

I haven't done the sums, so the above is open to argument. It's just a quick appraisal.

Can't comment on Necrons and Eldar as I don't have their codexes.

Hey Killkrazy, I wasn't advocating the Rogue Trader comp rules. I had my own version posted towards the bottom of my first post.

Sorry, I will go and read the other bit.

Warmaster wrote:
I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

I call it moral courage because you would have to essentially openly re-write the army lists, thus opening yourself to criticism, as opposed to trying to run under the cover of "playing the game the way its supposed to be played" or whatever nonsense JH was trying to advocate.

I've heard of tourneys run where you always play your opponent's army.

Okay, I read the other idea.

This is less bad for Tau because the point limits are removed, allowing a Tau player to (for example) choose a minimum FW squad and two minimum Kroot squads, and a minimum Gundrone squadron, then spend a ton of points on some suits and a Hammerhead, which is what Tau players mostly want and need.

The system has the advantage of simplicity.

I'm not sure it will actually create a balanced Tau army in terms of overall themeiness and fluffiness.

The thing is since the codexes are not equal no comp system that isn't tailored to each codex is really going to remove the problems. Neither does the European system (no comp) but it is the simplest to operate.

If you look at the thread concerning GT results, it is becoming increasingly apparent that as every suspected, Daemon and Ork codexes are fundamentally stronger -- and this is all despite whatever comp system may have been used for each tournament.

Wow, this thing really took off... I'm only going to scattershot a few things here.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?

No, I simply make a practice of heaping scorn on inexcusably silly ideas.

In that case... *holds up a mirror for you*

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

Or they simply make up stuff that sounds cool, do some rudimentary playtesting, ignore comments that contradict what they think, and move on, because they're Not Interested in getting everything perfect, as long as it sells models.

That is starting from the false premise that every option should have the same in-game points utility, when reality states otherwise. If you were correct, then GW would have to limit the Codices solely by what they include and excluded, which is a fairly blunt instrument. As it is, by deliberately under- ("good") and over- ("bad") costing units, GW can have a more nuanced picture of what any given army is supposed to be like.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And while GW has Codices, they also expect players to exercise some restraint in listbuilding, hence TMIR.

TMIR?

"TMIR" is The Most Important Rule - to ensure that *both* players have fun.

Based on your responses, I'm not at all surprised that you've ignored it, despite it being prominently stated in the Rulebook.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:

That's a joke, right? If that's how GW wanted the game to be played, they could have very easily made Tactical Squads 3+, Assault Squads 1+, and Dev squads 1+.

GW is a lot smarter than that. They *allow* more variety than that, but what is allowed isn't the same as what is desired.

Centurian99 wrote:Any universal comp system is Epic Fail, because it can't do that, or else its not Universal. You could probably come up with separate comp lists for each codex in the game...but then you're essentially re-writing the codex.

That is a fool's argument. It's like arguing you can't have a core rulebook for 40k, or general rules for a Tournament.

Centurian99 wrote:Because the armies without those solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops can rely on other force org slots to pick up the slack. Under your proposed system, they're penalized for doing so.

40k5 is already Troops-oriented. And under my proposed system, those armies with good Troops are penalized by not being able spend all of the points on Troops. So it goes both ways.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except, if you look into that SM Codex and the notional OOB, along with the sorts of varied armies that GW actually fields by example, then these kinds of varied armies actually *are* more "correct".

Or maybe they construct armies for the codex and OOB (whatever that acronym stands for) and WD because they want to show off a variety of models so that they'll sell more models.

OOB is "Order of Battle", and is used to define the men and materiel available to a particular force for a battle. For example, the OOB for Germany in Early War 1939 includes NO King Tiger Tanks, because those weren't fielded until the 1940s Late War. In wargaming, OOB is a Historical/Fluff-based restriction that is applied to an army to disallow un-historical composition. GW splits the difference by specifying an OOB in the SM Codex as recommended guidance.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:And the fact of the matter is, if you're focused on trying to field the most effective way to outfit or construct army lists, then by definition, you're powergaming.

Never denied the fact that I'm a competive gamer.

Non-competitive gamers who really aren't playing to win, don't care if they win. So-called friendly-gamers who decry people who play power lists are really saying, "I want to win, I just don't want to have to deviate from my own limited vision of how the game is supposed to be played in order to win."

No, friendly gamers are saying, "I paid $XXX to actually *play* my army, not to spend a day being TFG's punching bag to goldfish against." There's a huge difference that you just don't get.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

I note that you didn't respond to the actual point. It is a fact that a strong list requires less skill as a general to achieve the same results.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

In other words, because you can't defend your points, besides making accusations about things that you honestly know nothing about, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and hum.

No, at this point, we're just repeating ourselves. There's nothing more to say. The difference is that I at least understand what you're saying and disagree. You're the dork who's got his fingers in his ears and not even listening.
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OddJob. wrote:I have absolutely no issues with comp, as long as you accept it for what it is- changing the goalposts.

If GW do such a good job of balance how can there be WAAC lists?

It's really apparant that you aren't a competative gamer Jonny. That is of course your perogative, but if you don't play with/against the big boys how do you know it is boring?

Exactly. Comp *is* completely about changing the goalposts from "anything goes" to a sort of "gentleman's agreement".

When I talk about "balance" in a GW game, I thought I was clear, but apparently not. I apologize for the confusion, because we are using the word differently. A lot of gamers (i.e. you and Cent) seem to think (or want) "balance" means "X points of stuff always has the same effectivenss regardless of the Codex and unit and the mix of units", so if you dartboard an army list, every list will be equally effective in any given situation. I see it differently, and believe that GW is driving a certain level of differentiation so that armies have distinct strengths and weaknesses and therefore "balance" exists at the Codex level only - this is what GW has stated many, many times. So that means that, from GW's POV, "balance" within a Codex means that points and options for various units are balanced (really *biased*) against one another to encourage certain particular styles of play, while still allowing for a variety of other styles of play. And for GW, "balance" across Codices means that armies of those preferred play styles will give an interesting game. GW "balance" doesn't include testing of corner cases, so that is where WAAC armies come from. That is why C: SM Tacticals perform much better than C: BA or C: DA Tacticals, while C: BA Assault are far better than C: SM options.

I don't know who "Jonny" is, but if you want to refer to me via shorthand, I'd suggest "John" or "JHDD". As I noted above, I'm not a competitive gamer anymore, but I used to be. And was successful enough at it to win a bunch of local events. So, yeah, I know how to play (and win) "against the big boys". I'm past that phase of my gaming, so I currently see it as boring. Who knows, maybe I'll get back into it later, after I'm done with Apoc...

OddJob. wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:BYE

Emphasis mine. I see it too. I just quoted everything so he could see it.

Centurian99 wrote:

Warmaster wrote:
I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

I call it moral courage because you would have to essentially openly re-write the army lists, thus opening yourself to criticism, as opposed to trying to run under the cover of "playing the game the way its supposed to be played" or whatever nonsense JH was trying to advocate.

I've heard of tourneys run where you always play your opponent's army.

I'm not advocating any right way to play. What we have noticed on the local scene is that a lot of newer players or more hobby oriented players don't want to play in the tournaments. Which is fine. The thing is to figure out some way to have a tournament that they can also play in or come up with some alternative type of event that takes over the day. So the majority of this was to see if there was a way to come up with composition or theme scoring that would affect the overall battle scores but also give another category to rate armies in.
.

What I'm really leaning towards now is trying to set something up that by nature is more hobby oriented. Not by restricting army types but maybe by setting up a background for it. Maybe try to do a good vs. evil thing or something. Back to the drawing boards.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

If someone's models are not painted as well, they will not score as highly.

If someone's tactics are not very good, they will not score as highly.

If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

I recall the categories to be Generalship, Sportsmanship, Painting, and Composition.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Jhon, you're trying to deflect the issue with buzz-words rather than discuss the points being made, and you know it.

Tournaments are a contest in excellence.

Excellence in painting, excellence in sportsmanship, excellence in fielding a list, and excellence in list design.

If we're not going to reward excellence, then what do we reward, John?

Words like "Powergaming" don't really mean anything. They're just a noise people make when they want to try and complain about someone or something that is an obstacle to their own victory.

But, John, that is not the proper response to an obstacle. The proper response is to improve your own list and your own skills. Rise to the challenge rather than demand that the bar be lowered.

In my experience, winners on the top tables really don't complain about powergaming and cheese. Why? BEcause they have developed their skills and lists so that they can handle just about anything out there.


I think it would be a mistake for a tournament organizer to make rules that encourage people to feel entitled to win regardless of their skills and army. Rather, I think a TO should make rules that encourage people to improve their skills by rewarding those who have them.

The balance idea is absolutely right though IMO it should come about from the player's ability to choose a sensible list from the available options.

In broad terms, an army of a particular type would have a range of units which complement and support each other, but taking half those units and putting them units of a different type of army won't work so well. By army type, I mean a shooty army, or a fast army, or a tough army or whatever.

dietrich wrote:Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective.

The checkbox system works, since it generally forces the 'norm' to the same score. But, it also gives less 'bonus points' if something is exceptional (painting, theme, etc.).

Theme is subjective. Comp doesn't have to be.

I like a Comp checkbox that can simply be done by the Judge at the start of the event. Then, Judges and Players give bonus points for Sports, Painting, and Theme to reward exceptional opponents.
____

olympia wrote:A comp. score system should be done at the start of the tournament before any games are played.

Totally agreed.
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Steelmage99 wrote:That is most likely the reason why I am "defending" Johns idea. At least I can make any army I want (with corresponding consequences).

Yeah, this is why I don't get why people see my system as "restrictive". Like a GW Codex, I allow anything, but encourage / discourage certain things more than others.
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sourclams wrote:Comp systems inherently favor armies with strong troops costed efficiently since nearly every comp system I've seen is weighted towards benefitting the list with the most "troops".

Compare something like Grey Knights, where the base units are very expensive and ineffective against mechanized armies.

You know, there's nothing wrong with shifting the focus from "best HS" to "best Troops" - it's just different.

Do you mean theme-limited to Grey Knights only, or Codex: Daemonhunters (with optional WH allies) in general? There's a very big difference in those two points. It'd be as if I complained that my Eldar Storm Guardian / Wraithguard army wasn't very effective because I chose not to take any of the other options in my army.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:What about Necrons? One troop choice,

Then further add that in order to get the most out of their rules, they need multiples of units, and just to have a functioning force they are dropping points left right and centre.

I removed the duplicate penalty for Troops, to address SM / Necron / DE / other concerns.

You know, nearly every other army has the same issue in terms of "getting the most out" vs comp. And Comp specifically acts as a brake on how much you can get (that's the point). Like DH / WH, Necrons being an older, non-updated Codex will have more issues than others. But that's not necessarily a reason to invalidate the entire concept or system.
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OddJob. wrote:...there are no evils, lesser or otherwise, meerly different rules to play with.

I get annoyed with people who arrogantly get on a high horse *coughjonnywcough* and attempt to vilify those with an opposing opinion.

If you realise that all composition rules (including no comp) are created approximately equal, then the over-riding objective must be to create variety in armies being played (relative to an alternative comp setup, including none), not playing the armies that the TO wants to see.

Yep.

Um, where am I vilifying anyone? I have never said that WAAC is "bad", nor that any person is "bad" for taking such an army. It's not what I'd prefer to see, nor what I'd recommend, but that's not nearly the same as vilifying someone. As far as I know, stating an opinion, disagreeing and expressing a preference isn't vilification. Perhaps you can give an example where I "vilified" someone so I can understand what you're talking about and address it?

Given that the TO chooses a particular comp system, to some extent, players are playing (or encouraged to play) the armies that the TO wants to see. But to say that no-comp is different is odd, as a TO deciding on no-comp indirectly chooses particular armies as well.
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DarthDiggler wrote:Although I agree with Bill Kim on this issue, I'm interested in testing out John's Comp scoring in a tournament.

I think it would be cool to give this a try. I find it fun trying to break new systems or at least see how people will try to adapt.

It's interesting for discussion and variety, but I have no idea if it'd actually work. But it'd be different, and maybe someone can come up with a better alternative.

I think the most enjoyable "tournament" I played recently was a "no-MEQ" event down here in SoCal a few years ago. I didn't win, but I and everybody else got to have a lot of fun playing games with minis that they normally don't bring or face. That was pretty cool precisely because it was a change of pace from the norm.
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Aldonis wrote:Penalizing for not have different flavors of troops is not reasonable.

Agreed. As edited above, I've removed this penalty, but I forgot to update that post. Sorry for my oversight.
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stonefox wrote:GW-style batrep armies are made to showcase new models and make all the 12 year olds want them by playing them against another non-competitive army. You know this. It is a wholly different goal from a GT circuit army.

Yes.
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Warmaster wrote:Okay so my take away from this is that everyone likes John's idea of comp more than mine .

But the thought is there that there has to be something else you can run for people that play softer kinds of armies.

how do you award points for composition and theme. Do you tell people to bring back story about what their theme is. Set aside time for all the players to walk through and look at everything and vote?

I wouldn't say that they *like* mine more - they're just talking about it more.

There is, and we call it "Comp". Seriously, I'll take the notion of a "soft" event up under Proposed Rules, later.

As above, Theme is always subjective, while Comp can be objective. In some tournaments, there actually is a walkaround at lunch time to vote for best painted, best theme, etc. I always like that, as you get to see what everybody else did, maybe even chat a bit.
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Grot 6 wrote:Thats like if I give someone a five minute head start in a 440 meter dash. Why would I do that if I want to play to win?

That presumes that the objective is to "win" as opposed to enjoying the competition.
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Kilkrazy wrote:If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:
10 lists of 10 armies
Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

This is an interesting idea, the problem is that you basically give the green light to the first 10 or 20 people who can take the "good" lists (i.e. Orks & Chaos). If someone only has Orks, and there are no Ork slots left, then they don't get to play at all. If there aren't even 10 DE players, then your tournament is going to be short players. If you plan on 100 players, and only get 10 Orks against 10 Chaos players, that's not a good result, either.

IMO, your concept works best if you're providing all of the stuff and then players can bid on specific armies.
___

lambadomy wrote:I think people are taking too much of JHDDs pretty restrictive comp rules and assuming THAT is what comp has to be...

Personally, my tournament wet dream is X players, 4 lists. Everyone plays 5 games, games are just 2 games List A vs List B (switching sides for the game), 2 games list C vs List D, and the last game the top table players choose which of the 4 lists they want in secret.

You know, I'm not making any rules, placing any restrictions, or setting any requirements in my comp system. Any player can take whatever they like, and will be scored accordingly. You can still field whatever "broken" army you'd like. How are you getting it as restrictive?

FWIW, that's kind of how a Contract Bridge Touranment works, where the focus is on pure gameplay. It's a lot of fun, and I'd suggest that people give it a try. It's very intense.

lambadomy wrote:I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

Yup, but when someone figures it out, please share. The rest of the world would like to see it.

Doctor Thunder wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Tournaments are a contest in excellence.

Words like "Powergaming" don't really mean anything.

WRT deflecting issues, there are issues that I want to discuss, others that I don't care about.

You said "the ability to make a powerful list", which is simply powergaming / powerbuilding. In most cases, making a powerful list is merely a question of finding out which units are the most powerful for their points cost and spamming the hell out of them because you can. It has nothing to do with gameplay (Generalship) or coolness (Theme).
So I don't think you're using the word "Excellence" properly.

So in context, "Excellence" doesn't really mean anything either, as making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

As for "raising one's game", again, I think we differ in objectives in terms of what sort of game we each want to play.

If you want Comp (structure) to mean Theme (concept), then I can understand that. In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I don't see the need for Comp scores. All they lead to is a different set of Power Builds

Exactly. Sometimes, it's nice to spread the winnings around a bit.

--------------------

If thats what you want to do, why not just change any of the rules? Make flamers S3 or guardsmen T5 or whatever. Thats pretty much as absurd as scrapping the codexes GW already made by selfimposed limits.
And doing it in the name of "coolness" brought a smile to my lips, is it cool to play gimped? I dunno, but I dont think so.

Honestly, you been preaching battlbox armies all the years Ive been here at dakka. From saying that they are competative or that GW actually wanted you to play the game that way, they just didnt write it in their books.

At least Warmaster is honest about the fact that he wants to make it for the new players in his area who would be beaten to a bloody pulp against competative players (wich they ofcourse wouldnt fell to happy about and the ones not able to handle beeing noobs would quit) and thats reasonable and even applaudable. I dunno, but maybe hold a special event for the new people is a better idea then change the rules of the game totally? The point is probably that these people someday will be trying to play for real and if they have been fooled to think playing the battleforce crap is real 40k they will be in for a rude awakening.

To say that it is "powergaming" to build powerful lists and that the people that are doing it is TFG is just absurd. Ive played against lots of crappy lists with powergamers playing them and ripping apart the games while most of the times the pepole who knows how to play good with good lists usually are alot more fun to play with.(there are ofcourse exceptions)

Like someone said before, why would you wanna give someone a head start in a race? If you wanna play it at tournament levels you should bring your A game and your new nike boots, if you dont have the ability there is always the special olympics.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

You keep talking about it like it is a bad thing, but you have yet to argue why it is a bad thing.

The internet is a resource, and there is nothing wrong with people using it. Is it also wrong for someone to learn a painting technique online and use it to make their models look better?

If people are not supposed to take powerful lists to a tournament, then what are they supposed to take?

It has nothing to do with gameplay

Sure it does. A smart player does not bring an underpowered list to a contest of lists and skills. The tools you have to work with in your list determine the options you have on the table. When two players have equal skill, their lists (and luck) will generally break the tie.

So I don't think you're using the word "Excellence" properly.

Sure I am. An excellent tournament army will score very high battle points when fielded by a skilled player. That is the measure we have always used and will always use.

Besides, John, you still haven't answered my question. If we're not going to reward excellence, then what do we reward?

In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

Nice jab, but I am generally unimpressed at attempts to start a flame war. Prove your case or concede, but don't waste our time with trolling.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Tournaments are a contest in excellence.

Words like "Powergaming" don't really mean anything.

WRT deflecting issues, there are issues that I want to discuss, others that I don't care about.

You said "the ability to make a powerful list", which is simply powergaming / powerbuilding. In most cases, making a powerful list is merely a question of finding out which units are the most powerful for their points cost and spamming the hell out of them because you can. It has nothing to do with gameplay (Generalship) or coolness (Theme).
So I don't think you're using the word "Excellence" properly.

So in context, "Excellence" doesn't really mean anything either, as making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

As for "raising one's game", again, I think we differ in objectives in terms of what sort of game we each want to play.

If you want Comp (structure) to mean Theme (concept), then I can understand that. In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

@John I apologize if you misunderstood my message as me personally attacking. I did not meant to do that. I used to be a strong proponent for comp until I saw in one tournament it did little else other than benefit armies with superior troop choices while the weaker armies had poor troop choices. You do have a point without comp restrictions that most of those armies still are not as well off. Still I know your trying to make a tournament system that gives non-optimization a bonus but sadly a uniform system cannot work as well unless you break it down by codex and rate comp on a per army basis. Personally I think much of my frustration in discussing topics with you is I feel like sometimes I am talking to a brick wall.

@Warmaster. I appreciate your effort in what you proposed as you wanted to make a tournament that was more for people new to the hobby. Why not have a tournament that caters to people who newer players and then have a veterans tourney.

Peace, Godbless.

thehod wrote:Why not have a tournament that caters to people who newer players and then have a veterans tourney.

I think that's the best idea so far in the thread. Make a Special Olympics Tournament (Or whatever you want to call it), and go through each codex and make any necessary restrictions. Something like:

The following units may not be taken:
Eldrad Ulthran
Nob Bikers
More then one Vindicator

etc. etc.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?

No, I simply make a practice of heaping scorn on inexcusably silly ideas.

In that case... *holds up a mirror for you*

Well, we can let other people decide what's a sillier idea. I can only speak for myself.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

Or they simply make up stuff that sounds cool, do some rudimentary playtesting, ignore comments that contradict what they think, and move on, because they're Not Interested in getting everything perfect, as long as it sells models.

That is starting from the false premise that every option should have the same in-game points utility, when reality states otherwise. If you were correct, then GW would have to limit the Codices solely by what they include and excluded, which is a fairly blunt instrument. As it is, by deliberately under- ("good") and over- ("bad") costing units, GW can have a more nuanced picture of what any given army is supposed to be like.

So GW deliberately makes units in codexes that don't perform well, because they want people to use them, and thus have a more fun game. Well, that's one opinion. It might even have some validity - except for this: when they're extolling Unit X in WD, for which they've just happened to release new models, they praise it to the skies. "New Vanguard Veteran SMs - masters of HTH combat and concentrated assault killiness." Or whatever they write to sell models - has little to no validity on the actual tabletop.

So the other opinion is quite simple: they make units that don't perform as advertised because they don't care to put in the effort to make them work as advertised. In a competitive atmosphere, why penalize players because the Games Dev studio works to a different standard.

JohnHwangDD wrote:"TMIR" is The Most Important Rule - to ensure that *both* players have fun.

Based on your responses, I'm not at all surprised that you've ignored it, despite it being prominently stated in the Rulebook.

TMIR works both ways. Why is the player who deliberately takes sub-optimal choices inherently morally superior to the player who takes a strong list? I do my opponents the courtesy of assuming that they're at least as good a player as I am. To do otherwise would seem to me to be patronizing.

Lets remember, too...we're talking about competitive tournament gaming here, not an apoc megabattle or a pickup game. Even if you're only playing for bragging rights, the whole purpose of a tournament is to find out which player happens to be the best player in the room on that day...who's got the best "total package" of luck, skill, and analytical ability.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:

That's a joke, right? If that's how GW wanted the game to be played, they could have very easily made Tactical Squads 3+, Assault Squads 1+, and Dev squads 1+.

GW is a lot smarter than that. They *allow* more variety than that, but what is allowed isn't the same as what is desired.

Ah, so GW deliberately makes codexes so that bastards like me can "abuse" them, just so that people like you can feel morally superior. Right, that makes sense.

Or, I know, they want us to become better people, by learning how to deliberately compete at a lower level so that everyone can feel equal.

All sarcasm aside, maybe they allow variety because it sells more models, and they' don't care how we play as long as we're buying models. What a radical idea.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:Any universal comp system is Epic Fail, because it can't do that, or else its not Universal. You could probably come up with separate comp lists for each codex in the game...but then you're essentially re-writing the codex.

That is a fool's argument. It's like arguing you can't have a core rulebook for 40k, or general rules for a Tournament.

Nice try, but your analogy falls apart because the codexes are written (theoretically) so that they build on the core rules, and a well-run tournament should not be biased towards any player or army in particular.

I've never seen a comp system that didn't inherently favor certain codexes over other codexes. The actual closest I've seen was the ridiculously complicated one used at the GT's 6-7 years ago, where there were 60 or so possible points, but only up to 40 counted. End result: the comp system was almost universally ignored, because each army could get near-maximum points while still taking so-called "abusive" lists.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:Because the armies without those solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops can rely on other force org slots to pick up the slack. Under your proposed system, they're penalized for doing so.

40k5 is already Troops-oriented. And under my proposed system, those armies with good Troops are penalized by not being able spend all of the points on Troops. So it goes both ways.

Really.

Warboss
Lootas
Snikkrot & Kommandos
6 mobs of boyz and grots
Scorcha wartakk
Any HS choice

Full comp under your system, if you remove the dupe troops. Because we all know that horde orks are handicapped and don't do well.

I'll repeat: Epic Failure.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except, if you look into that SM Codex and the notional OOB, along with the sorts of varied armies that GW actually fields by example, then these kinds of varied armies actually *are* more "correct".

Or maybe they construct armies for the codex and OOB (whatever that acronym stands for) and WD because they want to show off a variety of models so that they'll sell more models.

OOB is "Order of Battle", and is used to define the men and materiel available to a particular force for a battle. For example, the OOB for Germany in Early War 1939 includes NO King Tiger Tanks, because those weren't fielded until the 1940s Late War. In wargaming, OOB is a Historical/Fluff-based restriction that is applied to an army to disallow un-historical composition. GW splits the difference by specifying an OOB in the SM Codex as recommended guidance.

They don't specify an OOB anywhere in the codexes that I'm aware of...they specify a TO&E, which is what you're referring to. The only OOBs I can think of come in apoc when they're describing specific engagements, because OOB are battle-specific.

Oh, I forgot. RW military units are ALWAYS arranged exactly as their TO&E specifies.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:And the fact of the matter is, if you're focused on trying to field the most effective way to outfit or construct army lists, then by definition, you're powergaming.

Never denied the fact that I'm a competive gamer.

Non-competitive gamers who really aren't playing to win, don't care if they win. So-called friendly-gamers who decry people who play power lists are really saying, "I want to win, I just don't want to have to deviate from my own limited vision of how the game is supposed to be played in order to win."

No, friendly gamers are saying, "I paid $XXX to actually *play* my army, not to spend a day being TFG's punching bag to goldfish against." There's a huge difference that you just don't get.

You're still saying, "I want to win." If just playing with an army was sufficient, you wouldn't feel the need to handicap other armies.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

I note that you didn't respond to the actual point. It is a fact that a strong list requires less skill as a general to achieve the same results.

So what. It's also a fact that a strong list doesn't guarantee victory. You're creating a straw man argument.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

In other words, because you can't defend your points, besides making accusations about things that you honestly know nothing about, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and hum.

No, at this point, we're just repeating ourselves. There's nothing more to say. The difference is that I at least understand what you're saying and disagree. You're the dork who's got his fingers in his ears and not even listening.

Oh, I'm a dork. Let me go off in the corner and cry.

I've never criticized you personally...just pointed out that your ideas are silly, inherently biased, full of logical inconsistencies, and generally self-righteous.

A lot of people also make the mistake of thinking the list is what wins you games, which isnt the case at all. It helps, but a good general will beat someone stuck in 4th or a noob with just about any list as long as it wasnt designed to lose agaisnt the opponents.

I also have more fun against someone trying their hardest to beat me, with a list they have honed/are honing, than with someone who made 1850 by picking out what looked pretty.

Doctor Thunder wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

You keep talking about it like it is a bad thing, but you have yet to argue why it is a bad thing.

Well, if you view a tournament as a competition of skills, and realize that the skill in 40k is divided between making a list, and playing it on the tabletop, then someone who is using a list they copied off the net is, essentially, not doing their own work. They're cheating, as much as if they had someone stand next to them and tell them how to move their models.

If you don't view a tournament as a contest of skills, then this is moot.

Is it also wrong for someone to learn a painting technique online and use it to make their models look better?

There is a difference between learning and doing yourself, and copying. And, there are plenty of threads that do think that it is wrong for people to use armies they didn't paint themselves.

If people are not supposed to take powerful lists to a tournament, then what are they supposed to take?

They're supposed to take their own list. If they can make it powerful, that's good for them. But copying the list-du-jour off the internet isn't their own list.

I think it's detrimental to the hobby in the same way that netdecking is detrimental to M:tG. I really quit playing Magic once the internet decks took over. There was fun in playing against someone else's invention. There wasn't fun in playing against yet another goblin deck.

The same problem is likely to happen here. The more prevalent the power net builds become, the less variety we'll have to play against. When all your games start looking alike, don't you get bored and go and find something else to do?

Centurian99 wrote:[Y]our ideas are silly, inherently biased, full of logical inconsistencies, and generally self-righteous.

Cent, you're my new hero man. I mean, that quote above sums up WRONGBADFUN's antics in damn near every thread he posts in.

BYE

Redbeard wrote:They're cheating

Ok, no, stop. That's fuggin' slowed. Having someone help you make a list is not 'cheating' in any sense of the word. Not in the slightest.

Having a good list does not win you games. It helps, but lists do not play themselves. If you honestly believe that simply having a good list will win you games then you can't have played much of this game.

It's a game of dice, so while you can make lists to improve statistical probabilities, it's still a game of chance. The dice and how you react plays just as much of a part in the game as what you bring to the table and the strategy that goes into using it.

It's not cheating. It's damned idiotic to think that way.

BYE

Redbeard wrote:They're supposed to take their own list. If they can make it powerful, that's good for them. But copying the list-du-jour off the internet isn't their own list.

Strawman. I think very few of the top players copy-paste a list off of the 'net. Like someone learning to paint better, they will however, take ideas off of other people's lists. Not to mention that building powerful lists is not all that difficult if you are a decent player.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Redbeard wrote:They're cheating

Ok, no, stop. That's fuggin' slowed. Having someone help you make a list is not 'cheating' in any sense of the word. Not in the slightest.

Having a good list does not win you games. It helps, but lists do not play themselves. If you honestly believe that simply having a good list will win you games then you can't have played much of this game.

It's a game of dice, so while you can make lists to improve statistical probabilities, it's still a game of chance. The dice and how you react plays just as much of a part in the game as what you bring to the table and the strategy that goes into using it.

It's not cheating. It's damned idiotic to think that way.

BYE

I've always found that comp systems that are designed to "level the playing field" fail because the reasons that many have mentioned: they change the metagame rather than leveling it. That being said, I find that spreading army list ideas over the internet is only good for the hobby, as when everyone is making equally good army lists, that is what truly levels the playing field. People who don't like "netlisting" are only hoping to take advantage of the ignorance of other players, rather than seeking a real challenge against gamers of equal skill, with equally strong army lists.

Of course, I don't find many of the "super-units" or "super-builds" on the internet to really be as overwhelming as people claim them to be, having knowledge and discussion of some of the challenges that can be presented by my opponent is only a good thing.

Redbeard wrote:They're cheating, as much as if they had someone stand next to them and tell them how to move their models.

That's ridiculous. Cheating means breaking the rules, not just doing something that Redbeard doesn't like.

They're supposed to make their own list.

Says who? Says where?

By your logic, shouldn't we close down the army list section of this board so that people stop getting illegal help making their lists?

Warmaster wrote:Okay so my take away from this is that everyone likes John's idea of comp more than mine

Nope- I much preferred yours as it shows more of an understanding of 5th ed.

I've got a crazy idea- ban HQ slots.

No eldrad
No lash
No scoring nobs
No Ghazz/KFFs
No vulkan
Reamed Nidzilla

Not necessarily 100% balanced (so what), but it does seem to chop down the current bigdogs. Add in a combination of Warmasters initial idea to taste.

Note that this is based around 1500pts- I know nothing of competition at higher points levels.

If you ban HQs you also make nob biker lists more fair as the squads would not be scoring any more... I kinda like this idea

Edit- Oh crap you already mentioned that... anyways good idea.

Banning HQ seems a bit extreme...

The really funny thing is this:

This year, Greg (Inquisitor Malice) and I are running the AdeptiCon 40K Gladiator, on paper probably the most unbalanced and cutthroat tournament out there. It's been running for six years now, and out of those six years, while the armies were definitely tweaked, none were the "auto-win" armies that went in highly favored, and only two had significant ForgeWorld inclusion (A Trygon, which IMNSHO, barely counts, and Angrath). Regardless, all the armies were relatively troop-heavy

The "secret" is simple: design better missions. I can't say for certain, but my gut feeling is that the AdeptiCon mission structure (Primary/Secondary/Tertiary/Bonus Objectives) makes it very, very difficult for one-trick-pony armies to achieve all the objectives. While it takes a competitive force, you also need a flexible force.

An additional benefit of having more than one objective in missions is that you give players more ways to feel like they're accomplishing something. It may become obvious that the primary objective is out of reach by turn 3 or 4, but you can still gun for the secondary or tertiary objectives, or work to deny them to your opponent.

Rather than create a rigid, inflexible, and ultimately Epic Fail Comp category that really just makes new lists the "broken" lists, its much better to "gently coerce" players into creating different lists.

Take Nob Bikers for instance. They've only shown up at one major (GT Baltimore), but the missions used at Baltimore (essentially, the missions out of the book) play very well to the Nob Biker army's strengths. Kill Points? Nob Biker armies offer up a 5 or 6. Capture and Control? They've got a resilent scoring unit to leave behind, while two heavy-hitters can put the pressure on your army. Seize Ground? probably the toughest, but if you spread out, then they can hit your isolated elements hard...if you castle up, you're giving 3 or 4 objectives to your opponent.

now consider this...what if you had a mission where both KP and holding objectives were important? All of a sudden, the nob bikers have more things to worry about than just getting stuck in. They've got to both rack up KPs, and be in a position to contest or hold objectives at the end of the game. I think you'd find that while the Nob Biker list is still strong (which it should be...those squads are 750+ pts each) its going to take a much better player to get maximum battle points out of the mission.

Make players want to field a different style of army list, through mission design, and you'll have happier players. Here's a little-known secret about most of us "powergamers." We want a challenge. We don't want to roll over opponents. But we don't want to feel like we have to dumb our game down either.

Centurian99 wrote:Make players want to field a different style of army list, through mission design, and you'll have happier players. Here's a little-known secret about most of us "powergamers." We want a challenge. We don't want to roll over opponents. But we don't want to feel like we have to dumb our game down either.

QFT

Comp requirements are usually unfair, but can sometimes result in a different game than your pcik up games becasue the composition changes(duh).

Similar to Centurians thought above, I have been pestering my local FLGS to start running more events rather than tournaments. My FLGS runs an average of one to two 40 tournaments each month. However it's a bit easy to predict which veteran players will be viaing for the top spot before the games even start. Give people a theme and a reason to change their list that is more solid than ... "people don't like it when you bring THAT list so we put comp on this tournament."

Also, tournaments are everywhere and DO bring out the competitive side of play. With events that focus on team play, or creating a story and doing your best to adhere to the story creates new challenges, promotes a slightly more relaxed atmostphere and a lot of inter-plaer communication such as suggestions on how best to accomplish the goals with the setup the story of the event has given etc. Like centurion mentioned we still want to play a good game that challenges us. Events that change the goals, missions, and the available forces to the players can be fun and are less geared at "don't bring those power lists" and more geared to "lets see what you can do when the story says your vehicles all got busted in the last battle. No vehicles round one, but reinforcements arrive on round two and you can choose to use a list with armored reinforcements(up to four heavy choices may be taken
) or a list with lighting strike reinforcements (up to four fast attack may be taken) etc.

Obviously any events have to be somewhat tailored to the local player base .. requireing noobs that just got their 1500 point space marine army to leave their land raiders and vindicaters at home shuts them out completly.

Anyway, I don't see comp used as anything but power a list breaker and as has already been mentioned, that just creates new imbalances resulting in what's the point?

Meph

A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:

That's a joke, right? If that's how GW wanted the game to be played, they could have very easily made Tactical Squads 3+, Assault Squads 1+, and Dev squads 1+.

GW is a lot smarter than that. They *allow* more variety than that, but what is allowed isn't the same as what is desired.

I didn't realize that you had a pipeline to Jervis and the Dev team. What is desired is irrelevant. What is allowed is important.

I used to be in the 'comp' and 'powergamers are bad' camp, and then mauleed came along and showed me the light.

If GW wants a SM force to be a Company and some support units (a veteran/terminator squad, some scouts, a few tanks out of the armor, maybe a few dreads, maybe a unit or two from the reserve companies), then that should be the only legal force that I can field. FoW (at least first edition) did this. You had to get an HQ unit. Then for each platoon, you got a support platoon. GW could do something similar.

Mandatory: 1 HQ, 2 Tac, 1 Assault or Dev Squad
For each extra Tac Squad, you may add 1 assault or dev squad and one of the following: Terminators, Vets, Tanks, etc.

That they don't do that means that is not what they desire.

Wait, let me head this off - "But, dietrich, that's not representative of the fluff!"

My answer, "Depends what chapter. Crimson Fists have more scouts. Some Chapters don't have many devestators, like the Soul Drinkers, but have more assault squads. etc."

It's because GW builds a Codex that covers more than one army list. The Codex: Space Marines covers strict Codex chapters, and ones with minor variances - more scouts, less scouts, no devs, lots of Dreads (like Ironhands), etc.

And that works for SM. What about Orks? I don't think Ghazkull has the Codex Orktares. (some Blood Axe might, but not Ghazkull). How do you 'fit' comp into an army, that by it's very nature, is more about the number of boyz some nobz and da boss can push around, then about fitting into a Order of Battle and TO&E?

GW wants to allow variety in army builds.

In different rules systems, some things benefit, and some don't. Every game has the problem of 'this' being the 'best' for the points. That's never going to change. What changes is what is the 'best' and how people deal with it. And I still say, that Nob Bikers will get phased out as people start fielding TH/SS terminators in every list, or when IG has so many tanks, that they're putting out enough templates to wipe out a unit in a turn, etc.

edited because I got the quotes all messed up. I bet you can guess which is C99 and which is JHDD's though......

Doctor Thunder wrote:
That's ridiculous. Cheating means breaking the rules, not just doing something that Redbeard doesn't like.

They're supposed to make their own list.

Says who? Says where?

Where does it say that I cannot have a friend stand next to me and comment on my choice of moves? Just saying...

I mean, obviously, when I say "that's cheating" I'm over-exaggerating for effect, but, if you're having a contest of skills between two people, and one of the skills involved is list building, and people aren't building their own lists, isn't the system flawed from the get-go?

skyth wrote:
Strawman. I think very few of the top players copy-paste a list off of the 'net. ... Not to mention that building powerful lists is not all that difficult if you are a decent player.

Who is talking about the top players? I think a vast number of non-top-players bring lists off the net because those lists give them a better chance to win some games. Top players will always be the ones pushing the edge on what is considered powerful. They'll come up with the new concepts. Mid-tier players will use what others have proven to be effective. And there are more mid-tier players than there are top players, so that is why your tournament games start to look alike.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ok, no, stop. That's fuggin' slowed. Having someone help you make a list is not 'cheating' in any sense of the word. Not in the slightest.

It's an exaggeration for effect. Nice to see that it got the effect.

Having a good list does not win you games. It helps, but lists do not play themselves. If you honestly believe that simply having a good list will win you games then you can't have played much of this game.

Having a good list doesn't ensure that you win any games. Having a bad list will ensure that you lose games. If you don't believe that, then you haven't played much of this game. Don't tell me that you've never gone to a tournament, or a pick-up game, and realized, before you deployed your army, that your opponent had no hope of winning. Even with the worst dice in the world, with them getting ridiculously lucky, there was no way they could beat you. I have. When you drop a land raider against a player who has no S8+ guns in their list. When you drop a horde army against someone with min-maxed anti-tank units.

I've seen players do this. Some of my regular gaming friends think of random concepts, and not at all about what their opponent might bring. When they get the matchup that they can't play against, that's just it, game over. But, at least the list they brought was something they thought up themselves.

Centurian99 wrote:
The "secret" is simple: design better missions.

Obviously, I don't know what the missions for the gladiator are this year. If they're like previous years, I wouldn't necessarily say they're better. One thing that has bothered me about the adepticon missions in years past, is that while GW missions clearly pay no attention to what the power builds are, (which, inevitably, means that they are the power builds), the adepticon missions have always been written with a 'screw you for taking this' mentality. I don't think writing missions that punish a player who brings a certain archetype is a better mission, I actually think it's worse, because inevitably many weaker, non-optimized lists get caught out as well. The classic "if you took a big model, you get screwed in the mission where you can't use it until turn 4" is a perfect example of this. Anyone with one of the big guns is essentially screwed for the whole event as the odds that you can get max battle points being down 500+ points for 3 turns is rough, and we all know you need to come close to max points each round. Is this mission better? Or should you really just say, "don't bring big stuff if you want to win".

No, I believe the "secret" is that we need better codexes. Not that we'll get them any time soon, that's not in GWs interest. If there were more appropriately costed units in every codex, you'd see more variety in what people brought. The problem is that the codex design is so bad that one or two golden apples float to the top of a pile of turds, and it's not surprising that everyone wants to use the golden apples and not the turds. There needs to be some standard pricing guidelines that make sense. FNP is a great example of something that's done so badly. It's the only thing in 40k that gives a second roll to save a guy. It adds a full 50% more survivability to a unit that has it (against most attacks). Taking a 500 point unit and adding 50% more to its survivability should result in a squad that costs 750 points, not 530. It's an effect that is just so much better than what it costs.

Redbeard wrote:

skyth wrote:
Strawman. I think very few of the top players copy-paste a list off of the 'net. ... Not to mention that building powerful lists is not all that difficult if you are a decent player.

Who is talking about the top players? I think a vast number of non-top-players bring lists off the net because those lists give them a better chance to win some games. Top players will always be the ones pushing the edge on what is considered powerful. They'll come up with the new concepts. Mid-tier players will use what others have proven to be effective. And there are more mid-tier players than there are top players, so that is why your tournament games start to look alike.

I've played in tournaments in areas with the strong comp, holier-than-thou attitudes.

All the lists in that area just blur together...They are pretty much identical (Even the chaos lists looked a lot like the loyalist lists)

Redbeard wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:
The "secret" is simple: design better missions.

Obviously, I don't know what the missions for the gladiator are this year. If they're like previous years, I wouldn't necessarily say they're better. One thing that has bothered me about the adepticon missions in years past, is that while GW missions clearly pay no attention to what the power builds are, (which, inevitably, means that they are the power builds), the adepticon missions have always been written with a 'screw you for taking this' mentality. I don't think writing missions that punish a player who brings a certain archetype is a better mission, I actually think it's worse, because inevitably many weaker, non-optimized lists get caught out as well. The classic "if you took a big model, you get screwed in the mission where you can't use it until turn 4" is a perfect example of this. Anyone with one of the big guns is essentially screwed for the whole event as the odds that you can get max battle points being down 500+ points for 3 turns is rough, and we all know you need to come close to max points each round. Is this mission better? Or should you really just say, "don't bring big stuff if you want to win".

That's something Greg and I noted, and this year, the rule is that we as tournament organizers have no prejudices. We hate every army equally, and all are equally unfit to join the ranks of Gladiator champions.

Redbeard wrote:
No, I believe the "secret" is that we need better codexes. Not that we'll get them any time soon, that's not in GWs interest. If there were more appropriately costed units in every codex, you'd see more variety in what people brought. The problem is that the codex design is so bad that one or two golden apples float to the top of a pile of turds, and it's not surprising that everyone wants to use the golden apples and not the turds. There needs to be some standard pricing guidelines that make sense. FNP is a great example of something that's done so badly. It's the only thing in 40k that gives a second roll to save a guy. It adds a full 50% more survivability to a unit that has it (against most attacks). Taking a 500 point unit and adding 50% more to its survivability should result in a squad that costs 750 points, not 530. It's an effect that is just so much better than what it costs.

Yep. But I think it's be more likely for John to agree that Comp can't work than GW to put out better codexes.

Redbeard wrote:
It's an exaggeration for effect. Nice to see that it got the effect.

Now you are just back-pedaling. Exaggerating a false idea only makes it more false. Using a resource like the internet to improve your army list is not against the letter or the spirit of the rules. Indeed, it would be hypocritical for you to assert that it was, for you have asked for advice and given advice on army lists many times in this forum. Indeed, you are in charge of many articles specifically designed to help people improve their army lists.

Just admit that you were wrong and move on.

but, if you're having a contest of skills between two people, and one of the skills involved is list building, and people aren't building their own lists, isn't the system flawed from the get-go?

Not at all. It is a contest of what you bring to the tournament, regardless of how you achieved it. Just like with painting, you get points for how the models you brought look, regardless of how long it took or what methods you used to acheive it. If you spent 80 hours but it still looks terrible, you don't get as many points as if you spent 30 minutes and it looks great.

It is all about allocation of resources. Do you walk each brick across the yard one at a time or do you use a wheelbarrow to move them all at once? Same result, but different amounts of time and effort involved.

In tournaments, we score results, NOT method.

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Redbeard wrote:
It's an exaggeration for effect. Nice to see that it got the effect.

Now you are just back-pedaling. Just admit that you were wrong and move on.

but, if you're having a contest of skills between two people, and one of the skills involved is list building, and people aren't building their own lists, isn't the system flawed from the get-go?

Not at all. It is a contest of what you bring to the tournament, regardless of how you achieved it. Just like with painting, you get points for how the models you brought look, regardless of how long it took or what methods you used to acheive it. If you spent 80 hours but it still looks terrible, you don't get as many points as if you spent 30 minutes and it looks great.

It is all about allocation of resources. Do you walk each brick across the yard one at a time or do you use a wheelbarrow to move them all at once? Same result, but different amounts of time and effort involved.

In tournaments, we score results, NOT method.

Just to be a devil's advocate, this would also mean that players who out-source their painting should be judged by how well the professional painted their army, rather than being left out of the painting contest entirely. Of course this does happen, but I think it should not.

It's difficult to see what can be done to prevent it.

Not scoring paint might help.

willydstyle wrote:

Just to be a devil's advocate, this would also mean that players who out-source their painting should be judged by how well the professional painted their army, rather than being left out of the painting contest entirely.

That depends on the rules of the tournament. If the rules allow outsourcing, then the models should receive full points. Grand Tournaments, for example, have restrictions in this area, while most RTT's do not.

Of course this does happen, but I think it should not.

I would rather play against a fully-painted army then another plastic-grey or primed-black army any and every day of the week. Banning outsourced armies just means fewer painted armies at the tournament, so I think it is a bad thing to restrict them.

Doctor Thunder wrote:
Now you are just back-pedaling. Just admit that you were wrong and move on.

What's your problem? Does it make you feel superior to tell other people that they're wrong? Just because you're too dense to realize that English is a language that isn't always literal doesn't mean that I'm backpedaling or that I'm wrong. For one thing, it's an opinion, which inherently cannot be right or wrong. Again, standard use of the language does not require that I preface every line I write with "in my opinion". That's an implied clause. For another thing, you still haven't given a good argument as to why it's not a good opinion, other than that it is impossible to know whether someone took an internet list or came up with something on their own.

Not at all. It is a contest of what you bring to the tournament, regardless of how you achieved it. Just like with painting, you get points for how the models you brought look, regardless of how long it took or what methods you used to acheive it. If you spent 80 hours but it still looks terrible, you don't get as many points as if you spent 30 minutes and it looks great.

Which only adds to my point. You say, regardless of how it was achieved. Does that include paying someone else to do your work for you? That's an issue that has never adequately been resolved. There are plenty of people who still believe that it is wrong for someone to get points for an army they didn't paint themselves. GW makes a policy of not giving painting awards to people who admit to paying for their paintjobs (again, the question of enforceability and honesty hasn't been solved). Therefore, it's obvious, and well-established, that in tournaments, we do not merely score results, we also score methods. The method of having someone else paint your army is not acceptable in many cases. And that one is not my opinion, that's a fact.

So, if it is wrong for someone else to do your prep work painting the army, why, on a philosophical level, do you believe that it is not wrong for someone else to do your prep work designing your army?

And, what about playing the army? I notice that rather than actually debate a valid question, you simply resort to calling me "wrong", but, would you have issue with a player who had someone help them play their army during a tournament? I haven't seen many tournament rules that expressly forbid this... In fact, doing a cursory glance over the rules for the adepticon events this year, I don't see anything that would prevent me from having a second general along side myself. Do you believe that this behaviour is also acceptable, under your theory of judging results and not methods?

Redbeard wrote:

For one thing, it's an opinion, which inherently cannot be right or wrong.

Sure it can. Who lied to you and told you that opinions cannot be wrong?

You claim it is wrong for people to use the internet to improve their army lists, but you yourself do that very thing on Dakka. All I have to do is click on your profile and I see several threads you have started asking for feedback.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it is self-defeating and hypocritical. You will need to revise it if you wish it to be taken seriously.

Doctor Thunder wrote:
You claim it is wrong for people to use the internet to improve their army lists

You're illiterate.

I said it's wrong to copy lists from the internet, not to solicit feedback, not to discuss ideas, but to plagiarize someone else's work.

Furthermore, in order to have a discussion, someone has to take a side. I'm attempting to generate interesting debate. All you seem to want to do is pick a fight over semantics and call me names. Whatever dude, have a nice life, I hope you get over your female marine fetish. I've added you to my ignore list.

grizgrin wrote:Best comp concept right here:




Like that idea? Me too.

Agreed. Brilliant in its simplicity.

Army composition scores are a cop out to impose some semblance of 'fairness' on a player by ignoring the faults of the system design.

Unless every army at a tourney is a space marine army, then army composition is unfair by default and should be eradicated entirely from the tourney mindset.

Warmaster wrote:but this is not:
1 HQ
6 Troops

So you want to penalize a player for bringing SCORING units to a tournament ?... Erm...

Doctor Thunder wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age.

You keep talking about it like it is a bad thing, but you have yet to argue why it is a bad thing.

If people are not supposed to take powerful lists to a tournament, then what are they supposed to take?

Where are you getting the idea that I'm saying it is "a bad thing"? You seem to think that a powerful list is important, but I don't think it's even necessary or desirable for the sort of tournament that I envision. And, as we can't see the process of making, only the result of what is made, I don't think that it should be a priority or something that needs rewarding.

As we're talking about Comp, I think the notion is that people are supposed to bring well-balanced and "fair" lists.

A smart player does not bring an underpowered list to a contest of lists and skills.

That is only valid to the extent that the contest is measured the way you want to measure it. As there isn't only one way to measure, a "strong" list isn't necessary.

An excellent tournament army will score very high battle points when fielded by a skilled player.

Sure. But if we focus on the excellence of the generalship rather than the excellence of the list, then that is a different thing. For example, if we look at History, how many of the great Generals had the best lists? If the Confederacy under Lee had the same list, or even the same points, as Grant then things would have turned out very differently.

If we're not going to reward excellence, then what do we reward?

I'm not saying we don't reward excellence, I'm saying that we should be more specific about what sort of excellence we choose to reward. You choose to reward a different form of excellence than I do. I don't think you're bad for it. It's just not how I'd choose to do it.

In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

Nice jab

Huh? How was that a jab? I thought it was a pretty good illustration of the difference between Comp (what one takes) and Theme (how it is flavored).


Anyhow, I think we disagree to the point that you simply can't accept that that I think there could be other / different valid (or even better) ways of playing and scoring. IMO, it's unfortunate that you can't accept we have a legitimate disagreement.

thehod wrote: @John I apologize if you misunderstood my message as me personally attacking. I did not meant to do that. I used to be a strong proponent for comp until I saw in one tournament it did little else other than benefit armies with superior troop choices while the weaker armies had poor troop choices. You do have a point without comp restrictions that most of those armies still are not as well off. Still I know your trying to make a tournament system that gives non-optimization a bonus but sadly a uniform system cannot work as well unless you break it down by codex and rate comp on a per army basis. Personally I think much of my frustration in discussing topics with you is I feel like sometimes I am talking to a brick wall.

Peace, Godbless.

Hiya!

I don't think you were attacking, just disagreeing, so I don't think you have anything to apologize over. We're all good.

As with anything, the devil's in the details, and comp is no exception. I completely agree that a comp system can give undesirable results, and that comp will necessarily shift the balance of units and armies. I don't see anything wrong with that at all. For the most part, it's just different, not better, nor worse.

For me, I'm looking at comp mostly as a theoretical construct. Remember that I'm no longer playing tournaments, so this doesn't affect me at all. So the strong reactions are a bit mystifying to me. You could perhaps look at my proposal as a question of how far one might shift the balance before it becomes excessively intrusive. Or a question as to what sorts of features are desirable / undesirable in trying to measure and manage power from a mechanical perspective. Or a question as to how well a universal checkbox system can work if one chooses to implement one. Regardless, it is implicit that comp would apply in some flavor or other with some sort of impact relative to Battle.

I've seen the old WFB comp system that tried to rate comp by army and unit and combination of units. I think it failed pretty badly, but at least they tried to do things at the level of detail that as you suggest. After a couple years, they gave up and went to a universal system.

WRT "brick wall", I apologize if you feel that way. Sorry. I this is somewhat inherent when you have fundamental disagreements, it's not like either of us are likely to change the other's mind by convincing the other. So ultimately, either, we agree to disagree like gentlemen, or someone just gives up and walks away.

Anyhow, all good, hope you have a great weekend.

Centurian99 wrote:I've never criticized you personally...just pointed out that your ideas are silly, inherently biased, full of logical inconsistencies, and generally self-righteous.

Look Cent. I get that you disagree. Fine.

But your continued passive-aggressive attacks to get around Rule 1 (politeness) isn't going to cut it.

It is a fact that calling someone's "ideas" silly / whatever *is* an indirect attack on that person.

We're done, and I won't be dealing with you anymore on this.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:I've never criticized you personally...just pointed out that your ideas are silly, inherently biased, full of logical inconsistencies, and generally self-righteous.

Look Cent. I get that you disagree. Fine.

But your continued passive-aggressive attacks to get around Rule 1 (politeness) isn't going to cut it.

It is a fact that calling someone's "ideas" silly / whatever *is* an indirect attack on that person.

We're done, and I won't be dealing with you anymore on this.

Odd, I thought ad hominem was attacking the person (rule #1) like calling them a dork, not calling a person's ideas silly.

I guess after being on dakka for a decade, I don't know anything.

Mephistoles1 wrote:Comp requirements are usually unfair, but can sometimes result in a different game than your pcik up games becasue the composition changes(duh).

that just creates new imbalances resulting in what's the point?

The point is simply to create new imbalances for variety's sake, such that the new mix is notionally "better" than the old mix.
____

dietrich wrote:

GW is a lot smarter than that. They *allow* more variety than that, but what is allowed isn't the same as what is desired.

What is desired is irrelevant. What is allowed is important.

That statement is only true in a no-comp environment, if one ignores all of the Fluff and background that has been presented to date. If one looks at 40k as a pseudo-simulation, then what is allowed should be shaped by desired, and vice-versa.

dietrich wrote:GW wants to allow variety in army builds.

Agreed. I cut a bunch of stuff, because we're basically agreed on the other points here. And I'm glad that GW isn't using some sort of ham-fisted "mainstay" approach to army building (like in 2E Guard)

As far as I can tell, the only fundamental disagreement is that I think that some form comp scoring / weighting is desirable, and you don't. It's OK for us to disagree..

Hellfury wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:I've never criticized you personally...just pointed out that your ideas are silly, inherently biased, full of logical inconsistencies, and generally self-righteous.

Look Cent. I get that you disagree. Fine.

But your continued passive-aggressive attacks to get around Rule 1 (politeness) isn't going to cut it.

It is a fact that calling someone's "ideas" silly / whatever *is* an indirect attack on that person.

We're done, and I won't be dealing with you anymore on this.

Odd, I thought ad hominem was attacking the person (rule #1) like calling them a dork, not calling a person's ideas silly.

I guess after being on dakka for a decade, I don't know anything.

Well, Hellfury, I'm sure that you're a fantaaastically great person, but what you just wrote there is utterly inexcusably stupid, and the kind of mindless drivel that one would expect of a half-wit inbred sub-functional slow.

See how that works?

You can work in all sorts of indirect attacks by pretending to attack someone's "ideas" or "actions" instead of the person. That is why I label it as an indirect attack, because it is just as loaded as calling the person stupid / whatever.

If there is an issue with the argument, then one can address the argument rather than resorting to veiled name-calling. For example, if I were to argue that 2+2=5, then addressing the argument is as simple as showing that 2+2=4. But at no point does it ever become necessary to use loaded words as above.

Now if this is the sort of behavior that Dakka encourages, I'm more than happy to play that game. But based on actions I've seen, I don't think that is really how Rule 1 is supposed to work.

Perhaps a couple Mods can weigh in here to clarify? I'm now going to Alert so I can get clarification on the matter.

Yeah I know the difference, but from where I am standing, its simply the pot calling a kettle black.

Also as far as you being willing to play the game, dont even try and come off like you are innocent and you dont use such tactics on a more than regular basis yourself.

Your posts are often worded quite carefully to avoid the banhammer, but yet still instill venom from your readers.

Like I said, its the pot calling the kettle black, so don't act so innocent. But its none of my business, oh wait it is because you spill your vitriol all over a public fora for all to read. You gotta problem with a poster, take it to PM, and leave your laundry in your hamper where it belongs. It gets really tiring watching you have wrecking crew penis envy.

Gotto step in here, 'cause comments like this can't go on without being torn into:

Redbeard wrote:For one thing, it's an opinion, which inherently cannot be right or wrong.

People so often confuse being entitled to an opinion with an opinion being right/wrong.

Opinions can be wrong. There are no inherent safeguards or implied laws that make all opinions neither right nor wrong. You can have an opinion about something ("I think the world is flat!") and be dead wrong. You're certainly entitled to that opinion ("Don't care what the proof says, I still think the world is flat!") but you'll still be wrong. Furthermore you used this laughable line of thinking as a giant Straw-Filled Red Herring. Doctor Thunder tells you that you're wrong, so you immediately go into the "Do you feel superior for being right about everything - Everyone can have an opinion" defence. Hell you even try to blame the English language.

Sorry, but one of the biggest parts about a debate or a discussion (or even an argument) is remaining coherent. John has problems with this, but I'm sure that the rest of us can manage to do it. You stick to your guns and make your points and when someone calls you and you have nothing (as is what just happened to you), you admit defeat. You don't back-pedal. And when you're caught back-pedaling, you don't come up with lame-ass arguments like "Everyone's opinion is valid!" which is nonsense.

The only common thing that applies to all opinions is that everyone can have one. They can be very wrong, and often are. When you make statements like this:

"I said it's wrong to copy lists from the internet"

You are not stating fact, you are stating opinion. Worse, you're stating opinion as fact. This statement should read:

"I said that it is my opinion that it is wrong to copy lists from the internet"

And that would be fine. You would be entitled to that opinion, but it isn't a 'Get out of argument free' card. Opinions are not immune to scrutiny, so please stop thinking that way. If people disagree with your opinion (as they have) and can prove that it's wrong, then guess what, you'd be wrong. If you have an opinion great, but state it as such, not as a fact, and don't back-pedal and try to claim you were saying something different. That's the wrong way to have a discussion - the Hwang way. Don't you be like him.

BYE

Moderator note:

An alert has asked for clarification of Dakka rule no.1.

Rule no.1, “Be polite”, is necessarily a piece of guidance. It cannot be expressed as a definitive list of words or phrases that are acceptable or otherwise.

Much depends on context, and the spirit in which people make their posts, and the way people react to them.

Everyone gets annoyed occasionally, which is completely understandable, and it leads to the temptation to lash out verbally. Any time the argument becomes, “In my opinion, your idea is stupid,” rather than, “In my opinion, your idea is wrong,” we are straying into rule no.1 territory. Certain words -- stupid, silly, and so on -- are triggers to anger and should be avoided.

Of course the Mods will always clamp down on blatant racism, sexism, profanity.

We will always read alerts and consider the complaints seriously, even if our conclusion may be that nothing needs to be done. (In such cases, I PM the complainer to explain my thinking, and offer them a second opinion from another Mod.)

If Dakka, like any forum or community, needs the good will and co-operation of the members. It cannot work by diktat. More and more Mods would be needed to police a forum where people are not trying to be polite. Also, and importantly, a heavily policed forum would be less interesting and useful for the participants. The way forward is for users to be self-policing, by editing their own posts, and by warning each other when they see someone going over the line.

In this thread, some people are needling each other without resorting to obvious "Durrr!! G4ey Fail!!11!!One11" kind of language. I am not going to come in, do textual analysis on your posts, say someone is right and someone else is wrong, and start editing or handing out warnings. I’ve got better things to do on a lovely sunny Saturday.

I want people to think about what they write and consider whether they shouldn’t phrase their posts in more neutral language.

Thank you for reading.

JohnHwangDD wrote:But your continued passive-aggressive attacks to get around Rule 1 (politeness) isn't going to cut it.

IRONY!!!!!!!!!

JohnHwangDD wrote:It is a fact that calling someone's "ideas" silly / whatever *is* an indirect attack on that person.

N... no.

Let's go into the differences here:

Example 1: You're very silly, therefore you're wrong.
Example 2: You're wrong, and you're very silly.
Example 3: Your idea is wrong and your idea is silly.

In the first example, we have what is called an Ad Hominem attack, as Hellfury stated. As he said "I thought ad hominem was attacking the person" and this is 100% accurate as Ad Hominem is Latin for 'To the Man', ie. you are making your arguments to the person making the argument, rather than to the argument itself. This would violate Rule #1 as it is not polite. It's also a bad way to make arguments as all it does is prove one's ignorance.

In the second example, it is not an Ad Hominem attack, as the person is attacking the idea as well as the person (rather than attacking the person in place of the idea). However it still breaks Rule #1, as calling a spade a spade... sorry... calling someone silly at Dakka is not polite.

In the final example, the person is attacking the idea and mocking the idea. The person making the idea never comes into it - they are kept apart from the other person's statements. Killkrazy has said that calling an argument 'silly' rather than wrong is bad. Well... sorry KK but that's a silly point of view (and I say that in the most polite fashion possible). Just like opinions can be wrong, opinions can also be silly. Pointing an argument out as silly might annoy someone, but it doesn't make it suddenly not polite. I'm being quite polite here, and I can still call your notion silly without attacking you or being impolite.

But hey, while we're talking about direct attacks, not being polite and ad hominems, let's look at a few from this very thread:

"Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?"
"Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists... End of discussion." (This would be the 'passive-agressive' comments John was talking about... but Cent99 didn't say 'em!)
"In that case... *holds up a mirror for you*"
"That is a fool's argument."
"In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs."
"The difference is that I at least understand what you're saying and disagree. You're the dork who's got his fingers in his ears and not even listening."

Guess who said all of the above? The same person who said this:

"So ultimately, either, we agree to disagree like gentlemen, or someone just gives up and walks away."

So I go back to my original statement:

IRONY!!!!!!!

BYE

JohnHwangDD, can you give some examples of battle-point spread? Like so-and-so-many points per battle, so-and-so-many battles, so-and-so-many points for a primary objective (defined by XXX)?

Gentlemen, this thread has been reported. Poltieness is required after this point in the thread or disciplinary action will be taken.

Modquisition off.

The policeman has spoketh so I must finally arrive from the grave...

* spits out clump of earth *

Ah better now, much better.

If I am playing in a tournament where bringing a weak list is important to do well overall you better believe I will. After all that is what my converted Captain Tycho model was made for... These exact type of situations when the TOs feel they must impose their own set of standards how we should build our armies. There was one TO that after the event was over I thanked him and asked him what could I do to decrement my army. He gave me a few suggestions then I asked him if he would be willing to fund the costs to make these changes. Needless to say he was flabberghasted. I have found that those who adopt this type policy don't last long on the gaming scene.

* belches, rubs belly and crawls back into the void *

Yes, but to those types of people, you should have made your list to thier specs instead of your specs so you wouldn't have had the problem of needing to buy stuff to change it.

It was said as a way to make fun. Harmless fun.

G

H.B.M.C. wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:But your continued passive-aggressive attacks to get around Rule 1 (politeness) isn't going to cut it.

IRONY!!!!!!!!!

JohnHwangDD wrote:It is a fact that calling someone's "ideas" silly / whatever *is* an indirect attack on that person.

N... no.

Let's go into the differences here:

Example 1: You're very silly, therefore you're wrong.
Example 2: You're wrong, and you're very silly.
Example 3: Your idea is wrong and your idea is silly.

In the first example, we have what is called an Ad Hominem attack, as Hellfury stated. As he said "I thought ad hominem was attacking the person" and this is 100% accurate as Ad Hominem is Latin for 'To the Man', ie. you are making your arguments to the person making the argument, rather than to the argument itself. This would violate Rule #1 as it is not polite. It's also a bad way to make arguments as all it does is prove one's ignorance.

In the second example, it is not an Ad Hominem attack, as the person is attacking the idea as well as the person (rather than attacking the person in place of the idea). However it still breaks Rule #1, as calling a spade a spade... sorry... calling someone silly at Dakka is not polite.

In the final example, the person is attacking the idea and mocking the idea. The person making the idea never comes into it - they are kept apart from the other person's statements. Killkrazy has said that calling an argument 'silly' rather than wrong is bad. Well... sorry KK but that's a silly point of view (and I say that in the most polite fashion possible). Just like opinions can be wrong, opinions can also be silly. Pointing an argument out as silly might annoy someone, but it doesn't make it suddenly not polite. I'm being quite polite here, and I can still call your notion silly without attacking you or being impolite.

But hey, while we're talking about direct attacks, not being polite and ad hominems, let's look at a few from this very thread:

"Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?"
"Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists... End of discussion." (This would be the 'passive-agressive' comments John was talking about... but Cent99 didn't say 'em!)
"In that case... *holds up a mirror for you*"
"That is a fool's argument."
"In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs."
"The difference is that I at least understand what you're saying and disagree. You're the dork who's got his fingers in his ears and not even listening."

Guess who said all of the above? The same person who said this:

"So ultimately, either, we agree to disagree like gentlemen, or someone just gives up and walks away."

So I go back to my original statement:

IRONY!!!!!!!

BYE

Thanks for the support, HBMC (and Hellfury, and anyone else who understands the difference between criticizing an opinion and criticizing a person.

Everyone has the right to an opinion. And everyone else has the right to express their opinion of their opinion. If I wanted to say that someone was a silly little pissant, I'd say that. But that would be against the rules of this forum, so I don't do that.

If we can't critically assess other people's posts, based on the content within, than what's the fricking point of this forum. It's not rude to write a post critiquing someone's army list if they post it for discussion. It's not a personal attack to say that someone is misinterpreting the rules. And its not a personal attack to write a critical response to someone's suggestions on how a tournament should be run.

If you want to silence dissenting views, start your own blog and pontificate to your heart's desires. Then you can delete any contradictory opinions and one-sidedly blackguard your dissenters. That's what Beetlejuice's done.

Wow this thread went way off track since I first looked at it 3 days ago LOL.

Anyway, I have always felt that Star Fleet Battles got it right by making premade ships for tournament play. You could do something similar with 40K or Fantasy.

For example:
For space marines you could have several lists that were "tourney approved".

1: The Librarian list
2: The Chaplain list
3: The Chapter Master list
4: The Forgefather list
5: The shrike list
6: The Vulkan List
7: The raven wing list
8: The death wing list
9: The blood angel list
10: The space wolf list
11: The black templar list
etc,etc,etc.

It would take a lot of playtesting but it could be done. It worked for SFB. I don't see why it couldn't work for warhammer. Also this doesn't mean that you still couldn't run "open" tourneys where people brought their own lists.

My opinion comp doesn't work, so the only way to have a "fair and balanced" tourney is to have premade "fair & balanced" lists.

I doubt this will ever happen so we will just have to make due with what we have, trying to make it the best we can.

GG

On topic, I think that any comp system can be gamed. By that, I mean no matter what you hold up as "good comp," there will be a handful or so hard lists that can be built. People will figure out any comp system that is a check box. If you favor troops, than Orks and chaos rise to the top. If you favor no repition of any unit, than Chaos, Eldar, and Nids have a better chance. No matter what system you strap to 40k, there is no way to ensure that every army that shows up is interesting and roughly equal in power.

Honestly, I think that the approach of WotC is superior here. Simply restrict the top combinations, units, upgrades, etc. to balance things out. Even then, there will be a new top dog. Army list power scales are very fractal, no matter who close in you look, there is an infinity complex layering system.

I agree that with interesting and complex missions, more armies have a chance.

Off topic, I think it's important to realize that there are people that will never admit to being wrong. Hoping you can convince them of being wrong is like being the woman in the Lifetime Movie that really thinks she can get her abusive husband to quit drinking. After reading 6 pages of this thread, I think that it's pretty clear how has made better points and where a more nuanced look at the realities of modern tournament gaming can be found.

Polonius wrote: I think it's important to realize that there are people that will never admit to being wrong. Hoping you can convince them of being wrong is like being the woman in the Lifetime Movie that really thinks she can get her abusive husband to quit drinking. After reading 6 pages of this thread, I think that it's pretty clear how has made better points and where a more nuanced look at the realities of modern tournament gaming can be found.

The point of the majority of internet arguments is not to convince the person that you are arguing against, but rather to influence the people who are lurking and watching the thread rather than participating in it.

skyth wrote:

Polonius wrote: I think it's important to realize that there are people that will never admit to being wrong. Hoping you can convince them of being wrong is like being the woman in the Lifetime Movie that really thinks she can get her abusive husband to quit drinking. After reading 6 pages of this thread, I think that it's pretty clear how has made better points and where a more nuanced look at the realities of modern tournament gaming can be found.

The point of the majority of internet arguments is not to convince the person that you are arguing against, but rather to influence the people who are lurking and watching the thread rather than participating in it.

I know that. I could have made it clearer in my final bit there, but I think that a lurker should know by know who has "won" the thread.

Kilkrazy wrote:Moderator note:

An alert has asked for clarification of Dakka rule no.1.

Rule no.1, “Be polite”, is necessarily a piece of guidance. It cannot be expressed as a definitive list of words or phrases that are acceptable or otherwise.

Much depends on context, and the spirit in which people make their posts, and the way people react to them.

Everyone gets annoyed occasionally, which is completely understandable, and it leads to the temptation to lash out verbally. Any time the argument becomes, “In my opinion, your idea is stupid,” rather than, “In my opinion, your idea is wrong,” we are straying into rule no.1 territory. Certain words -- stupid, silly, and so on -- are triggers to anger and should be avoided.

Of course the Mods will always clamp down on blatant racism, sexism, profanity.

We will always read alerts and consider the complaints seriously, even if our conclusion may be that nothing needs to be done. (In such cases, I PM the complainer to explain my thinking, and offer them a second opinion from another Mod.)

If Dakka, like any forum or community, needs the good will and co-operation of the members. It cannot work by diktat. More and more Mods would be needed to police a forum where people are not trying to be polite. Also, and importantly, a heavily policed forum would be less interesting and useful for the participants. The way forward is for users to be self-policing, by editing their own posts, and by warning each other when they see someone going over the line.

In this thread, some people are needling each other without resorting to obvious "Durrr!! G4ey Fail!!11!!One11" kind of language. I am not going to come in, do textual analysis on your posts, say someone is right and someone else is wrong, and start editing or handing out warnings. I’ve got better things to do on a lovely sunny Saturday.

I want people to think about what they write and consider whether they shouldn’t phrase their posts in more neutral language.

Thank you for reading.

tl;dr

Is it true that Warhammer Fantasy composition rules will ding people for not taking
standards, even if it makes absolutely no sense for a unit to have a standard? (Wood
Elf guerrilla tactics, in particular). I'm painting up some standard toting archers, but
I wanted clarification on this.

On this subject, I still say the most important score should be Sportsmanship.

I don't mind being slapped up and down the board left right and centre into the middle of next week, as long as my opponent isn't a gakker about it. You know, all TFG gloating etc.

Even if it's a beardy army it's the player who ruins my experience, rarely the list.

Thus, take away the distinction between a narrow win, a massacre etc, and just use the good old Footie scoring of 3 for a win, 1 for a draw, nowt for a loss.

Then, at the end, the players get to note which was their favoured opponent, in addition to the normal Sportsmanship score. Highest after that wins.

When you take the emphasis off the scale of the win, you should find people less inclined to be beardy in search of the higher points, meaning comp scoring becomes less and less necessary.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:On this subject, I still say the most important score should be Sportsmanship.

Why doesn't that surprise me.

I think that scores need to be separated out. If you're going to have comp, theme, generalship, painting and, yes, sportsmanship, then a result in one should not impact the result in another. If I have a good theme, having a bad painting score shouldn't affect that. I could be the nicest guy in the world, but be a bad general.

And if a tournament is going to have awards, then the 'Overall' reward should go to someone who scores highly in these areas. The others should be left to whoever scores highest in that category, not a combination of catagories.

BYE

The problem with sportsmanship is that unlike paint, comp, or battle, there's no reason to expect anything less than perfect sports from every player.

The main problem with sports is that the biggest tools will simply chipmunk their opponents by giving them all low scores.

I don't know if you've done much tournament gaming MDG, but the elimination of poor sportsmanship has more to do with judges ability and willingness to toss people that are cheating, stalling, being offensive, etc. rather than any score you can give them.

I kind of agree about the seperate scores.

Lets use the rather bizarre example of 'A Knights Tale' starring Heath Ledger.

In that, he is mainly concerned with the Joust, as the Champion in that field tends to win the most honour, and thus the Tourny overall. The Knights would pick and choose which competitions they entered as well.

Why not do the same? Sportsmanship and Game Results count towards the Gaming trophy. Painting Scores count toward the Painting Trophy, but you do not need to enter this if not.

Seperate scores independant of each other.

Polonius wrote:The problem with sportsmanship is that unlike paint, comp, or battle, there's no reason to expect anything less than perfect sports from every player.

The main problem with sports is that the biggest tools will simply chipmunk their opponents by giving them all low scores.

I don't know if you've done much tournament gaming MDG, but the elimination of poor sportsmanship has more to do with judges ability and willingness to toss people that are cheating, stalling, being offensive, etc. rather than any score you can give them.

How far do you think they can chipmunk in a ranking sports system?

Well, most bigger tournaments have a Best Overall (everything added together), Best General (most battle points), Best sports (highest sports with battle as the tie-breaker), best painted. They used to add Best Army, which was a combination of Paint and Theme.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:On this subject, I still say the most important score should be Sportsmanship.

Why doesn't that surprise me.

I think that scores need to be separated out. If you're going to have comp, theme, generalship, painting and, yes, sportsmanship, then a result in one should not impact the result in another. If I have a good theme, having a bad painting score shouldn't affect that. I could be the nicest guy in the world, but be a bad general.

And if a tournament is going to have awards, then the 'Overall' reward should go to someone who scores highly in these areas. The others should be left to whoever scores highest in that category, not a combination of catagories.

I have to disagree. As much as I hate soft scores, after playing in a few tournaments recently, I have to say that sportsmanship score is quite in important to the overall game.

I still beleive that comp is merely a way to chipmunk an opponent, but sportsmanship is needed to reign in the donkey-cave who cannot control his TFG urges from winning the tournament for being the overall winner.

Sure give him best general or whatever it is he needs to feel that his sad pathetic existence is worth living, but the overall score should reflect the overall attitude, painting, tactician that he brought to the tourney.

Hence why it is called the overall winner.

malfred wrote:

Polonius wrote:The problem with sportsmanship is that unlike paint, comp, or battle, there's no reason to expect anything less than perfect sports from every player.

The main problem with sports is that the biggest tools will simply chipmunk their opponents by giving them all low scores.

I don't know if you've done much tournament gaming MDG, but the elimination of poor sportsmanship has more to do with judges ability and willingness to toss people that are cheating, stalling, being offensive, etc. rather than any score you can give them.

How far do you think they can chipmunk in a ranking sports system?

That's a good question. Enough, I would think. If you rank your three opponents, and simply tag the guy you played that did the best gaming wise third, that hurts him more than it helps the guy you ranked highly.

As far as sportsmanship chipmunking, most tournies I have seen recognize that possibility and if they see someone turn in a card that scores the opponent very low, they are taken aside and need to explain why.

If it becomes apparent that the person is chipmunking over the course of the tourney, then they get zeroed on their own sportsmanship (appropriate, I think).

I dont go to enough tournaments to know if this is that commonly done, but any I have seen at least attempt to address the potential abuse this way.

Chipmunking? Que?

'Lowaballing' an opponent by scoring them low intentionally so that you, or others can benefit from a higher score.

Since you write down your scores of an opponent without knowledge of what they are scoring you, it is entirely possible that a person could receive a high score, while giving the other a low score.

I have seen a lot of tournies where a group of buddies come in to play, and they make a pact to 'lowball' or 'chipmunk' everyone else's scores so that one of them will come away with the highest standing, and thus the prize.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Chipmunking? Que?

Taking down your opponent's soft scores to try and take them out of the running.

It also includes other things you do in a tournament to try and win outside of playing well/painting/being a good sport/whatever you're supposed to be doing.

Wow. Thats. Just....lame.

Does winning really matter that much to some folk? Bloody hell!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Wow. Thats. Just....lame.

Does winning really matter that much to some folk? Bloody hell!

It takes all kinds of people to play this game, sadly there is that element.

Which is one reason why I vastly prefer to play people informally, for fun. Because thats the point.
Fun to me isn't dealing with some mouthbreathing neckbeard trying to eek out every advantage so that he can feel he has accomplished something with his life using dollies.

In all fairness, this sort of person is extremely rare. But all it takes is one for the whole tourney experience to really lose its flavor...fast.

I don't think that it's "extremely rare" at all. At a tournament series in Sacramento they "local" players routinely drop out-of-towners' sports scores for spurious reasons. They usually don't completely tank them, but just dropping them a point or two will often put players out of the running for best overall, and immediately disqualify them for best sports.

Not to mention the common tanking sports and painting scores because of the person playing a powerful list.

(which is more bullying than chipmunking, but it is related)

That is just dumb.

Time for another thread I think, to avoid hijacking this 'un.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:That is just dumb.

I'm really surprised that you're surprised by this Grotsnik. Either they do things really differently in the mother country compared to here and the US or you just haven't paid much attention to general tournament etiquette. I really thought that that kind of behaviour was, if not common, at least well known about.

BYE

Only played in one, and that was more than enough for me.

Anyways, divergent thread now open for business, so please feel free to return this one to it's topic

malfred wrote:

Polonius wrote:The problem with sportsmanship is that unlike paint, comp, or battle, there's no reason to expect anything less than perfect sports from every player.

The main problem with sports is that the biggest tools will simply chipmunk their opponents by giving them all low scores.

I don't know if you've done much tournament gaming MDG, but the elimination of poor sportsmanship has more to do with judges ability and willingness to toss people that are cheating, stalling, being offensive, etc. rather than any score you can give them.

How far do you think they can chipmunk in a ranking sports system?

You have heard of the Olympic scoring system haven't you?

G