I am from LA, and I was born and raised in a comp friendly environment. People always knew not to take the hardest army you could, or you would be shunned by your peers.

Now that I travel all over the US for games of 40k, I realize that comp is more a regional concept. There are some areas where they gladly take the hardest lists that they can and thoroughly enjoy themselves, and other areas that will be shocked at people playing the hardest lists.

I think a lot of the comp thoughts and ideas were taken from GWs lead because in their GTs and to a lesser extent their RTTs, they fostered (and scored) comp in their (US) tournaments.

They have now removed comp scoring from their tournaments, and now it is complete anarchy! Well, not really, but we see some of the hardest army builds rise to the top. Dual Lash+9 Oblits, Nob Bikers, Land Raider Spam, etc.

Now I have always built some hard lists, but I have always held back from taking my armies to the next level. A couple of years ago I played Eldar. Now I could have taken 3 falcons, but I only took 2. I could have taken a lot of Harlequins, but I only took 6. I could have taken harder troops, but I just took a lot of guardians. At the Baltimore GT in 2007 I was on one of the top tables to play against Chris Courtney (of Da Boyz) whom I respect a lot, and we have very similar armies, but mine was just a little harder. He had Banshees where I had Harlequins, he had a Farseer where I had Eldrad, etc. We were both of about equal skill, and my harder list won me the game. He commented afterwards about my list, and how hard it was. He did not like using the crutch of using special character in his army etc, and I agree with him for the most part because of my comp-friendly background. Also at that GT Toledo Brad took the Flying circus (3 falcons and Harlequins) and got an earful from the comp crowd. But that was the first year without comp, and people were still getting use to the idea.

Fast forward to 2008 GT season and I take my Witch Hunters army (that you can find in my sig.). Witch hunters are a good army in 5th edition, and I took a little bit of every unit in that army. The only thing I thought that I needed was 3 Exorcists. Heck, I might have played Demonhunters if they had any decent anti-tank. I thought I put together a good all-around army, and I thought it had a chance against some of the top tier armies. Against lash-oblits, I had good anti-psychic defense, and can try to get the oblits to get into a gunnery duel with my Exorcists. I thought I might have a good chance against Horde Orks with all of the anti-horde firepower. In hindsight I did really well with this army. In game #2 of the LVGT I played against Shep’s Ork army and squeaked out a minor with against was a top tier army. The rest of the GT he ended up crushing everyone else there.

So I take just about the same army to Baltimore and I get unlucky in my first game and lose to orks. That sends me down the tables where I play against some armies that were…less that optimal. On my way to beating one guy, he starts to complain against my comp (I am glad he was not on the top tables where the real brutal armies were) and he did not like the redundancy of 3 Exorcists. What can I say to that? They are the only ranged anti-tank available to my army, and if I ever have any hope of beating the top tier armies then I need those Exorcists.

So here we are in 2009. I see some batreps of some of the early tournaments, and I am a bit stunned by what I see.

For example, here is The Rogue Engineer’s army that he has been playing:
Prince w/ wings and lash
Sorcerer on bike w/ lash
3 terminators with a land raider transport
8 berserkers, champ w/ fist
10 Beakies w/ lascannon, icon
9 Beakies w/ flamer, icon
3 x 3 Obliterators

Now remember that he is one of the best players in the country, and he is always on the top tables of every major tournament. I want to win a GT, and if I am going to do that I have to beat armies like these, and all of the other brutal lists played by the best players.

So to do that I have to leave comp behind, and play the hard lists to be up with the big boys. So goodbye comp, we had several good years together, and now it is time to take the big bite out of the cheese plate….comp you will be missed.

Comp didn't do anything but change what the hard lists were anyway. People simply gamed the comp system the way they game the codices these days.

I did a couple tournaments this month.
120 pts max score. 30 painting, 30 comp, 20 for each of 3 games.

Painting and comp are judged by me, so there is no comp system to game. My comp is 0-20pts based on how good/hard/efficient your army is, plus another 0-10 pts for how fun/interesting/fair it is to play against.

Godzilla style nids with 8 MCs, or a Thorek gunline in fantasy, come in around 1/30 on this system. So far it's working fairly well.

Mikhaila - this isn't a knock, but in other words, your comp is entirely based on your own subjective opinion?

Allan...welcome to the Dark Side.

Seriously though...I started not caring about comp when I started playing Guard. It was simply so ridiculously easy to game the RTT system back in 3rd ed with Guard that it was a joke more than anything else.

Then, when I started playing Night Lords, I threw comp out the window, because the theme of playing Night Lords, with 4 full fast attack choices that took up about 66% of my army (points-wise) made me not care about comp at all.

Since then, thankfully comp has become less of an issue in the midwest, and that's spread to the GTs.

I personally don't give a snot about comp. 90% of the time it's totally subjective and even worse (and this is not aimed at you Mikhaila) is the fact that if you just trip a single trigger in your list the organizer can make it almost impossible to win the tournement. Heck, Allan and I had two of the lowest comp scores at the Broadside and neither one of our armies was anywhere near high powered.

Personally I prefer the checklist system where it is very hard to lose more than a point out of 10-12 points based on your army.

I hope comp is dead and I hope it stays that way. I still play fluffy armies but they definitely have an edge to them and I like it that way. I shouldn't be automatically taken out of the running just because I bring a tough list.

Just my 2c

Your poll is lacking one answer which is "I hope so".

I don't beleive it is dead, but it should be. Comp scores are an irrelevant tool used by chipmunks for evil.

[edit]
Allow me qualify that by saying that there are certainly lists I hate facing (FZORGLE! Stay away from my models you greasy neckbeard!), but this is not the fault of the player, but the fault of the designer. Wargames or any game for that matter have the potential to be "gamed". Its something that simply will always be a part of a competitive environment. Its a fact and anyone who says otherwise is either wearing some red lenses on the bridge of their nose or is smoking something illicit.

To impose quite arbitrary means of 'fairness' on a person because of that is simply silly and I am agog that such a system is still in common usage even after the days of the 3rd ed RTT. *grumble*Stupid 2nd ed holdover concerning percentages*grumble* Just because it was done one way during a certain time frame doesn't make that tradition balanced.

Players are going to take the hard lists anyways, and ignore comp completely and count on their painting, sports and battlepoints to win the tourney, and often do just that.

Honestly, I think 40K isn't meant for a tournament environment because it is felt that such arbitrary restrictions are needed to be put into place to reign in certain types of lists "for fairness' sake", but my opinion doesn't hold any water to the many hundreds of players who feel the need to play and have what they consider fun in such an environment.

For example, why do you not see a comp scores at a M:tG tourney? Because the rules are such that they can competently be played in a competitive environment. Any restrictions that are made are just that. Cards that are restricted or outright banned.

In GW Land, this is left to the subjective reasoning of the opposing player, or as Mikhaila has shown, the event organizer. We all know how this can be used for ill by both types, judging by a recent thread regarding a tourney organizer and his completely biased approach to restricting a certain persons army. (not a dig at you either mikhaila, but at the organizer from colorado springs who was much maligned in that thread)

I think a large part of why comp should go away is because of 5th ed mission structure. It rewards you for taking non min-maxed units (kill points) and for taking plenty of troops.

Subjective comp systems fail because the TO is likely biased towards/against certain lists.

Player-filled-out"Checklist" style comp fails because of chipmunks.

Overly convoluted comp systems that require changes to Force Organization fail because they mostly penalize armies that are less competitive in the first place, or are biased against armies which rely less on troops.

This has reminded me of some comp stories.

#1. I traveled to Sacramento for a 5 game “GT like” event that had a long list of comp restrictions. It rewarded armies that took a lot of troops and penalized a lot of high AP weaponry. What this did was it heavily favored marines because they can take the most troops and not lose much in effectiveness, and because if you limit the use of high AP weapons, their saves make them hard to kill. I ended up bringing my Thousand Sons to the event, and as everyone knows, Thousand Sons kind of sucked back then (they still do). Well, I misread the comp rules, and I ended up making a list that I thought would score well but not only did it score poorly, I had to change my army around so much that I hated the army that I ended up playing. You can tell that your comp system is broken when one of the weakest armies out there scores the worst in comp scoring.

#2. I was playing at an RTT in Salem, OR with my Eldar just a couple of years ago, and they had a very detailed list of what was penalized as comp. So I carefully made my army (I learned from my mistake above) and followed all of the comp rules, and then in round #2 I played against a guy who did not care about the comp, and brought the hardest army he could. The downside is that he blew my comp friendly army off of the table.

Blackmoor wrote:This has reminded me of some comp stories.

#1. I traveled to Sacramento for a 5 game “GT like” event that had a long list of comp restrictions. It rewarded armies that took a lot of troops and penalized a lot of high AP weaponry. What this did was it heavily favored marines because they can take the most troops and not lose much in effectiveness, and because if you limit the use of high AP weapons, their saves make them hard to kill. I ended up bringing my Thousand Sons to the event, and as everyone knows, Thousand Sons kind of sucked back then (they still do). Well, I misread the comp rules, and I ended up making a list that I thought would score well but not only did it score poorly, I had to change my army around so much that I hated the army that I ended up playing. You can tell that your comp system is broken when one of the weakest armies out there scores the worst in comp scoring.

#2. I was playing at an RTT in Salem, OR with my Eldar just a couple of years ago, and they had a very detailed list of what was penalized as comp. So I carefully made my army (I learned from my mistake above) and followed all of the comp rules, and then in round #2 I played against a guy who did not care about the comp, and brought the hardest army he could. The downside is that he blew my comp friendly army off of the table.

That's weird... I'm guessing you've played in comp tournaments in the same two stores that I've played: Borderlands in Salem, and Great Escape in Sacramento. The Sac tourney has the most restrictive comp system I've ever seen, and as you said it doesn't really do anything but penalize lesser-played lists. Of course the local crowd at the Sac tourney has some of it's own chipmunky problems, but I the TO is a pretty stand-up guy.

i think comp should stay. I haven't played tournaments for a couple of years, and prefer to play friendlies, but a SUBJECTIVE comp score seems the only way to fill certain cracks in game design.

First, and foremost, 40k is NOT a balanced game for competitive play. It's not designed to be a tournament game, it's not intended to be a tournament game, and if you play it as a tournament game you're going to come up with problems. One of these is the ability to 'game' the system, and come up with incredibly powerful, but un-fluffy lists which exploit rules loopholes etc. Hell, you don't need me to explain, you know what 'gaming' the system is....

A comp score is intended to be a way of judging both the list building AND the fluffiness of an army, and reduce the incidence of broken or beardy or exploitative lists.

The problem is that as soon as you introduce a comp 'structure' or checklist, then it becomes possible for people to game THAT. Also, it doesn't allow certain army variants, as above, where the restriction on Fast Attack units meant that a Night Lords army got low comp scores despite being characterful and fluffy.

The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies. One person is too likely to be biased, but taking the mean score of (say) three judges might make things fairer.

Of course, this is easier in the bigger tournaments, where judges are less likely to know the players personally, and there are plenty spare, but a bit difficult in your FLGS....

ArbitorIan wrote:i think comp should stay. I haven't played tournaments for a couple of years, and prefer to play friendlies, but a SUBJECTIVE comp score seems the only way to fill certain cracks in game design.

First, and foremost, 40k is NOT a balanced game for competitive play. It's not designed to be a tournament game, it's not intended to be a tournament game, and if you play it as a tournament game you're going to come up with problems. One of these is the ability to 'game' the system, and come up with incredibly powerful, but un-fluffy lists which exploit rules loopholes etc. Hell, you don't need me to explain, you know what 'gaming' the system is....

A comp score is intended to be a way of judging both the list building AND the fluffiness of an army, and reduce the incidence of broken or beardy or exploitative lists.

The problem is that as soon as you introduce a comp 'structure' or checklist, then it becomes possible for people to game THAT. Also, it doesn't allow certain army variants, as above, where the restriction on Fast Attack units meant that a Night Lords army got low comp scores despite being characterful and fluffy.

The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies. One person is too likely to be biased, but taking the mean score of (say) three judges might make things fairer.

Of course, this is easier in the bigger tournaments, where judges are less likely to know the players personally, and there are plenty spare, but a bit difficult in your FLGS....

Subjective comp systems (opponent or organizer judged) are the MOST unfair systems out there, because they all essentially boil down to "this judge feels this way."

In a smaller tournament, who's got a panel of judges that will do nothing but review every army? And what standards are they going to use?

In a larger tournament, one judge simply can't judge every army fairly. Not to mention that I've yet to see a tournament where the TO wasn't on a first-name basis with at least some of the players...

Comp is dead. Good riddance.

Comp should go, it is a fundamentally unsound system. if everyone brings tough lists, everyone will have fun and be on equal footing.

If you want to play a fluffy all swooping hawk list, do it at your club night, not at a tounrmant.

Even if you have a "panel" of comp judges, they'll most likely just lead the judge with the strongest personality. Also, the consensus of what's "unfluffy" or "broken" isn't always right... or as right as an opinion can be anyways.

Comp has no place in tournaments. There is no real good way to judge comp and one judge will find different results than another judge. The 40k community is split into the hard core gamers and the casual gamer, as well as those gamers that usually play casual but sometimes want to bring the pain. Pick up games and games with your friends should be for those casual games, people who come to a tournament should be ready to see some hard lists.

It would be hard to design a tournament for casual gamers alone because who would decide what can be taken and what can not be taken. And even if an event creates an list of acceptable choices for each codex gamers will be able to find and exploit things that were not considered. It pains me to hear people at a tournament gripe about some guys over powered army they faced. The point of coming to a tournament is to bring the best army and win. If you're interested in just a fun game you'd be better served playing against a friend in a more relaxed atmosphere anyway.

willydstyle wrote:
That's weird... I'm guessing you've played in comp tournaments in the same two stores that I've played: Borderlands in Salem, and Great Escape in Sacramento. The Sac tourney has the most restrictive comp system I've ever seen, and as you said it doesn't really do anything but penalize lesser-played lists. Of course the local crowd at the Sac tourney has some of it's own chipmunky problems, but I the TO is a pretty stand-up guy.

Yup you got the stores right.

Gary seems like a nice guy, but the comp system was unpleasant.

A have played in RTTs literally across the country and those two were the most restrictive as far as comp scoring. As I remember it the comp scoring in Borderlands was not too bad, but I hated the one in Sacramento.

Most comp (if they have it) is player judged, which also has a ton of issues.

The more I think about it, the more I think that we might be better off without comp. Even though I like the idea of comp, it has horrible execution.

Great Escape Games had some weird comp rules. One that confused me was (from memory, their site's down)

1pt Number of models in army is less than 10% of the points cost of the army
2pts Number of models in army is between 10% and 8% of the points cost of the army
3pts Number of models in army is less than 8% of points cost of army.

A rule that will pretty much only affect infantry guard and orks, while anyone whose troops cost more than 12 points can't possibly avoid winning full points.

Another part dinged you for playing troops choices that could also be taken in another force org slot. Gotta penalise those cheesy IG grenadiers, Deathwing, and Iyanden Eldar (along with Nidzilla and Nob Bikers, yes).

Plus the usual incentives to take troops and avoid special characters.

Raxmei wrote:Great Escape Games had some weird comp rules. One that confused me was (from memory, their site's down)

1pt Number of models in army is less than 10% of the points cost of the army
2pts Number of models in army is between 10% and 8% of the points cost of the army
3pts Number of models in army is less than 8% of points cost of army.

A rule that will pretty much only affect infantry guard and orks, while anyone whose troops cost more than 12 points can't possibly avoid winning full points.

Another part dinged you for playing troops choices that could also be taken in another force org slot. Gotta penalise those cheesy IG grenadiers, Deathwing, and Iyanden Eldar (along with Nidzilla and Nob Bikers, yes).

Plus the usual incentives to take troops and avoid special characters.

Yeah, that's their updated system. The reasoning behind the number-of-models restriction is that horde armies are often unfair to play against in medium-to-large games with time constraints, because the horde player takes up much more of the game time than the non-horde player. At the same time though, basically saying "you can't play horde armies" is a bit "unfair." Great Escape keeps updating their comp to try to find a system that "works," when the obvious answer is really to just drop comp altogether.

mikhaila wrote:I did a couple tournaments this month.
120 pts max score. 30 painting, 30 comp, 20 for each of 3 games.

Painting and comp are judged by me, so there is no comp system to game. My comp is 0-20pts based on how good/hard/efficient your army is, plus another 0-10 pts for how fun/interesting/fair it is to play against.

Godzilla style nids with 8 MCs, or a Thorek gunline in fantasy, come in around 1/30 on this system. So far it's working fairly well.

So you actually get to choose who wins? That seems fair. Your friends know what kind of things you think is fair and get max score and those who have no clue and bring the wrong thing is bumped off the top.. and that is if you judge it fairly. Some people just max out their friends.. Sounds like the worst possible system.

I like the idea of "hobby" tournaments where comp/modeling/painting are graded as well as actual play, but those should probably be separate from "normal" tournaments.

If GW thinks that all marine armies should be based around a Space Marine Company, then that should be the only thing that you can play.

The only expectation should be, "is it a legal list?" Everything else is too subjective.

I've been saying for a few years, if GW wants everyone to play fluffy lists, then that's all you should be able to field. Looking at the new SM codex, they're getting closer to that. You don't have to field a Marine Company, but based on the 10-man squads, etc., it looks a lot more like the fluff than it did in third or fourth.

I personally am all for a comp system - but the subjectiveness of it does make such a system extremely difficult to implement.

It gets to the point where there isn't much chance for consistency. Looking at Blackmoor's examples, you can go from one tourny to another to the next to the next, and have four completely different comp systems. Your army may even score decently in comp at one, and low at another.

It all boils down to the game system itself not really being conducive to "fair" tournament play. No matter how much you comp the system, you can still 'game' the system, and some lists can be 'gamed' more than others. This is the primary reason I quit going to most tournaments awhile ago. A heck of a lot less stress, for sure.

On the other hand, discarding the comp system because it doesn't work with 100% effectiveness is sort of a cop-out. Saying, "Since it doesn't work 100%, it shouldn't be bothered with at all" seems like a nice way to avoid any effort to fix a system that isn't ideal for tournament play to begin with.

Just my 2 isk, tho.

What is this comp you speak of?
Of course I take the requisite 1 Warlock/Warcaster per 500 points.

But seriously, regardless of game system, everyone has access to the same rules, and the limits/allowances for what you can take are clearly listed. Why would you place artificial restrictions/penalties on this external to the written rules?

If you want to write your own game, then write your own game. But if you want to play <insert game>, then play by the rules provided by the company.

The whole of Europe (as far as I know) has done without comp forever, and there are no complaints.

Comp raises continual discussion among US players (and interested observers like me.)

The same points are always raised, because they are true.

1. A rigid comp system is never fair to all armies, and it can always be gamed.

2. A judged comp system is always at least partly subjective.

3. Comp is a way of compensating for deficiencies in the codexes.

I concur with the majority, comp is dead, and its death is just.

On the other hand, however, I have no issues with a TO announcing that their tournament will be played with some other system to determine what you can bring/who will get the most soft scores. Anything from no one can bring heavy support choices to they just choose the winner and everyone else can just applaud. Whatever, if they've gone to the trouble to put on a tournament they can put up the rules like they want, so long as they let the rest of us know ahead of time. Presumably if their changes are good they'll get people at their tournaments (Adepticon Team Tournament is a great example of a player created rules system which is a lot of fun), if not the tourney will crash.

The reason I hit tournaments is to play games with strangers who aren't ashamed of trying to win. If I get 2 such in a typical tournament, or 3 in a 4 game tournament, it's a good tourney. I'm not in it for the prizes, so I don't care who gets the comp nod.

And the reality is that no matter how solid a game system, or detailed a force selection process, or effective comp scoring - there will always be models that are more effective, point for point, than other models.

In a lot of cases, Comp is just a way of bullying people who play differently than you.

My problem with comp is that it always feels kind of lazy. I don't feel like GW spends enough time balancing the codexes or ferreting out problems or potential rules abuse...but I'm sure they spend more time on it than most TOs do balancing their comp systems. It doesn't tend to improve the game, just change it, and it often inadvertently kills a lot of already weak armies.

I remember a friend bringing a Zilla Nid list to some tournament...a pretty hard, optimized list - 7 TMCs and 3 zoeanthropes and 4 squads of gaunts. Thought he would get reamed on player-judged comp. Instead he got pretty good scores, and it appeared to be because someone else brought a list with three Heavy Fexes with every upgrade in the book, and their troops were two ripper swarms. It didn't matter that my friends list was much more effective in game - his was deemed ok compared to the guy spending 240+ points per carnifex, because min troops was a bigger sin than having a strong list.

I think part of the problem is expectations. There are gaming tournaments and there are hobby tournaments. Some folks get them mixed up and to a large degree I fault the tournament organizers. Not that they do it intentionally, and not that TO isn't a huge boatload of work... but this aspect is an easy detail to overlook.

When you go to an 'Ard Boyz tourney for example, nobody has any illusions of what's going down. Yer in it to win it, and that's that. Hell, painting isn't even required.

Some folks like hobby tournaments, where the painting, converting and fluff is a big part of the event. Hobby events are not likely to draw those more interested in competitive dice rolling IF they know what's coming. Likewise, Ard Boyz is not likely to draw the guy who is more a modeler and painter that happens to play a game from time to time.

I enjoy a good throw down sometimes, but appreciate a well crafted list, a well painted army and a well converted model just as much. I think comp can have a place in the hobby tournament. A previous poster suggested a small group of judges could rule on comp scores and I agree. Ideally they would judge based on printed fluff and fiction.

For a long time I have felt that it's not always best to place the emphasis on "Winning" when there is so much more to the hobby. Too often at tourneys modeling, painting and sportsmanship is just a tiebreaker add on to the battle points. How about an event where craft, creativity and general good nature is rewarded instead of just seeing who the best dice roller is? Where it's more important to ensure your opponent is having fun too than to make sure your list is top tier? Where you could actually win without feeling like you HAD to get top battle points from all the games you played?

dietrich wrote:And the reality is that no matter how solid a game system, or detailed a force selection process, or effective comp scoring - there will always be models that are more effective, point for point, than other models.

That is absolutely true. There have always been strong and weak armies in WRG Ancients and other ancients rules.

The effects are a lot more extreme in 40K, because of a few special units (holofield Falcons in 4e, Nob Bikers and Double Lash Prince in 5e, for examples.)

In WM, Sorscha before Prime: Remix. Or Zealots with Monolith Bearer.

The problem is more pronounced when different units/models have similar roles, but one is 'only a few points more' and clearly better. At least 40k is getting away from that problem.

Kallbrand wrote:

mikhaila wrote:I did a couple tournaments this month.
120 pts max score. 30 painting, 30 comp, 20 for each of 3 games.

Painting and comp are judged by me, so there is no comp system to game. My comp is 0-20pts based on how good/hard/efficient your army is, plus another 0-10 pts for how fun/interesting/fair it is to play against.

Godzilla style nids with 8 MCs, or a Thorek gunline in fantasy, come in around 1/30 on this system. So far it's working fairly well.

So you actually get to choose who wins? That seems fair. Your friends know what kind of things you think is fair and get max score and those who have no clue and bring the wrong thing is bumped off the top.. and that is if you judge it fairly. Some people just max out their friends.. Sounds like the worst possible system.

Given that I'm one of the guys who played in said tournaments (and got the 3rd Worst comp there 2/30) you're reading it wrong.

mikhaila owns a shop (two actually) and runs events. Most of the people who come to these things know him pretty well enough to know that he can discern BS army lists from good comp lists.

Honestly, it's probably the most fair system there is. No player's screwing up comp by not grading it at all and giving the max, or people chipmunking you because you won. What you've got is an objective guy who's been in the business for ages, probably knows all the players except for the random dudes who showed up for the first time that day, and know's what is currently a bunch of BS in either 40k or WHFB.

And FYI, the person who got the second lowest comp in the event (1/30) won the WHFB tourney cause he won all his games.

Being a long time Ancient tourny gamer I can testify to that last comment.

All armies are NOT created equal and some have much less chance of being competative than others. For example in WRG 6th and 7th editions Late Imperial Roman and Seleucid armies often dominated the tourny scene due to their good mix of powerful troop types and extreme flexibility due to large numbers of choices and low minimum requirments. On the other hand an army like "Early Lybian" which consists almost entirely of shieldless javelin skirmishers is never going with do well in an open tourny enviorment. Likewise in the current Ancient tourny game of choice, Field of Glory, the Middle Eastern horse archer armies are racking up the wins....much to the irritation of a player like me who prefers hard hitting knight and warband armies.

The whole "some armies are more equal than others" phenomenon is nothing new and still is an issue even in games that ARE designed with competative play in mind, like the afore mentioned Field of Glory. Losing comp scores in 40k will not change this.

TR

Blackmoor wrote:So to do that I have to leave comp behind, and play the hard lists to be up with the big boys. So goodbye comp, we had several good years together, and now it is time to take the big bite out of the cheese plate….comp you will be missed.

I'm sorry to hear that you've decided to turn to the Dark Side.

There another option if you don't like to play "no comp", and you don't like to play WAAC lists, then don't - just ease out of the Tournament scene and move to casual gaming where Comp just isn't an issue...

Florida has some comp friendly tournaments while others are no comp. I used to be all for comp but comp in 3rd edition made for many Rhino Rush lists that were perfect comp while others suffered. It made all the armys much of the same with a difference in the army itself.

Now im not going to shed any tears if a tournament has no comp but if I know there is a comp tournament I will take one of my friendlier armies (Sam-Hain Eldar).

mikhaila wrote:Painting and comp are judged by me, so there is no comp system to game. My comp is 0-20pts based on how good/hard/efficient your army is, plus another 0-10 pts for how fun/interesting/fair it is to play against.

Nothing wrong with this, but it's only one opinion... I'd recommend multiple independent judges.
____

Hulksmash wrote:90% of the time it's totally subjective

Personally I prefer the checklist system where it is very hard to lose more than a point out of 10-12 points based on your army.

I think that *theme* should be subjectively rated, and wouldn't mind a point or two on how "competitive" your opponent believes your list to be. More than that is probably excessive.

I htink that *comp* should be a mechanical checklist.
____

Hellfury wrote:Honestly, I think 40K isn't meant for a tournament environment

For example, why do you not see a comp scores at a M:tG tourney?

Completely agreed, that tournament 40k is taking the game outside the design.

MtG is apples and oranges because all players have access to all of the cards. There are no limits on blending or mixing or other restrictions. If MtG had a 40k-like approach, you would be expected to play a mono deck, with an expectation of some amount of Creatures and limits on Instants. If 40k were one big list of stuff, then it would only exacerbate things. For example, SM Tacticals would compete directly with DA Tacticals, so DA Tacticals would never see play. It would be a quick system of winnowing things down even further than they are today. The 40k Codex system and FOC are designed to increase variety from the RT-"take anything" approach, and the vast reduction of Allies is closing down the old 25% Allies allowance.
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Blackmoor wrote:#1. I traveled to Sacramento for a 5 game “GT like” event that had a long list of comp restrictions.

#2. I was playing at an RTT in Salem, OR with my Eldar just a couple of years ago, and they had a very detailed list of what was penalized as comp. So I carefully made my army (I learned from my mistake above) and followed all of the comp rules, and then in round #2 I played against a guy who did not care about the comp, and brought the hardest army he could. The downside is that he blew my comp friendly army off of the table.

So noted, and sorry to hear that. Clearly, the comp didn't have sufficient impact so that your overall friendly comp made up for the difference in battle. That's a scoring fault that overly-rewards battle.
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ArbitorIan wrote:i think comp should stay. I haven't played tournaments for a couple of years, and prefer to play friendlies, but a SUBJECTIVE comp score seems the only way to fill certain cracks in game design.

First, and foremost, 40k is NOT a balanced game for competitive play.

The problem is that as soon as you introduce a comp 'structure' or checklist, then it becomes possible for people to game THAT.

The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies.

Generally agreed with all of the above, though, again, a bit of both - subjective and objective would be fair.

For the Night Lords example, max-Fast should have a small comp penalty, tut the NL would get a theme point (or two) to roughly balance things out.

The only thing I've started to bemoan recently at tournies is the unfinished/unpainted armies. Those are the ones that really get to me.

Otherwise I don't ding people's armies even if there is a comp scoring w/1 exception. Dual Nob Bikers get dinged and their total depends on what other units they brought in the list. Stormboyz or trukk boyz, not such a bad ding. 2 units of gretchen and a 30 man foot mob, much worse ding. And even then if they didn't make more than 6 models different for wound allocation I don't really ding the bikers. Call me crazy but I've long since adopted if it's legal in the codex it's legal to play and I've yet to run into a "top-tier" army I couldn't give a run with any of mine.

Oh, and i'm still glad comp is dead. It was a weasely way to ding non-marine players. Heck, my Iron Warriors scored full comp points back in the day

ArbitorIan wrote:
A comp score is intended to be a way of judging both the list building AND the fluffiness of an army, and reduce the incidence of broken or beardy or exploitative lists.

Incorrect.

You can make many a fluffy armies that are VERY hard, and doesnt do squad to reduce brokeness.

I can make say a fluffy mechanized sisters list thats hard as nails and easily passes a fluff test.

This whole comp problem is unfixable. Killkrazy's third point hits the nail on the head: comp is used to make up for deficiencies in the codeces.

If GW would actually put 100% into their codex and putting them out in a timely matter, and were able to make it so most armies had more than 1-2 competitive set-ups (where as some have none) that way you would find lists that are considered "cheese" instead it would just be personal preference combined with smart list making and variety. Take orks for example, their lists are condemned to either be largely powerful and get cried cheese at, or they tend to be comically terrible and get their asses handed to them. This is because of shoddy codex writing, with huge imbalances in force organization and point-costs for specialist troops.

Another option is making a scaled force organization chart more similar to fantasy battle. Being able to take the same amount of elites/FA/HS in 500 points as 10,000 points just screams to being taken advantage of right from the get-go. If they did a better job of scaling troops-to-specialist unitsj AND did a better job of making codeces with some variety in their competitiveness, we would have an awesome game here where we wouldn't need to worry about comp at all.

carmachu wrote:

ArbitorIan wrote:
A comp score is intended to be a way of judging both the list building AND the fluffiness of an army, and reduce the incidence of broken or beardy or exploitative lists.

Incorrect.

You can make many a fluffy armies that are VERY hard, and doesnt do squad to reduce brokeness.

I can make say a fluffy mechanized sisters list thats hard as nails and easily passes a fluff test.

What about armies where the only way to match the hardness is to break fluff? Witch hunters tend to score very well overall in GTs, maybe it's because they can get solid comp scores for fluff while still making a power list? Not all armies can do this, and not all armies can do this to the same degree. Armies weren't balanced (not that they were balanced all the well to begin with) with the fluff and accompanying comp scores they are likely to receive at tournaments, that's BS.

Comp is a way for bad players to blame other people for their own failings and the failings of the Games Dev studio.

Any comp system essentially fails, is fundamentally unfair to some players, and provides a false veneer of fairness.

Well, in fairness, objective comp with a checklist is always "fair", the same way that any rules are fair. The TO makes the rules, and you play by them. Even if it neuters some lists or even whole armies, it's as fair as any other setup where the rules are available to anyone ahead of time to evaluate their army against.

Subjective comp on the other hand is never fair, even if you have 10 judges, drop the highest/lowest, blah blah. But then again subjective judging doesn't stop people from competing in figure skating and gymnastics either.

As for the false veneer of fairness, I agree that subjective scoring does just that. heck there's another thread right now with someone ranting about how certain specific armies are too strong. Like any comp system doesn't end up with some army that's strongest.

The Green Git wrote: Where it's more important to ensure your opponent is having fun too than to make sure your list is top tier?

I hate people bringing up this...Quite frankly, if my opponent doesn't have fun because my list is too powerful, then they are being the bad sports and the one too focused on winning the game.

I've played games where I was outmatched, and I knew this from the start...And I still had fun...

We can seperate, for the purposes of discussion, comp into two flavors.

Call them fluffcomp and playcomp, or better names if you think of any.

You lose fluffcomp points if you make armies that are different from those described in the codex.

You lose playcomp points if you make armies that are extremely strong.

Sound like a good description of the meta-concept that is comp? Can anyone think of other categories, or further subdivide these two?

40kenthusiast wrote:Sound like a good description of the meta-concept that is comp? Can anyone think of other categories, or further subdivide these two?

Sounds pretty good to me.

The problem with fluffcomp is that the fluff has changed over the years, and some armies don't have as well defined 'fluff' armies as Space Marines (hurr!).

40kenthusiast wrote:We can seperate, for the purposes of discussion, comp into two flavors.

Call them fluffcomp and playcomp, or better names if you think of any.

You lose fluffcomp points if you make armies that are different from those described in the codex.

You lose playcomp points if you make armies that are extremely strong.

Sound like a good description of the meta-concept that is comp? Can anyone think of other categories, or further subdivide these two?

Except that the codexes rarely give an "example" force, and if they do, those examples are either just people's personal armies, or some nebulous paper roster. Nowhere do they say that any examples they give are how the game is supposed to be played...that was the big flaw in John's argument a few weeks ago.

And objective comp is less unfair than subjective comp, but what it does is essentially take something that's completely legal, and declare that someone should be penalized for it. In other words, you're penalizing the player, because GW wrote rules for something that are good.

SmoovKriminal wrote:This whole comp problem is unfixable.

comp is used to make up for deficiencies in the codeces.

If GW would actually put 100% into their codex and putting them out in a timely matter, and were able to make it so most armies had more than 1-2 competitive set-ups
This is because of shoddy codex writing, with huge imbalances in force organization and point-costs for specialist troops.

Another option is making a scaled force organization chart more similar to fantasy battle. Being able to take the same amount of elites/FA/HS in 500 points as 10,000 points just screams to being taken advantage of right from the get-go.

IMO, you don't really "get" how 40k works.

First, Comp isn't supposed to be "fixable", because that presumes that something even needs fixing, and I'm not convinced that this is the case.

That is, IMO, the problem lies not with the Codices, but with the players. The Codices give the player a lot of freedom to make a list, with the understanding that players should field well-themed armies. Many players choose not to do this, by choice or design. That isn't GW's fault, as otherwise, the Codices would become overly restrictive and potentially stifling.

The idea that GW's Cocides are "shoddy" is strange - GW Codices are screwdrivers, so stop trying to drive nails with them!

But you are correct that GW does bias costs and options for thematic flavor purposes. For reference, MtG does this, too. For example, Green nearly always has the biggest, baddest creatures and there generally isn't anything even close comparable in blue. White nearly always has the best healing and damage prevention, again at vastly reduced costs compared to any other color, assuming it's available. So why should GW not bias their costs and availability in their Codices?

The scaled FOC follows from the flawed presumption that that 40k armies must fit into neat little boxes. 40k does away with that notion entirely by throwing the FOC out the window in Apocalypse, doing away with the entire notion of comp in favor of Datasheets that allow players to theme their forces.

The idea that WFB scales nicely doesn't work at the extremes, and you'd be hard-pressed to have a 10k WFB army that works "right": up to 20 Characters (max 9 Lords), max 10 Rare, max 12 Special. With only 11 Core required, that can be filled with well under 1k pts. Proportionally, you have 2.5x the Lords, 40% more Rares, and only give up 20% of your Specials. You think that's not going to be totally broken?

For example, High Elves would take 1k worth of Archers and fill the remaining 9k points with lv.4 Archmages on Moon Dragons, supported by a chorus of lv.2 Dragon Mages. Yay?

SmoovKriminal wrote:

What about armies where the only way to match the hardness is to break fluff? Witch hunters tend to score very well overall in GTs, maybe it's because they can get solid comp scores for fluff while still making a power list? Not all armies can do this, and not all armies can do this to the same degree. Armies weren't balanced (not that they were balanced all the well to begin with) with the fluff and accompanying comp scores they are likely to receive at tournaments, that's BS.

Examples?

Ork nob biker armyis fluffy as a speed freak army. Drop pod marines are fluffy(although I dont know exactly if their as effective). I can go on and on and on.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

That is, IMO, the problem lies not with the Codices, but with the players. The Codices give the player a lot of freedom to make a list, with the understanding that players should field well-themed armies. Many players choose not to do this, by choice or design. That isn't GW's fault, as otherwise, the Codices would become overly restrictive and potentially stifling.

In what universe do you live in? No thats not the understanding at all.

If you but out an army book, and say "you have 3 HS slots" and say....4 choices, there is NOTHING in the game or book, that means you cant put in3 of the same. There is nothing to say you have to have a theme. The only guiding light is...the force chart and points limits.

Your delusional to think thats what should happen. Can it? Sure. Do folks have to? No.

JohnHwangDD wrote:There another option if you don't like to play "no comp", and you don't like to play WAAC lists, then don't - just ease out of the Tournament scene and move to casual gaming where Comp just isn't an issue...

Why is it a sin to play competitive tourney games?

carmachu wrote:Ork nob biker armyis fluffy as a speed freak army.

Is it?

Or would a "proper" Speed Freekz army have Biker Boyz and Trukk Boyz and so on, rather than *just* Nob Bikers?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
IMO, you don't really "get" how 40k works.

First, Comp isn't supposed to be "fixable", because that presumes that something even needs fixing, and I'm not convinced that this is the case.

That is, IMO, the problem lies not with the Codices, but with the players. The Codices give the player a lot of freedom to make a list, with the understanding that players should field well-themed armies. Many players choose not to do this, by choice or design. That isn't GW's fault, as otherwise, the Codices would become overly restrictive and potentially stifling.

What? Seriously? People who think "hmm, three squads of bloodcrushers/lootas/obliterators/whatever sure looks powerful, I think I'll take them" just don't understand how the game works? Seriously? This argument is nonsense. The game rules are clear. The only people who don't understand what armies you should expect to see are people who have deluded themselves into thinking there is some kind of extra rules in the book other than Unit cost and FOC. The real problem is when units in the same FOC chart for the same army are not even close to the same power level/balance. Or when one whole codex is worse at everything than another codex. Or when one or two units in a codex are significantly broken, either on their own or due to a change in the rules. It isn't the fault of the players for thinking 'man, thats pretty good, i'll use it'. Especially not in a TOURNAMENT.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

The idea that GW's Cocides are "shoddy" is strange - GW Codices are screwdrivers, so stop trying to drive nails with them!

No one is driving nails with them. It's more like the codices are power screwdrivers, and GW and the happy fluffy crowd leave the batteries out and use it like a regular screwdriver most of the time, and then complain when you use the power.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

But you are correct that GW does bias costs and options for thematic flavor purposes. For reference, MtG does this, too. For example, Green nearly always has the biggest, baddest creatures and there generally isn't anything even close comparable in blue. White nearly always has the best healing and damage prevention, again at vastly reduced costs compared to any other color, assuming it's available. So why should GW not bias their costs and availability in their Codices?

This has nothing to do with the issue. This is like saying that Tau should have close combat units and that daemons need more railguns. No one is saying that. They're saying things would be better if the codexes were actually balanced, not that they were identical. The differences between white and blue and green are no different than the differences between tau or chaos space marines or eldar. The real difference is that in MtG, they actually admit when they screw up and ban or restrict cards.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
The scaled FOC follows from the flawed presumption that that 40k armies must fit into neat little boxes. 40k does away with that notion entirely by throwing the FOC out the window in Apocalypse, doing away with the entire notion of comp in favor of Datasheets that allow players to theme their forces.

Apocalypse is not regular 40k. Bringing it up all the time is meaningless. Imagine what people would abuse if someone had an apocalypse tournament, or what the comp rules might be.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
The idea that WFB scales nicely doesn't work at the extremes, and you'd be hard-pressed to have a 10k WFB army that works "right": up to 20 Characters (max 9 Lords), max 10 Rare, max 12 Special. With only 11 Core required, that can be filled with well under 1k pts. Proportionally, you have 2.5x the Lords, 40% more Rares, and only give up 20% of your Specials. You think that's not going to be totally broken?

For example, High Elves would take 1k worth of Archers and fill the remaining 9k points with lv.4 Archmages on Moon Dragons, supported by a chorus of lv.2 Dragon Mages. Yay?

Again, no one is talking about huge armies, just normal size armies (say up to 2500 points in either game). He wants it to scale within that, not up to 10k points. Who cares if it breaks down at a large scale, you don't tend to have 10k point no comp WFB tournaments. It's a discussion about comp, and therefore a discussion about tournaments. Not about whatever random thing you want to bring up that has nothing to do with it.

You can fit two full squads of Nob bikers and two trukks full of boyz in a 1750 army. Is that army fluffy enough for you? We've done this a million times...there are overpowered armies that are still plenty fluffy, and weak ass armies that don't fit anyones definition of fluff, and arguments about what counts as fluffy anyway.

whitedragon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:just ease out of the Tournament scene and move to casual gaming where Comp just isn't an issue...

Why is it a sin to play competitive tourney games?

Where did I say it was a sin?

He said he didn't want to play a WAAC list, and I agreed, giving him an alternative (casual play).
____

carmachu wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:That is, IMO, the problem lies not with the Codices, but with the players. The Codices give the player a lot of freedom to make a list, with the understanding that players should field well-themed armies.

If you but out an army book, and say "you have 3 HS slots" and say....4 choices, there is NOTHING in the game or book, that means you cant put in3 of the same. There is nothing to say you have to have a theme. The only guiding light is...the force chart and points limits.

Thanks for giving the WAAC POV.

What John doesn't seem to understand is that theme and comp don't go hand-in-hand. A thematic army can also be one that is a strong, sometimes extremely strong build.

I have no problems with people trying for thematic armies. But to argue that weak armies are more thematic, or that strong armies aren't thematic, is simply the height of silliness.

Modquisition on:

Gentlemen, Dakka rule #1: first be polite. That is a requirement. Please do so or the thread will be closed and offenders violated.

Modquisition off.

Centurian99 wrote:What John doesn't seem to understand is that theme and comp don't go hand-in-hand. A thematic army can also be one that is a strong, sometimes extremely strong build.

Please re-read my initial comment on Theme and Comp.

I believe I'm pretty clear that Theme and Comp are unrelated, different topics, and that Theme is purely subjective, while Comp can be more objective (i.e. checkbox).

To each their own i guess. I enjoy making fluffy balanced lists more than powerhouses but thats just me. I wish the game were more balanced as a whole so everyone could do their thing with more overall play strategy being relied upon rather than beardy lists.

That said i mainly have enjoyed the few tourneys i have gone to and look forward to the ones the future to have fun and show off my army that i worked on.

skyth wrote:

The Green Git wrote: Where it's more important to ensure your opponent is having fun too than to make sure your list is top tier?

Quite frankly, if my opponent doesn't have fun because my list is too powerful, then they are being the bad sports and the one too focused on winning the game.

Riiiiiiiight.... "You should have fun no matter what kind of list I bring because that's how *I* have fun and if you don't like it then you're a bad sport."

You clearly missed the entire point of my post. If you like going to a tournament where beat down lists are encouraged, then don't go to a Hobbyist Tourney if it's billed as such. Or at least, don't be surprised when you win every game in battle points but lose the overall to a guy with a nicely painted, nicely converted, themeatic and fluff consistent army.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:What John doesn't seem to understand is that theme and comp don't go hand-in-hand. A thematic army can also be one that is a strong, sometimes extremely strong build.

Please re-read my initial comment on Theme and Comp.

I believe I'm pretty clear that Theme and Comp are unrelated, different topics, and that Theme is purely subjective, while Comp can be more objective (i.e. checkbox).

But the problem is that any checklist for comp is inherently biased and abuseable. Even with that, however, you've said things like this:

That is, IMO, the problem lies not with the Codices, but with the players. The Codices give the player a lot of freedom to make a list, with the understanding that players should field well-themed armies. Many players choose not to do this, by choice or design. That isn't GW's fault, as otherwise, the Codices would become overly restrictive and potentially stifling.

Well,

I am really torn on this one.

On the one hand, I have personally observed you (Blackmoor) game soft scores (hell, we still call chipmunking 'Getting Hernandezed' around here) and bring armies that are completely off the chain, dating back to the early days of 4th edition. Does the 18 model Tzeench list with a hald dozen bolts of change AND winds of chaos ring any bells? I have observed you quietly hop on every power trend with gleeful enthusiasm and bail on tournaments after losing one game. Granted, you have improved you have improved that attitude in the last year or so, but the reality is that you are personally one of those who contributed to the very problem you are soapboxing on.

On the other hand, you are exactly correct, which is one of the main reasons I made Fantasy my main game about four years ago (but the take no prisoners attitude has infected that game to a degree now, too), because my choices boiled down to: Play Stealth Cheese (Sisters of Battle, Guardian Heavy Eldar, ect), Play an army that I liked but was too good due to the current metagame (Eldar), or play a fluff list so that the competitive people could score easy round one wins against me. The problem has existed since about halfway through 4th, but the current wacky codexes and mission rules (kill points=worst design implementation ever) are just amplifying a pre-existing issue. For better or worse, the competitive game is dick punching adepticon levels of assclownery and ther simply is no going back without a major reset of all of the army books. A minor tweak (ala what 4th was to 3rd) could arrest a lot of the damage, but GW has all but buried its head in the sand to the competitive balance of the game.

No comp system will ever fix this, because as you know personally (both good and bad), comp systems can always be gamed and are nearly always subjective hitlists designed to gimp armies the TO does not personally like. So, let comp die. If everyone agress that cockwallet lists are the acceptable norm at tournaments (and only there), then the focus can move to where it should be, which is the rules balance. Sportsmanship needs to stay, however. I don't mind getting tabled in three turns by someone, but I really don't need them being a douche while they are doing it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Is it?

Or would a "proper" Speed Freekz army have Biker Boyz and Trukk Boyz and so on, rather than *just* Nob Bikers?

why is yours more correct? I'm sure you could stick a trukk mob or two in to a nob bike one. but you havent explained or shown why yours is more correct.

I think giving points for Theme is utter nonsense.

I doubt there's any extreme setup where a moderately imaginative player can't write a piece of fluff to justify the theme.

The last time an argument about Nob Bikerz, Theme and Comp came up I gave the example of two Ork Nob Biker Lords who are both competing to be the biggest and baddest biker. So they make a deal to bring all their Bikers to a battle and the one who kills the most enemies will become the lead biker. Because they want to be biker lords they leave all their grots and trukks at home.

Lovely theme, very Orky, totally supported by fluff and justifies the two nob biker lord list without supporting grots or whatever.

The codexes aren't balanced and that isn't because GW very carefully wrote them not to be balanced to make people write themey army lists. It's because they slapped them together to sell some models. The evidence is all over the place.

Given the problems with comp scoring, it would be more reasonable to write tournament scenarios which reward balanced armies.

I think a tournament should be about who wins the most games and the margin by which they manage it. So I'm all for extreme lists in tourneys. If you want fluffy lists, play narrative campaigns with your friends.
I'm not even down with painting and sportsmanship being included- I'd say give a seperate prize for best painted, best sports and best general. And if some guy is a jerk, just deal with it socially. Don't have a pint with him afterwards.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
The scaled FOC follows from the flawed presumption that that 40k armies must fit into neat little boxes. 40k does away with that notion entirely by throwing the FOC out the window in Apocalypse, doing away with the entire notion of comp in favor of Datasheets that allow players to theme their forces.

I missed this earlier...

You do realize that many of us old timers were playing biog stupid games LONG before Apocalypse came about right? GW just added some rules and flavor.....

The Green Git wrote:

skyth wrote:

The Green Git wrote: Where it's more important to ensure your opponent is having fun too than to make sure your list is top tier?

Quite frankly, if my opponent doesn't have fun because my list is too powerful, then they are being the bad sports and the one too focused on winning the game.

Riiiiiiiight.... "You should have fun no matter what kind of list I bring because that's how *I* have fun and if you don't like it then you're a bad sport."

You clearly missed the entire point of my post.

And you clearly missed the point of mine. My fun in the game is not determined by what my opponent brings. I'm not one of the people that plays the whole game in a sulking huff and then starts calling the other person names once the game is over.

I dunno...I think sportsmanship needs to stay. It doesn't need to be a huge amount of points, and should probably be a checklist and not just some arbitrary 0-10 chipmunk fest, but it is needed. There are enough people who can't be bothered to compete civilly that it is probably worth it. If we could put in cheating and behavior penalties or judges for every game like a professional sport, ok, I'd be fine with no sportsmanship, but I think the threat of TFG ruining peope's tournament experience is enough to make sportsmanship important (and clearly seperate from comp). But I guess thats a completely different discussion.

I was trying out an experimental list at leprecon, and got paddled by a very nice (by which I mean really hard) list in my first game and had an awesome time anyway. Just because I got schooled doesn't mean I can't have fun. It's all about attitude.

Edit: On cheating and really obnoxious players- they should just be disqualified. Seriously.

Euro (or at least UK tournaments) don't have Sport scoring either.

It works fine.

Sports scoring offers another opportunity for genuine TFGs and their friends to game the system.

For example, persuade your opponent to give you a 10, and you'll give him a 10. Or nail him with a 0 for beating you. Go as a team and collude in your scoring to nail the guys who are ahead of your team-mates.

In irish cons it varies wildly, as most are indy run. You can see anything from actual comp restrictions to sports scoring as a percentage of overall points to no sports at all. I prefer the last one. I've rarely come across a really bad TFG on the irish scene, most of the lads are sound.

I agree that sports on a 0-10 scale with no oversight is dumb (and common). Nothing is worse than having people use "sportsmanship" scores to knock you for comp, or even worse, to just game the system (bad sportsmen using sportsmanship scores to win...oh the irony)

Maybe I'll just try to find a nice irish or english tournament to play in when I'm there this summer and I'll see if every game is with TFG

of course, the odds of my wife murdering me because i'm trying to play warhammer on a vacation might be high.

Not many Irish cons during the summer anyhow .

Give us a shout if you're going to be in the Dublin area though, and if anything's coming up I'll let you know.
I'll just warn you that the cons don't tend to be brilliantly organised on the whole. Mostly run by college students. It's changing slowly, but it's nothing like Adepticon or the like.
UK might be better.

Kilkrazy wrote:I think giving points for Theme is utter nonsense.

I doubt there's any extreme setup where a moderately imaginative player can't write a piece of fluff to justify the theme.

The last time an argument about Nob Bikerz, Theme and Comp came up I gave the example of two Ork Nob Biker Lords who are both competing to be the biggest and baddest biker. So they make a deal to bring all their Bikers to a battle and the one who kills the most enemies will become the lead biker. Because they want to be biker lords they leave all their grots and trukks at home.

Lovely theme, very Orky, totally supported by fluff and justifies the two nob biker lord list without supporting grots or whatever.

The codexes aren't balanced and that isn't because GW very carefully wrote them not to be balanced to make people write themey army lists. It's because they slapped them together to sell some models. The evidence is all over the place.

Given the problems with comp scoring, it would be more reasonable to write tournament scenarios which reward balanced armies.

Emphasis mine.

This is something I, as a new 40k player, had been meaning to ask about. I've been a serious Starcraft player (and viewer) for a long time and while the last patch that affected balance came out in 2001 (I believe..) we have seen HUGE changes in balance despite this. Almost all because of maps.

For instance, when I started playing the game seriously (2002) Protoss was considered by almost everyone as the worst race in the game. Today? The last 3 major tournaments were all won by Protoss players.
(Brief aside, those who are unawares, there's a huge professional Starcraft scene in South Korea, with several dedicated TV stations showing games live every day of the week, and players literally getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all 3 races are well represented at the top, as well as lower ranks - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u_tBTS3CE8 an example)

Anyway, as a novice, I don't know exactly what type of scenario is favourable for Orks, and given that SC has 3 races while 40k has.. a whole lot of them, you will obviously come up with even more scenarios that are fine for half, but suck for the other half. Still, it's a venue I think should be explored (along with, perhaps, varying the game table size/having pre-set terrain - not all the same obviously - in whatever manner best helps the weaker armies and nerfs the strong, so as to bring everyone to a competitive equal point).

Kilkrazy wrote:I think giving points for Theme is utter nonsense.

I doubt there's any extreme setup where a moderately imaginative player can't write a piece of fluff to justify the theme.

I have to agree. If I run my Tau list with maxed out Broadside & Crisis suits, is that fluffy? If not, why not? It's a theme (MOAR SUITZ), it's also pretty ineffective. Soft scores are pointless in my opinion. They're just a way to penalize people for playing well, or for doing the math-hammer to get as strong a list as possible from their Codex. To me, neither of those things should be penalized.

I'm not a WAAC guy (the fact that Tau is my main army should give that away. I enjoy playing scenarios and fluffy games. I'd probably enjoy Apoc if I get into it, but I don't currently have the models, rules or time for that. However, if I'm in something that's describing itself as a tournament, I would expect everyone I'm playing to be trying to win. After all, we all like to win our games, right? I'm not worried about whether unit X is broken, I'm worried about whether I want to piant unit X, or if I want to assemble unit Y. My goal is to collect enough that I can field every combo the Tau Empire codex will let me (which is why magnet suits and turrets are mandatory in my army), and once that's done, build a second, more assault army for conttrats, and so I've always got an opposing army for a game if I have a friend round who wants to know what all the sci-fi robots are about.

Da Boss wrote:I think a tournament should be about who wins the most games and the margin by which they manage it. So I'm all for extreme lists in tourneys. If you want fluffy lists, play narrative campaigns with your friends.
I'm not even down with painting and sportsmanship being included- I'd say give a seperate prize for best painted, best sports and best general. And if some guy is a jerk, just deal with it socially. Don't have a pint with him afterwards.

i agree with this fellow, armys should be painted with at least three colors (most tournaments do this) because painted armies are more fun to play with, but i dont think they should go into your tournament score.Golden Demons are a much better place to be a critic on whos models are the best.
and i think sportsmanship should stay just reduce the amount it is worth.just my opinion.

Here's a crazy idea: GW publishes an official list for competitive play for each army. Every SM army will look alike; every Necron Army will look alike, etc.
Now when everyone plays they will have a more controlled experience versus trying to whore out the system to wring maximum advantage of every upgrade, unit min-max, etc.

When you see that you're playing against an Ork army, you know you're getting x number of slugga boyz, etc. Other than who gets first turn and how the dice roll, the game should actually be closer to a real test of who plays the game better instead of what it is now.

If we were playing chess and my side can buy 6 bishops at 20 pts/apiece and you can buy 6 queens at 15 pts/apiece, odds are good that we're not going to have a real fair match---regardless of what the points say.

privateer4hire wrote:Here's a crazy idea: GW publishes an official list for competitive play for each army. Every SM army will look alike; every Necron Army will look alike, etc.
Now when everyone plays they will have a more controlled experience versus trying to whore out the system to wring maximum advantage of every upgrade, unit min-max, etc.

When you see that you're playing against an Ork army, you know you're getting x number of slugga boyz, etc. Other than who gets first turn and how the dice roll, the game should actually be closer to a real test of who plays the game better instead of what it is now.

If we were playing chess and my side can buy 6 bishops at 20 pts/apiece and you can buy 6 queens at 15 pts/apiece, odds are good that we're not going to have a real fair match---regardless of what the points say.

Certainly, that actually sounds like something that would be a lot of fun.

Of course, then you're going to have to deal with the heat from people who think you're ruining their game because you're stifling their creativity...

Besides that, though...might make an interesting tournament for a future AdeptiCon. Hmm...

It's not stifling creativity. The problem if they do that is how many style builds can you make just out of the marine codex? I'm a speed oriented player w/my orks and marines. Which means I focus on bikes and jump packs. They aren't power builds by any means (i don't use nob bikerz) but I still normally lose maybe 1 game a tournement with them. If they just gave me a single build I'd probably drop out of tournement play. I'd get bored way to fast

@JohnHwangDD

You've stated that GW intends for marine players to play battle companies or fractions of units representing battle companies. If this is true, why do they include HQs that alter the FoC in order to play units either in alternate slots, or to be capable of fielding more of those units?

You've stated many times that comp should be used to encourage "fluffy" armies, but you also state that you know what GW intends to be a fluffy army... I think that you're wrong. GW creates their codices to be able to field a very wide variety of armies, because that's what the fluff supports. Things are left intentionally open-ended because as GW has actually said before, their universe is a huge place that can incorporate a wide variety of different armies.

And now in this thread, you're changing your mind, and saying that fluff and comp are separate... despite what you've written in the past.

You like comp. I get that. I think that you're doing your argument a disfavor by simply writing whatever justification you feel at the time, without actually sticking to the concept (one that I don't agree with) that comp systems make for a more "fair" tournament experience.

skyth wrote:And you clearly missed the point of mine. My fun in the game is not determined by what my opponent brings. I'm not one of the people that plays the whole game in a sulking huff and then starts calling the other person names once the game is over.

So what does sulking and name calling have to do with bringing power lists? My suggestion was merely to be able to have a tournament where bringing the beat down lists wasn't the primary goal of the tournament. If you don't like a given style of play then you shouldn't go to that type of event.

Phazael wrote:Well,

I am really torn on this one.

On the one hand, I have personally observed you (Blackmoor) game soft scores (hell, we still call chipmunking 'Getting Hernandezed' around here) and bring armies that are completely off the chain, dating back to the early days of 4th edition. Does the 18 model Tzeench list with a hald dozen bolts of change AND winds of chaos ring any bells? I have observed you quietly hop on every power trend with gleeful enthusiasm and bail on tournaments after losing one game. Granted, you have improved you have improved that attitude in the last year or so, but the reality is that you are personally one of those who contributed to the very problem you are soapboxing on.

On the other hand, you are exactly correct, which is one of the main reasons I made Fantasy my main game about four years ago (but the take no prisoners attitude has infected that game to a degree now, too), because my choices boiled down to: Play Stealth Cheese (Sisters of Battle, Guardian Heavy Eldar, ect), Play an army that I liked but was too good due to the current metagame (Eldar), or play a fluff list so that the competitive people could score easy round one wins against me. The problem has existed since about halfway through 4th, but the current wacky codexes and mission rules (kill points=worst design implementation ever) are just amplifying a pre-existing issue. For better or worse, the competitive game is dick punching adepticon levels of assclownery and ther simply is no going back without a major reset of all of the army books. A minor tweak (ala what 4th was to 3rd) could arrest a lot of the damage, but GW has all but buried its head in the sand to the competitive balance of the game.

No comp system will ever fix this, because as you know personally (both good and bad), comp systems can always be gamed and are nearly always subjective hitlists designed to gimp armies the TO does not personally like. So, let comp die. If everyone agress that cockwallet lists are the acceptable norm at tournaments (and only there), then the focus can move to where it should be, which is the rules balance. Sportsmanship needs to stay, however. I don't mind getting tabled in three turns by someone, but I really don't need them being a douche while they are doing it.

Your post has some valid points, but I don't see what you are trying to accomplish by trying to discredit Blackmoor in your first paragraph. That really lowers your credibility right out of the gate, especially when you throw out a bunch of petty accusations from left field. Is there some sort of personal score you are trying to settle with Blackmoor?

Dakka just wouldn't be Dakka without random vendettas.

Personally I thought that those "petty accusations" actually strengthened Blackmoor's original argument against comp scoring. If he was the kind of gamer who used to use comp scores to his own advantage, then for him to decide that those soft scores are not good for the hobby or the "tournament scene" after all shows character.

Phazael wrote:Well, I am really torn on this one.

On the one hand, I have personally observed you (Blackmoor) game soft scores (hell, we still call chipmunking 'Getting Hernandezed' around here) and bring armies that are completely off the chain, dating back to the early days of 4th edition

I don’t know what brought this on Q, but you are wrong on almost all counts. What was the last army I played against you about 3 years ago? Demonhunters…without even a land raider! (land raiders were crap in that edition anyways). So if my mighty Demonhunters are so “Of the chain” then I am guilty. And yes, I did mark you all the way down in the theme score in that game. You brought Wraithlords in your Alaitoc army and at the time the GW RTT scoring sheet said as an example of poor theme someone who brings wraithlords in an all infiltrating army. It ironically gave an example of your army as what should be scored poorly in theme, so yes I did mark that box.

I have never chipmunked anyone in my life. Like I was saying, I am a comp friendly player, and I did mark down WAAC armies. I took a lot of criticism from the WAAC players for doing so to the point where I said it was just not worth it anymore, and I just started to give everyone max scores. (there is an example of comp not working). As an example of this, I have played in the Southern California Games Workshop League for several seasons and they had a comp score from 0-3 but no one had ever given less then max points. It was not because people played fluffy armies, it was because no one ever gave someone a bad open comp score no matter how OTT some armies were (and there were some OTT armies). In this league you picked one army and you had to play it the whole season, and I had a game scheduled against Darrian13’s Black Legion against my mighty Demonhunters! (again me with my cheesy power builds). Darrian13 loaded up with about 22 lascannons, and the most anti-marine equipment you can think of. I barely managed a tie which I was very, very happy about! Then when it was time to score comp, I thought he tooled up a bit too much to beat me, and that many lascannons were way over the top so I thought I would take one point off of his comp score and give him only a 2 instead of a 3. You should have seen his reaction of him and all of his friends. They went ape-crap over this. That is how I got the reputation of being a poor sport, and chipmunking came from. From then on I was ostracized by his group of friends, and whenever I went to an RTT they would spread rumors about me and how I chipmunked.

Phazael wrote:. Does the 18 model Tzeench list with a half dozen bolts of change AND winds of chaos ring any bells? I have observed you quietly hop on every power trend with gleeful enthusiasm

I hopped on every power trend? I played Thousand Sons all through 3rd edition most of 4th. Not much of a power army. I did play a BoC spam list once to see how it did, and it did do well (this was mostly a response to Darrian13’s terminator AC spam list that he had been winning all of the RTTs and kicking my butt with). I played Godzilla Nids for about 6 months until it became too easy to win with and I retired them and I have not played them in over 3 years. I then switched to Eldar and I posted in the first post what I thought I held back on. You can find that army and all of my batreps for the LVGT below if you think that army was WAAC. I then I switch to a rather tame Witch Hunter army. I document all of my armies and games that I take to major tournaments, so if you think that those armies were really power builds, I do not know what to tell you. Competitive to be sure, but really power builds? I might be wrong but I don’t think so.

Phazael wrote: and bail on tournaments after losing one game.

Now that is a lie. I have only left one RTT early in my life and that was after game #2 down at the Battle Bunker. I had a date that night, and the RTT was going way late do to a huge argument. It was getting close to 5pm, and round #3 was nowhere on the horizon. Reecius (who posted earlier on this thread) had to go too, so we pulled out and they still had an even number of players. If I was the type to call it quits early I would have never shown up for day #2 at the Broadside Bash, driving to the airport, paying $13 to park, and play 2 games in a horrible venue, and instead spend the day with my friends in LA that I rarely get to see anymore. And I already knew that I was out of the running after losing in the first day too.

Phazael wrote: Granted, you have improved you have improved that attitude in the last year or so, but the reality is that you are personally one of those who contributed to the very problem you are soapboxing on.

LA was really a comp friendly town until Darrian and Matt started to show up with power builds. If I brought tough armies it was only in response to the power build up. My Eldar army was actually forged by losing many times to Darrian’s Godzilla list.

And although it seems like this post is trashing on Darrian13, but I kind of miss the big lug. He brought the toughest WAAC armies that he could find, and I played against him and his hard armies a lot and he made me a much better player. Now I have grown soft, and less skillful without him around anymore.

Here are a sampling of my armies. Judge for yourself is they are power builds:
2007 LVGT (I also took this army to Baltimore GT)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/169568.page

2007 LA Gamesday
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/181782.page

2008 LVGT and Baltimore GT See sig below.

Phazael wrote:Does the 18 model Tzeench list with a half dozen bolts of change AND winds of chaos ring any bells?
and bail on tournaments after losing one game.

Looky what I found! A blast from that past from 9/3/2006

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/102103.page

This was my Batrep of the one and only appearance of that army where I took with all of the BoC (take a look at game #3 to see what I was up against), and not only that, but as a bonus you get Reecius and I talking about us having to leave the other RTT early!

Too bad the pictures are gone :(

willydstyle wrote:@JohnHwangDD

You've stated that GW intends for marine players to play battle companies or fractions of units representing battle companies. If this is true, why do they include HQs that alter the FoC in order to play units either in alternate slots, or to be capable of fielding more of those units?

You've stated many times that comp should be used to encourage "fluffy" armies, but you also state that you know what GW intends to be a fluffy army...

And now in this thread, you're changing your mind, and saying that fluff and comp are separate... despite what you've written in the past.

You like comp.

Yes, it's crystal clear, from the Fluff, that GW intends for players to field things that approximate Battle Companies in some fashion. Yes, they allow deviance from that. I don't see why GW must be rigid in demanding that players field the Battle Companies that they encourge, nor why GW must restrict all options to only those which support a Battle Company and nothing else. Allowing for some variation from the ideal in no way invalidates the strength of the ideal.

Yes, Comp should be used to encourage "fluffy" armies, and GW gives ample examples of such armies in their batreps and such. The players choose not to field such armies again, in no way invalidates, that those are the sorts of armies that they use by example. GW could choose to field and feature "hard" armies, but they choose not to do so by default. Given the consistency which GW fields and features "wunza" armies, that is clearly a deliberate choice on GW's part.

No, I haven't changed my mind in the least. I think that Comp should be objectively scored via checklist, and Theme should be subjectively scored by your opponent. As I believe I stated earlier, Comp is *what* you take, and Theme is *why* you take it or *how* it looks. Something like that. The point is that they are different but related.

I think it's bunk if you need to make up a story about how 2 Warbosses agree to work together and have competing Nob Biker mobs. You take 2 biker bosses and 2 nob biker units because they are rock hard and win more than ordinary bikers or nobs on foot, much less Grots of any flavor. If you're going to be a WAAC player, at least have the damn stones to admit it to your opponent and the TO, and take your lumps in theme and comp like a man. Don't pussy out and pretend that your army is well-themed. But hey, if you can get your opponent to agree that you're well-themed, then more power two you.

And finally, I think that Comp is a good idea and should be implemented at all tournaments. It's easier to win with max Pie, with dual Lash and so on. So Battle scoring should be adjusted as a handicapping method to account for that.

Just because my position isn't as simple as you'd like to stereotype it, that's not my problem. You disagree, fine. We disagree. Comp is simply an opinion, and reasonable people can disagree on it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yes, it's crystal clear, from the Fluff, that GW intends for players to field things that approximate Battle Companies in some fashion. Yes, they allow deviance from that. I don't see why GW must be rigid in demanding that players field the Battle Companies that they encourge, nor why GW must restrict all options to only those which support a Battle Company and nothing else. Allowing for some variation from the ideal in no way invalidates the strength of the ideal.

A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Yes, Comp should be used to encourage "fluffy" armies, and GW gives ample examples of such armies in their batreps and such. The players choose not to field such armies again, in no way invalidates, that those are the sorts of armies that they use by example. GW could choose to field and feature "hard" armies, but they choose not to do so by default. Given the consistency which GW fields and features "wunza" armies, that is clearly a deliberate choice on GW's part.

Or, as has been said by me and many others, GW features armies in batreps for the purposes of selling models, because when it comes down to it, they simply don't care what we play with as long as we're buying models.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Just because my position isn't as simple as you'd like to stereotype it, that's not my problem. You disagree, fine. We disagree. Comp is simply an opinion, and reasonable people can disagree on it.

Everyone can have an opinion, but not all opinions are equal.

Why is it that GW does not use Comp in its European tournaments to encourage fluffy armies?

I guess GW is like God. They only give us army lists with lots of options (free will) as a temptation to see if we'll stray from the righteous path.

Also, there was no edition before 5th. Any evidence you see otherwise is just a test of your faith.

[/sarcasm]

Allan your eldar army was cool but for 4th edition I thought it was pretty much WAAC. Two holo falcons versus just mean you could take other effective choices such as dark reapers. You had all the usual components - Eldrad, Avatar, Harlies, etc. I have no problem with the list having played against it and lost but I thinking you are deluding yourself if you think it was tame compared to other WAAC eldar lists from that era when eldar was top tiered.

G

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

GW features armies in batreps for the purposes of selling models, because when it comes down to it, they simply don't care what we play with as long as we're buying models.

Everyone can have an opinion, but not all opinions are equal.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

Yeah, like I said, it's all opinion.

The Green Git wrote:

skyth wrote:And you clearly missed the point of mine. My fun in the game is not determined by what my opponent brings. I'm not one of the people that plays the whole game in a sulking huff and then starts calling the other person names once the game is over.

So what does sulking and name calling have to do with bringing power lists? My suggestion was merely to be able to have a tournament where bringing the beat down lists wasn't the primary goal of the tournament. If you don't like a given style of play then you shouldn't go to that type of event.

Sulking and name calling is what people who's fun is determined by thier opponent's army list do. They are the ones too focused on winning, and they are the bad sports. Them not having fun is THIER fault because they are too hung up on winning and having the 'one right way to play'. They make the game unfun for the other player, not the person who brings the powerful list.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

GW features armies in batreps for the purposes of selling models, because when it comes down to it, they simply don't care what we play with as long as we're buying models.

Everyone can have an opinion, but not all opinions are equal.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

Yeah, like I said, it's all opinion.

The proof is that GW actually wrote the codices to allow a wide variety of options and army lists.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Yes, it's crystal clear, from the Fluff, that GW intends for players to field things that approximate Battle Companies in some fashion. Yes, they allow deviance from that. I don't see why GW must be rigid in demanding that players field the Battle Companies that they encourge, nor why GW must restrict all options to only those which support a Battle Company and nothing else. Allowing for some variation from the ideal in no way invalidates the strength of the ideal.

Utter drivel. The GW fluff allows for a vast array of eventualities and the codi (sp?) reflect that. GW battle rep armies are nothing more than a smattering of units, often illegal and always played badly, and repeatedly, until the desired outcome occurs. A crass marketing tool for the kiddies- nothing more (sniff...once they were so much more).

JohnHwangDD wrote:Yes, Comp should be used to encourage "fluffy" armies, and GW gives ample examples of such armies in their batreps and such. The players choose not to field such armies again, in no way invalidates, that those are the sorts of armies that they use by example. GW could choose to field and feature "hard" armies, but they choose not to do so by default. Given the consistency which GW fields and features "wunza" armies, that is clearly a deliberate choice on GW's part.

Playing competatively requires a high level of generalship and an understanding of the rules- the mythical "GW" clearly doesn't understand competative play, thats why we end up with(spanning a couple of editions)-
Rhino rush
IW
Seer village
Alaitoc
Assault cannons
Holofalcons
Twin lash
Nob bikers

In summary, it is difficult to properly test the extremes. It's unlikely to make GW any money so they don't do it (despite a huge fanbase that could do it for free). This general ethos follows through into battle reports. Or maybe they just play with what the painters have finished...

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think it's bunk if you need to make up a story about how 2 Warbosses agree to work together and have competing Nob Biker mobs. You take 2 biker bosses and 2 nob biker units because they are rock hard and win more than ordinary bikers or nobs on foot, much less Grots of any flavor. If you're going to be a WAAC player, at least have the damn stones to admit it to your opponent and the TO, and take your lumps in theme and comp like a man. Don't pussy out and pretend that your army is well-themed. But hey, if you can get your opponent to agree that you're well-themed, then more power two you.

Here's the JonnyW I expect- vilifying someone for their list choices. I bet dual nobbiker players beat their kids too. This is simply pointing out why theme is such a bad idea. Not the first person in this thread either.

JohnHwangDD wrote:And finally, I think that Comp is a good idea and should be implemented at all tournaments. It's easier to win with max Pie, with dual Lash and so on. So Battle scoring should be adjusted as a handicapping method to account for that.

Why do you even care? You are a self proclaimed ex-tournamenter and maintain apoc as your new god. It isn't easier to win with the big lists as EVERYBODY CAN BRING ONE. This is playing with the big boys. It's quite amusing actually, how caught up a lot of people get with the internet chatter about the big lists. In my experience the net-lists don't win anything. It's generally the more personalised lists that do the business.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Just because my position isn't as simple as you'd like to stereotype it, that's not my problem. You disagree, fine. We disagree. Comp is simply an opinion, and reasonable people can disagree on it.

Ah, the old "everyone is entitled to an opinion answer".

Your position is incredibly simple- "If you don't play with an army I want you to you are a bad person". You have repeated this ad-nausium in many threads, to the extent that I think you are just trolling.

oddjob wrote:Playing competatively requires a high level of generalship and an understanding of the rules- the mythical "GW" clearly doesn't understand competative play, thats why we end up with(spanning a couple of editions)- ...etc

whitedragon wrote:Why is it a sin to play competitive tourney games?

Ok, off topic for a bit, but...

It's not a sin to play competitive games. But it's a misunderstanding on the part of competitive players, which leads to so much GW-bashing on the forums.

To be clear...

Warhammer 40,000 is not a competitive, tournament based game. It is a game designed and intended to be played between two friendly players, for fun. This codices are designed to be flexible, on the understanding that the players won't abuse this flexibility.

If you spend your time trying to figure out the 'hardest' list possible in one codex, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.
If you play WAAC, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.
If you play in tournaments, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.

If the codices seem 'unfair' or unbalanced in these situations, then the problem is with the players and the way they are playing the game, not with the rules designers or the codices or the company or the policy or the mission system or whatever else.

Of course, you're completely within your rights to play competitively, or WAAC, if that's what rocks your boat, and that's what your gaming group likes to do. No problems at all. Just don't complain when the game seems broken.

Which leads us back on topic - essentially, if you want to make a WAAC/competitive play tournament actually work, you're going to have to change the rules of the game (not because THEY'RE wrong, but because YOU'RE playing it wrong). This involves changing what people are 'allowed' to bring. And this is why we have a comp score. Either that, or just expect everyone to turn up with whatever the flavour of the month super-list is....

(EDIT - Sorry, whitedragon & oddjob, this isn't a personal attack on you, it just seems this thread is going the same way as all the other comp/fluff threads...)

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

GW features armies in batreps for the purposes of selling models, because when it comes down to it, they simply don't care what we play with as long as we're buying models.

Everyone can have an opinion, but not all opinions are equal.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

Yeah, like I said, it's all opinion.

Well, you could look through WD Batreps, and the writeups - specifically the part where the featured players explain why they took why they took. Count the number of "Happened to have this painted up" or "wanted to show off this new unit" rationales comes up more often than some variant of "an army from this codex should have this unit". In fact, the only time I can recall ever seen the second involves troop units, which I think we can safely discount now.

I'm now waiting for you to retract the hypocrisy statement.

It seems reasonable for tournament players to expect GW to provide tournament capable rules for GW's official tournaments, which GW promote and take money for entering.

GW have no trouble making rules like, "No non-GW models to be used".

ArbitorIan wrote:

oddjob wrote:Playing competatively requires a high level of generalship and an understanding of the rules- the mythical "GW" clearly doesn't understand competative play, thats why we end up with(spanning a couple of editions)- ...etc

whitedragon wrote:Why is it a sin to play competitive tourney games?

Ok, off topic for a bit, but...

It's not a sin to play competitive games. But it's a misunderstanding on the part of competitive players, which leads to so much GW-bashing on the forums.

To be clear...

Warhammer 40,000 is not a competitive, tournament based game. It is a game designed and intended to be played between two friendly players, for fun. This codices are designed to be flexible, on the understanding that the players won't abuse this flexibility.

If you spend your time trying to figure out the 'hardest' list possible in one codex, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.
If you play WAAC, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.
If you play in tournaments, you are not playing the game the way it is intended.

If the codices seem 'unfair' or unbalanced in these situations, then the problem is with the players and the way they are playing the game, not with the rules designers or the codices or the company or the policy or the mission system or whatever else.

Of course, you're completely within your rights to play competitively, or WAAC, if that's what rocks your boat, and that's what your gaming group likes to do. No problems at all. Just don't complain when the game seems broken.

Which leads us back on topic - essentially, if you want to make a WAAC/competitive play tournament actually work, you're going to have to change the rules of the game (not because THEY'RE wrong, but because YOU'RE playing it wrong). This involves changing what people are 'allowed' to bring. And this is why we have a comp score. Either that, or just expect everyone to turn up with whatever the flavour of the month super-list is....

(EDIT - Sorry, whitedragon & oddjob, this isn't a personal attack on you, it just seems this thread is going the same way as all the other comp/fluff threads...)

Is that so? You know how to play this game and everyone else is wrong? Come on.

The rules are made to be played within and yes, some of them are falling short badly. Still, its the way the game is made so maybe thats how it should be played? If GW wanted no tournaments, why do they run them? Or why did they remove the softscores from their own tournaments?

JohnHwangDD wrote:

carmachu wrote:Ork nob biker armyis fluffy as a speed freak army.

Is it?

Or would a "proper" Speed Freekz army have Biker Boyz and Trukk Boyz and so on, rather than *just* Nob Bikers?

'Proper' is pretty damned subjective. If you want 'proper' I suggest you continue to play 3rd ed and use the armageddon codex, because thats not what we have anymore.

Samething for deathwing. People say that a 'proper' deathwing list is termies, dreads and LR's. It was in third ed, but not anymore.

Can it still be played like that? Yes of course, but the previous restrictions are lifted and the rules say you can play it as long as it fits within the boundaries of those rules.

Thats the point people are trying to make to you. Its the codex, and not the players.

John, are you seriously trying to argue that Theme == Comp?

I've got a Dark Elf Monster army that begs to differ:

Lord on Dragon, Hero on Manticore, 3x Units of Fast Cav, 3x Units of Harpies, 2x Cold One Knights, 2x Cold One Chariots, 2x Hydras.

The army is 100% themed as a monster list. If anything it would represent a Beast lords force from the fluff. The army gets REAMED on comp. Just like dual Nob Bikers + Trukk Boyz would get reamed on Comp but still be "fluffy" and Themed.

Empire Nuln Gunlines, Mech Eldar, Shooty Horde/Badmoonz Orks, pick your poison. They're all themed, some of them are extremely fluffy, all of them should get near zero comp.

JohnHwangDD wrote: I think that Comp should be objectively scored via checklist, and Theme should be subjectively scored by your opponent. As I believe I stated earlier, Comp is *what* you take, and Theme is *why* you take it or *how* it looks. Something like that. The point is that they are different but related.

I think it's bunk if you need to make up a story about how 2 Warbosses agree to work together and have competing Nob Biker mobs. You take 2 biker bosses and 2 nob biker units because they are rock hard and win more than ordinary bikers or nobs on foot, much less Grots of any flavor.

Your example of what YOU consider a bad theme is the exact example why having your opponent subjectively score you on it is a VERY bad idea. One person's idea of a good them is another's bad.

Example? I've been marked down in 3rd/4th for having a more shooting tyranid army. In my opponents ignornant opinion, tyranid armies shouldnt shoot. My theory with my hive fleet was they learned the lessons of the imperium well, and used ranged weapons like their opponents....(much like the early fluff on biovores....)

skyth wrote:Sulking and name calling is what people who's fun is determined by thier opponent's army list do. They are the ones too focused on winning, and they are the bad sports. Them not having fun is THIER fault because they are too hung up on winning and having the 'one right way to play'. They make the game unfun for the other player, not the person who brings the powerful list.

So what I'm hearing you say is:

"I bring power lists because I want to win, and anyone who doesn't play my way is too focused on winning."

"People that don't want to play the way I want to play are bad sports and they call others names and sulk" (i.e. they are selfish).

The only thing I have suggested here is there is room for Ard Boyz style tournaments and there is room for fluff and modeling type tournaments where gaming is an evenly balanced slice of the score and not the most heavily weighted. You appear to be bent on asserting that anyone who does not want to play your way is a bad sport, ill tempered and abusive.

I've played some power gamers that sulk, call names and are generally pricks because they realize they are not going to get a Overwhelming victory and got knocked out of the "Top Tier". And I've been present where many of these Top Tier list toting tournament players twist their opponents arms or try to cut deals to get themselves into the finals even going to the length of threatening to ding the opponents soft scores if they don't let them steamroller them and get the crushing win. Is that good sportsmanship? I don't think so. You can't deny that list comp can clearly be separated from sportsmanship.

Skyth's self illuminating posts aside, this really just illustrates the idea that there needs to be clear expectations on the part of tournament attendees and that TOs put defining rules right up front. If you don't like the style of play at a given event and the rules are plainly laid out for you before you attend, you have no reason to moan, whine or complain about anything but your own dice rolling.

Doesn't GW regularly state that they are a minatures company, and not a game company? And we wonder why their rules aren't air-tight. Or even water-tight sometimes.

Didn't mauleed propose several years ago (like 5) that everyone bring the same ork list to a GT and then compare soft scores? Did that ever happen? I didn't always agree with him, but I miss mauleed.

I'd rather see tournies develop good, challenging scenarios than try to figure out the best comp/theme scoring system.

dietrich wrote:Doesn't GW regularly state that they are a minatures company, and not a game company? And we wonder why their rules aren't air-tight. Or even water-tight sometimes.

Didn't mauleed propose several years ago (like 5) that everyone bring the same ork list to a GT and then compare soft scores? Did that ever happen? I didn't always agree with him, but I miss mauleed.

I'd rather see tournies develop good, challenging scenarios than try to figure out the best comp/theme scoring system.

You do have a good point. If you guys who delude yourselves into thinking you are a brilliant tactician because you hit on (or copy) a power gamer list *REALLY* want to see who is the "Best General" just have everyone bring the same list and duke it out.

Personally I'd rather see lots of different armies AND different builds of the same army, but the narrow mindset of "I must win" precludes that. Thus we see the same lists, over and over...

I really don't understand everyone's problem with check-list style comp. (ie non-subjective, stated in the rules pack so everyone knows prior to the event)

Let's brake it down into three groups:

From a Tournament Organiser's point of view, they have put in innumerable hours and lost sleep over trying to create the very best event they can. They are stressing about the venue, catering, whether enough people will turn up, providing kick ass terrain and boards etc, and hoping they have prepared their scoring system so everything will run smoothly. At the end of the day, they want everyone to be smiling and give them a pat on the back, saying what a brilliant time was had by all.
Fine.
But surely you can understand that icy shiver down their spine as they look at the final standings (lets take as example UK ToS 2009: Daemons, Daemons, VC, Daemons, Daemons). The organiser doesn't care who wins, but having invested so much effort, they want their tournament to reward the player, not the army. They want to see a nice spread of different warhammer races vie for the top prize.
So they add in Comp scoring, to try and push those same people who would have taken Daemons to take something else but still win because they are the best generals in the tournament.

So TOs are likely to be in favour of some form of Comp.

What about 'fluff' players? Well this is preaching to the masses. They tend to be taking 'weaker' lists anyway, because they have been painting and modeling the same all-night-goblin-with-squigs-pulling-the-chariots army for years and don't tend to change it much. What they tend to want is not so much to win all their games, but to play varied opponents with varied armies and have 6 great games. So when they pay their money and play 3 Daemons, 3 Dark Elves, they feel slightly depressed. If Comp pushes some people to enter with other races, or more varied lists, then the fluff player gets more varied opponents and will be happier.

So 'fluff' players are likely to be in favour of some form of Comp.

What about the more 'competitive' players? In this group I will include WAAC, players that enjoy creating and playing with hard lists, and also players who like the competitive environment of tournaments, and see 'hard' lists as just one more skill, like being able to guess ranges, that a player needs to win the day.
For these players, they don't mind if they play 6 Daemon players back to back - they are more interested in having 6 great games verses opponents who challenge their generalship skills to the fullest. But like the Tournament Organiser, they too want the best player rewarded, not the best army.
Quite correctly, competitive players see writing army lists as a skill, and a big part of their hobby. There are too many posts on the Dakka Army Lists board to deny that people don't have fun trying to come up with killer lists. It has been argued that Comp just "moves the goalposts" and people can still powerbuild lists. This is ok! If the same people are winning tournaments, because they have found alternate "powerlists" based on that event's Comp, then far from failing, the Comp system has worked perfectly. It has simply ment that the best generals have won, but the event has seen a much wider variety of lists.
Also, think about how much time you spend dreaming up army lists. You can't tell me you don't enjoy that aspect. So if a tournament has a Comp system, then yes, the goalposts have moved. Are you suddenly not having fun designing lists with these new restrictions? Why?

So 'competitive' players should either be in favour of some form of Comp, or not care either way.



In conclusion, either 3 thumbs up for Comp, or 2 thumbs up and a 'Meh, don't care'. I don't see where all the hate comes from.

Darth Fugly wrote:I don't see where all the hate comes from.

It comes from a group of people being tools and making a pact to score everyone but their own group low so that they have better chances of 'winning'.

Or just people having sourgrapes on the inside, but display a jovial aspect on the exterior, and thinking "If I cant win, then you cant either" by scoring them low.

Both of which I have had personally happen and have seen be inflicted on others in the past.

[edit]

Like I said at the beginning of this thread, comp is an irrelevant tool used by chipmunks for evil.

ArbitorIan wrote:i think comp should stay. I haven't played tournaments for a couple of years, and prefer to play friendlies, but a SUBJECTIVE comp score seems the only way to fill certain cracks in game design.

First, and foremost, 40k is NOT a balanced game for competitive play. It's not designed to be a tournament game, it's not intended to be a tournament game, and if you play it as a tournament game you're going to come up with problems. One of these is the ability to 'game' the system, and come up with incredibly powerful, but un-fluffy lists which exploit rules loopholes etc. Hell, you don't need me to explain, you know what 'gaming' the system is....

A comp score is intended to be a way of judging both the list building AND the fluffiness of an army, and reduce the incidence of broken or beardy or exploitative lists.

The problem is that as soon as you introduce a comp 'structure' or checklist, then it becomes possible for people to game THAT. Also, it doesn't allow certain army variants, as above, where the restriction on Fast Attack units meant that a Night Lords army got low comp scores despite being characterful and fluffy.

The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies. One person is too likely to be biased, but taking the mean score of (say) three judges might make things fairer.

Of course, this is easier in the bigger tournaments, where judges are less likely to know the players personally, and there are plenty spare, but a bit difficult in your FLGS....

Have ya played fantasy these days? I stuck my toe in that pool and never looked at 40k comp the same way. 40k is very balanced as a whole compared to that other game. Of course you cant bring your fluffy marine or guard army that you spent time naming each model in. The best lists and best players are going to rise to the top, that is hte whole point of a tourney. You make a list, you playtest it over and over and over until you know it is the best you can make it and you are the best at it.

Comp was made so casual players could walk in with their usual homebrew chapter marine army and have some chance of winning.

I dont see that as fair myself.

Darth Fugly wrote:
I really don't understand everyone's problem with check-list style comp. (ie non-subjective, stated in the rules pack so everyone knows prior to the event)

Let's brake it down into three groups:

From a Tournament Organiser's point of view, they have put in innumerable hours and lost sleep over trying to create the very best event they can. They are stressing about the venue, catering, whether enough people will turn up, providing kick ass terrain and boards etc, and hoping they have prepared their scoring system so everything will run smoothly. At the end of the day, they want everyone to be smiling and give them a pat on the back, saying what a brilliant time was had by all.
Fine.
But surely you can understand that icy shiver down their spine as they look at the final standings (lets take as example UK ToS 2009: Daemons, Daemons, VC, Daemons, Daemons). The organiser doesn't care who wins, but having invested so much effort, they want their tournament to reward the player, not the army. They want to see a nice spread of different warhammer races vie for the top prize.
So they add in Comp scoring, to try and push those same people who would have taken Daemons to take something else but still win because they are the best generals in the tournament.

So TOs are likely to be in favour of some form of Comp.

What about 'fluff' players? Well this is preaching to the masses. They tend to be taking 'weaker' lists anyway, because they have been painting and modeling the same all-night-goblin-with-squigs-pulling-the-chariots army for years and don't tend to change it much. What they tend to want is not so much to win all their games, but to play varied opponents with varied armies and have 6 great games. So when they pay their money and play 3 Daemons, 3 Dark Elves, they feel slightly depressed. If Comp pushes some people to enter with other races, or more varied lists, then the fluff player gets more varied opponents and will be happier.

So 'fluff' players are likely to be in favour of some form of Comp.

What about the more 'competitive' players? In this group I will include WAAC, players that enjoy creating and playing with hard lists, and also players who like the competitive environment of tournaments, and see 'hard' lists as just one more skill, like being able to guess ranges, that a player needs to win the day.
For these players, they don't mind if they play 6 Daemon players back to back - they are more interested in having 6 great games verses opponents who challenge their generalship skills to the fullest. But like the Tournament Organiser, they too want the best player rewarded, not the best army.
Quite correctly, competitive players see writing army lists as a skill, and a big part of their hobby. There are too many posts on the Dakka Army Lists board to deny that people don't have fun trying to come up with killer lists. It has been argued that Comp just "moves the goalposts" and people can still powerbuild lists. This is ok! If the same people are winning tournaments, because they have found alternate "powerlists" based on that event's Comp, then far from failing, the Comp system has worked perfectly. It has simply ment that the best generals have won, but the event has seen a much wider variety of lists.
Also, think about how much time you spend dreaming up army lists. You can't tell me you don't enjoy that aspect. So if a tournament has a Comp system, then yes, the goalposts have moved. Are you suddenly not having fun designing lists with these new restrictions? Why?

So 'competitive' players should either be in favour of some form of Comp, or not care either way.



In conclusion, either 3 thumbs up for Comp, or 2 thumbs up and a 'Meh, don't care'. I don't see where all the hate comes from.

Or you could make up more of your own rules, boost guards to t4 or armour 3+ and it would have the same effect(and you wouldnt be playing real 40k/warhammer but rather some milked out sissy version) . The point is that the game is made in a ceratin way and pepole like playing the game as it is. If people wanted another game they would probably play that. Comp tournament isnt very much unlike special olympics, where people just cant handle the real deal but have to fight with one hand tied to their back.

If your a lousy general you wont win with nob bikers or demons or whatver anyway, but you have to be a good general and have a good army to win.

The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies. One person is too likely to be biased, but taking the mean score of (say) three judges might make things fairer.

Of course, this is easier in the bigger tournaments, where judges are less likely to know the players personally, and there are plenty spare, but a bit difficult in your FLGS....

It is indeed difficult at a FLGS. Finding 3 people that a) know the armies enough to judge b) will be at each tournament and c) don't want to actually play in the tournament, can be near impossible.

The system at my stores uses one very partial, totally biased, and non-apologetic veiwpoint. It means I spend about 1.5 hours to judge comp, then another hour to do painting. But it seems to mostly work, and takes away the problems of people gaming a checklist comp system. Theme doesn't really come into my system, it's based on hardness of the army, and how enjoyable it is to play against. Army theme works into the score for painting and appearance.

ArbitorIan wrote:Of course, you're completely within your rights to play competitively, or WAAC, if that's what rocks your boat, and that's what your gaming group likes to do. No problems at all. Just don't complain when the game seems broken.

Which leads us back on topic - essentially, if you want to make a WAAC/competitive play tournament actually work, you're going to have to change the rules of the game (not because THEY'RE wrong, but because YOU'RE playing it wrong). This involves changing what people are 'allowed' to bring. And this is why we have a comp score. Either that, or just expect everyone to turn up with whatever the flavour of the month super-list is....

(EDIT - Sorry, whitedragon & oddjob, this isn't a personal attack on you, it just seems this thread is going the same way as all the other comp/fluff threads...)

The competative players don't complain when the game seems broken, they adapt, and generally find new (and often unexpected) solutions to the supposed brokenness. It's those without the acumen or desire to "play better" ( oh dear ) that generally favour comp. I see any form of comp as just another set of arbitary restrictions to be gamed. Not better or worse, just different.

Even if we accept that 40k wasn't built with tournamenting in mind, it doesn't follow that this is a "wrong" way to play. Indeed the huge support for (and rapid selling out of) the UKGTs shows that many people view it as a right way to play. To the best of my knowledge there isn't a large foreign contingent present at any of the warhammer world campaign weekends (fluffhammer ahoy), but this is definately the case at the GTs (In the previous seasons final I played against an Englishman, a Scotsman, two Spaniards, an Italian and a German fella....and I'm Irish). I'm rambling...but my point is this- Who are you(the royal you- not specifically at AIan) to tell the competative tournament types that they are doing it wrong?


p.s. @ArbitorIan- your post didn't feel like an attack at all, meerly someone clearly putting across a point succintly. I applaud the manner in which you made your post, just not the contents of it

mikhaila wrote:The only way to do a comp score is to have a small group of impartial people judge the armies. One person is too likely to be biased, but taking the mean score of (say) three judges might make things fairer.

Of course, this is easier in the bigger tournaments, where judges are less likely to know the players personally, and there are plenty spare, but a bit difficult in your FLGS....

It is indeed difficult at a FLGS. Finding 3 people that a) know the armies enough to judge b) will be at each tournament and c) don't want to actually play in the tournament, can be near impossible.

The system at my stores uses one very partial, totally biased, and non-apologetic veiwpoint. It means I spend about 1.5 hours to judge comp, then another hour to do painting. But it seems to mostly work, and takes away the problems of people gaming a checklist comp system. Theme doesn't really come into my system, it's based on hardness of the army, and how enjoyable it is to play against. Army theme works into the score for painting and appearance.

Sounds good if your customers like it that way, keep it up if they are happy. They happy = you happy. But you do know that you are actually just picking the winners right, no point in beeing hypocritcal about it.
When some guy from out of town comes to play and have no clue what you think is fair he is gonna get slammered and might not think it that fun.

mikhaila wrote:The system at my stores uses one very partial, totally biased, and non-apologetic veiwpoint. It means I spend about 1.5 hours to judge comp, then another hour to do painting. But it seems to mostly work, and takes away the problems of people gaming a checklist comp system. Theme doesn't really come into my system, it's based on hardness of the army, and how enjoyable it is to play against. Army theme works into the score for painting and appearance.

And this brings another excellent point... IF one is so inclined to attend events that include army comp as a judging criteria, it should be done by a neutral third party i.e. the TO or his agent. Players judging list comp on their own definitely leads to players loading or using the soft scores as a retaliatory mechanism. In a perfect system you would go so far as to have the TO judging sportsmanship as well as army appearance and comp. Players judging their own favorite opponent during a 3 round RTT is bound to lead to ties, especially given the trend to have little to no variance in the reported score i.e. my opponent was fun, was OK, was a jerk. With only three possible values and only three opponents, you don't have a very big statistical pool.

Don't get me wrong... an Ard Boyz style beat down is fun! It's just not the ONLY thing I'm interested in.

What a lot of stress and worry you guys subject yourselves to before a game.

I agree that Comp should just be left up to the players. Unfortunately, the second you enforce Comp Scores, you skew the game.

Leaving it out means everyone has the same choice of fielding a Power List or not. Distasteful as I find the Power Lists, this is still part of the game. It is up to each players conscience whether they want to work for their victory, or cheese it up.

First off, nice discussion! Second, I want to particularly recognize Blackmoor and Darth Fugly for great posts, though there have been others.

Composition scoring is always a sticky subject, and has been for at least the ten years I’ve been playing. I’ve played a lot of local and Grand Tournaments over that time, for both 40k and Warhammer, and it’s always been an interesting subject and the topic of many and often heated discussions.

IMO and IME, Composition Scoring in tournaments is good for GW games, because it helps to even the playing field and present more variety in the armies seen. GW codices are designed to allow a lot of flexibility, and to support the models presented. But their play testing for balance is notoriously insufficient, and well-known to not really be geared towards tournaments.

If you want a tournament format that rewards play skill to a greater degree, and softens the impact of fundamental design flaws and imbalances, Comp (or handicapping, like they use at the Australian WH GTs) can provide it. This is not to say it’s perfect. Of course not. There are always flaws. But IMO it’s still better than not having it at all.

Just for clarity, I’d like to go over the three main types of Comp.

Judge-scored by checklist: In which the organizers design a clear list of negative and positive attributes for armies (either generally or by codex), and award points according to the defined rubric. This has the advantage of transparency; people can plan for it and pretty much choose their own score. It has the downsides of being almost impossible to apply evenly to every army, and sometimes being convoluted and confusing. I came up with a system I was pretty happy with for several 40k tournaments I ran, but it was not the easiest thing for players to learn. It was designed to be as fair as possible and to actually have a fairly low proportional impact on the scores overall.

Player-scored: In which your opponent awards you points based on his opinion of your army, often with some simple guidelines. This has the advantages of being fairly simple and quick, but the disadvantages of being subject to chipmunking or collusion, and the extreme subjectivity of different players’ (particularly inexperienced ones) opinions. You can make this system better by reducing the score range and making very clear criteria. (Example- 0 adjustment: Army is a normal, competitive army. +1: Army hasobviously sacrificed power/effectiveness for theme or some other reason. -1: Army is more powerful than most, and appears to be designed purely to win.).

Judge-scored subjective: In which the tournament organizers, ideally in advance, examine the lists and award points based on a power scale. Often with some public guidelines posted beforehand. This had the advantages of being more objective than player-scored, and more flexible than checklist. It has the downside of being time-consuming and reliant on having multiple experienced judges, and really needing people to submit lists before the event. This is being shown on the Indy WH GT circuit to be pretty much the most successful approach.


To address some points raised in previous posts:

I have no problems with people trying for thematic armies. But to argue that weak armies are more thematic, or that strong armies aren't thematic, is simply the height of silliness.

I agree that Theme and Comp should generally be separated. Comp should generally be related to power.

The whole of Europe (as far as I know) has done without comp forever, and there are no complaints.

You are incorrect, sir. While the official GW GTs in England have no comp, many other events do. Large tournaments in Britain (including the WPS) range from significant comp restrictions/scoring (including the Banding system), to minor ones, to none at all. Da Boss reports that Ireland is the same. Other countries vary widely. Finland and Spain, for example, are known for no Comp. Warhammer events in Sweden (IIRC) frequently have hard restrictions like forbidding duplicate Rare selections.

Comp should go, it is a fundamentally unsound system. if everyone brings tough lists, everyone will have fun and be on equal footing.

As noted, the codices are not very well balanced against one another. If “everyone brings tough lists” means that some codices are completely left out, that reduces the variety of armies seen and the general fun of the event.

Players are going to take the hard lists anyways, and ignore comp completely and count on their painting, sports and battlepoints to win the tourney, and often do just that.

And Composition allows that as a legitimate choice. You can always try to do that. You may just start at a bit of a point deficit vs someone who builds a compier list but also plays and paints very well, and is a good sport. It’s just a handicap. I won a lot of RTTs back in 3rd ed with the old checklist comp scoring system, in part because I did my best to maximize my scores in all categories.

Subjective comp systems fail because the TO is likely biased towards/against certain lists.

This is why you go with trusted and experienced judges, who have play experience with as many armies as possible. And you use a panel of 2-3 such comp judges.

Even if you have a "panel" of comp judges, they'll most likely just lead the judge with the strongest personality. Also, the consensus of what's "unfluffy" or "broken" isn't always right... or as right as an opinion can be anyways.

This is why you need experienced judges, whom you trust. The strongest personality has little impact if each judge independently judges each list (preferably with the player’s name removed) and awards a score, then those scores are totaled or averaged.

In a smaller tournament, who's got a panel of judges that will do nothing but review every army?

Totally a legitmate concern. You generally can’t do panel/judge-scored comp in advance for a one-day tourney. IMO you have to go checklist, which has its own issues.

I think a large part of why comp should go away is because of 5th ed mission structure. It rewards you for taking non min-maxed units (kill points) and for taking plenty of troops.

This is the best argument I’ve seen so far. I’m very interested in seeing the results of this year’s GTs, and what kind of armies do well. You’re right that 5th ed’s rules do encourage two traits in armies which are generally seen as Compy.

In GW Land, this is left to the subjective reasoning of the opposing player, or as Mikhaila has shown, the event organizer. We all know how this can be used for ill by both types, judging by a recent thread regarding a tourney organizer and his completely biased approach to restricting a certain persons army. (not a dig at you either mikhaila, but at the organizer from colorado springs who was much maligned in that thread)

That was an interesting thread. The organizer definitely had a personal issue which resulted in bad judgments and harming someone’s fun. His comp scoring system, OTOH, was a fairly solid approach to player-scored. A simple binary system, awarding a couple of bonus points to people who made fluffy, attractive armies as opposed to competitive tournament armies. He did find that his players didn’t read the cards properly, or his explanations still weren’t clear and simple enough, and got annoyed when the scoring didn’t go as he envisioned.

Sports scoring offers another opportunity for genuine TFGs and their friends to game the system.

For example, persuade your opponent to give you a 10, and you'll give him a 10. Or nail him with a 0 for beating you. Go as a team and collude in your scoring to nail the guys who are ahead of your team-mates.

Better-run tournaments have the players go to opposite ends of the judges’ table to fill in the Sports scores, so there is less pressure. As far as lowballing and team collusion, the judges can keep an eye out for unusual scoring patterns, and observe games involving players who’ve given or been given unusually low scores, so better judge if something funny’s going on. But IME TFGs are not so big a factor as to generally make that necessary.

Comp is a way for bad players to blame other people for their own failings and the failings of the Games Dev studio. Any comp system essentially fails, is fundamentally unfair to some players, and provides a false veneer of fairness.

Comp is a way for players to compensate for the failings of the Games Dev studio, to create a tournament environment which better-supports variety in the armies seen. Comp systems can succeed, when they are carefully designed, clearly explained and communicated in advance, and balance the playing field better than GW has managed.

OddJob. wrote:p.s. @ArbitorIan- your post didn't feel like an attack at all, meerly someone clearly putting across a point succintly. I applaud the manner in which you made your post, just not the contents of it

Basically the same thing I was thinking. ArbitorIan, you state your point well, I just strongly disagree.

Mannahnin wrote:

I think a large part of why comp should go away is because of 5th ed mission structure. It rewards you for taking non min-maxed units (kill points) and for taking plenty of troops.

This is the best argument I’ve seen so far. I’m very interested in seeing the results of this year’s GTs, and what kind of armies do well. You’re right that 5th ed’s rules do encourage two traits in armies which are generally seen as Compy.

Can't say I agree with this. Kill points just changed what is and isn't min/maxed. The current examples of things like 6 squads of 30 boyz with a nob and rokkits or big shootas or maxxed nob bikers are definitely min/maxxed both in terms of Kill points and troops choices. The new rules just changed who the min/max winners were - which codexes could do it best. They added Kill points and troops-as-scoring into the min/max equation - that doesn't eliminate min/maxing, it just changes it.

I hate comp because it is so subjective, and gets abused regularly. I hate comp because in a tourney I feel no responsibility to "ensure" that my opponent has a good time. That's their own responsibility, I'm no baby sitter. I don't try to be an ass, but if someone brings a mismatched army they should be ready to either pull a rabbit out of a hat or get beat. If someone could come up with a comp system that wasn't tremendously flawed in one way or another, maybe I would go with it. But I just wish comp were dead.

lambadomy wrote: Kill points just changed what is and isn't min/maxed. The current examples of things like 6 squads of 30 boyz with a nob and rokkits or big shootas or maxxed nob bikers are definitely min/maxxed both in terms of Kill points and troops choices. The new rules just changed who the min/max winners were - which codexes could do it best. They added Kill points and troops-as-scoring into the min/max equation - that doesn't eliminate min/maxing, it just changes it.

Well, I think it’s been mitigated somewhat, at least. Kill Points and Objectives generally enforce opposing design priorities in army lists, forcing people to balance their lists or deal with being non-optimized for certain missions. Ork horde lists may do both well, but people are adjusting for that (with more template weapons, etc). I think I generally agree with you, though, that the 5th ed rules don’t make Comp redundant.

grizgrin wrote:I hate comp because it is so subjective, and gets abused regularly.

This is something that’s only fixed by good design and execution. Just like what makes every other part of a tournament fun.

grizgrin wrote: I hate comp because in a tourney I feel no responsibility to "ensure" that my opponent has a good time. That's their own responsibility, I'm no baby sitter. I don't try to be an ass, but if someone brings a mismatched army they should be ready to either pull a rabbit out of a hat or get beat.

Well, as long as (as you said) you’re not an ass, that’s part of what a good Comp system gives you. If the Comp system is done well, there’s no need for you to feel responsible for your opponent. Because the system already gives weaker armies a little bit of a boost in the overall standings. You don’t need to hold back. He recognizes that he’s got a bit of an uphill battle, and deals with it.

grizgrin wrote:If someone could come up with a comp system that wasn't tremendously flawed in one way or another, maybe I would go with it. But I just wish comp were dead.

There are a couple of good ones out there. They’re hard to do well. But they’re certainly out there.

Blackmoor wrote:I have never chipmunked anyone in my life.

The rest of your reply is mostly your opinion versus mine, but we both know that particular statement to be untrue. I can recall with great clarity at one tournament I ran, which had ten point scales for both sportsmanship and composition, where your opponents recieved a combined total of about 9 points (out of a possible 60) and because of that particular incident Kyle Kinghorn started posting soft scores out in the open for a while (because this was not a unique occurance). While you certainly played people who I could undertand dinging (you and Adam Gotti are like oil and water), you also played some pretty nice people who ended up recieving the low marks as well. Maybe calling you out on that is unfair, because the "Darrian Effect" might have already been underway by then, prompting more gaming of the system on your part. If you feel the reindeer games and score trading that happened around there merrited it, then so be it. Maybe my stubborn refusal to engage in that crap is why I never win the major GTs, but overhearing groups talk about how they are going to ding people not in their little circle always bothered me. And to be fair, the comp rape was well under way before Darrian started showing up with 16 AC Terminator lists, so laying this at his feet is not really fair, either.

This wasn't meant as a personal attack and I am certainly no saint, either, when it comes to army comp (I ran Mech Eldar for years before the unwashed masses figured out how good it was), but it is telling that a lot of the people who are pontificating about the comp issues are people who have gamed the system in the past. You are far from unique in this respect. As for me, I pretty much have given up on trying to be friendly in the current 40k environment, though I try for theme when it is an option. The newer codexes, particularly ork horde w Loota spam dominating missions and the new Space Marine codex ignoring cover saves and other core rule mechanics whenever its inconvenient, my Eldar have been sitting on the shelf. I have pretty much been playing CC based Nidzilla when I bother to play 40k and I guess that makes me a part of the problem, too. This is why comp should just be layed to rest, once and for all. Long term, the fix would require major book resets or a rush on 6th edition. Short term, the new Missions book might help, since a lot of the problem centers around the missions in the main book.

I've found the new system to seem to work well that they have developed for US GT's, Indy (Adepticon i think and Socal Slaughter) and GW ran. A simple, easily explained checklist system that combines all soft scores except for painting. Even painting now has a checklist so you can know how your probably going to do before showing up. Ex. is I'll probably pull a 25-30 out of 40 for painting this weekend but I know that going in. In big events chipmunking is easy to spot at the most you can get knocked by someone is just a few points. This means it's harder for a group to collude before on scoring before the tournement and while you can still "game" the system I find it's one of the better ways to go.

Example of SoCal Slaughters slightly modified soft score checklist.

The Pre-Game: These are the items an opponent can reasonably expect you to be prepared with, including being on time, having everything you need, and explaining you army
My opponent was on time (or early). 1 Point
My opponent had all the materials they needed to play (dice, templates, army 1 Point
list, rules for their army, rules for the game).
My opponent’s army list is easy to understand with conversions explained prior 1 Point
to the game or the list is completely WYSWIG.


Game Play - These items include courses of action your opponent took during the game or in deciding what to field in their army.

1) My opponent played their turns in a reasonable amount of time (taking in 1 Point
account time to plan strategy, and includes playing throughout all the phases)?
2) My opponent conducted measurements clearly and accurately for both model 1 Point
movement and shooting distances?
3) My opponent and I were able to solve all rules and games issues in a 1 Point
reasonable manner and my opponent did not dwell on unfavorable rulings.
4) My opponent built an army based on a theme relevant to the gaming universe. 1 Point
5) My opponent’s brought an army built for solid Tournament play as opposed to an 1 Point
army built with the sole idea of maximum point efficiency and the game winning
abilities of a few units.
6) My opponent’s army was built for a fun and challenging game, as opposed to an 1 Point
army designed to abuse loopholes in the rules.

Behaviors - These items include basic social skills (or lack thereof)
My opponent was of good humor and was not angry/grumbling/complaining/ 1 Point
upset/whining during the game?
My opponent was helpful in explaining correct rules and explaining how their 1 Point
army works?
Win or lose, my opponent played with a pleasant demeanor and if given the 1 Point
opportunity I would play them again.

Total Up to 12 Points which over the 5 games for the weekend makes for 60 points out of 200. So it's worth 30% of your points. More if you don't max out on battle points.

Just my opinion but I like it a lot.

What are the total points available?

At this point, I would like to make a statement, based on what I have read in this thread. Now, please note this is not necessarily my own opinion, but a sort of loose summing up which I feel is worthy of discussion. Ready peoples?

'Comp Scoring is fundamentally flawed, as it simply introduces another level of metagame to be exploited, further reducing the emphasis on how one plays in favour of what one takes'

So, comments and criticism please. And remember, this is just a statement, not strictly my own opinion, so no personal attacks.

Edited for sake of making it as dispassionate as possible!

That is my opinion.

@Killkrazy

I updated it but it's a total of 60 points out of 200 possible. So it's worth 30% (combined comp/sportsmanship) while painting is worth 20% and battle points are worth 50%.

@Mad Doc

It doesn't change the way I play. It doesn't put a huge emphasis on what you take as you'll still need to play well under whatever new system they put up. And it's possible to make it hard to keep your style in the more extreme comp systems. And i'll add that I feel it isn't a bad thing for people to want to win a tournement they pay for. Tournements are competative and people who come to win shouldn't be penalized for it. @sshats should be penalized but that's a different story all together

Well, indeed.

I mean, a Tournament is a cut above 'social' gaming in terms of levels of competitiveness amongst the participants. Ergo should one intend to win, you need to either have a very powerful list, or one so unique your opponents won't know what to do to combat it (Savage Orcs are a particularly good example, which I will come onto). But even so, you need to know *Exactly* what makes your force strong. Just taking Nidzilla will not give you a victory. It might be easier to win with it, but without any level of competence, you aren't going to stand a chance.

Now, back to my Savage Orcs. One of our local players is exceedingly good at Fantasy. And thus far, my Savage Orcs are the only army to best his Dark Elves. It's not so much that Savage Orcs are horrifically powerful, more that he approached the game with standard anti-Orc tactics. Tactics which really don't work against Savages. We don't run until we've been thrashed in combat. And pansy elves do not want to get stuck into Savage Orcs. I tend to chuck out more attacks at a higher strength than they can manage. One of my units, thanks to shooting and magic, was 7 strong when it made combat with his hitherto untouched Spearmen. I carved them up good and proper. One of Shamans lost his entire bodyguard of Boarboyz by the time his charge hit home against his massive regiment of Crossbows. And he still took out the Hag with the Banner of Nagarythe, bagging me a crapload of VPs. Of course, I lost the combat, but being mounted, I easily outran him.

So, I may not have necessarily have outplayed him. It's a very unusual army, and I will not claim the inherent benefits of running such a force as any kind of tactical genius. A definite little perk, sure. Now, in a Tournament situation, despite his very high level of play (he is a Tourny regular and knows his stuff) with my theme, I would have pretty much scuppered his chances of winning simply by using the unknown!

But most people want composition to limit the "power builds" which means that it would actually be that Dark Elf player that got scalped on comp in most situations while your list would never be seen as a "tough" list (especially in TO judge comp).

And if they introduce a checklist system your list isn't over the top so should you be hammered simply because you build a fun, solid list that you enjoy playing? Should you be taken out of the running for winning a tournement because of your list?

Just my two cents again, probably up to about a half dollar by now

Hulksmash wrote:@Killkrazy

I updated it but it's a total of 60 points out of 200 possible. So it's worth 30% (combined comp/sportsmanship) while painting is worth 20% and battle points are worth 50%.

...

I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:John, are you seriously trying to argue that Theme == Comp?

Cripes, for the third(?) / fourth(?!?) time, NO.

- Comp is what you take.
- Theme is why you take it.

There is a difference.

THing is, the Dark Elf player wasn't using that beardy a list. He just knew how to get the utmost out of it.

From memory, he had 2 Bolt Throwers, One Hydra, lots of Crossbowmen, a unit of Shades (what got duffed up nice and quick) 30 Spearblock, couple of level 2 Sorceress, and the Hag with the banner. Oh, and a single Assassin that the Wyvern sat on.

Considering the Magic is a strength of the Dark Elf book, he didn't take that much really. I had 3 Shamans myself, so neither of us could really lock the other out the magic phase, and indeed, it was Gorks Warpath that saved me!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

'Comp Scoring is fundamentally flawed, as it simply introduces another level of metagame to be exploited, further reducing the emphasis on how one plays in favour of what one takes'

Cant agree. It may be fundamentally flawed, but there is no reason to assume it further reduces the emphasis on how one plays in favor of what one takes. The playing is the same. The armies change - but the rules of the game already emphasize what one takes. Comp just changes the rules for that, it doesn't change the emphasis. Comp exists because people think there is too much emphasis on what one takes vs how one plays. It may fail to change it, but it doesn't do the opposite of what it intends.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

I'm now waiting for you to retract the hypocrisy statement.

If you're doing that, then I strongly suggest that you hold your breath whilst doing so.

It's not like your "proof" is any better than mine.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:@Killkrazy

I updated it but it's a total of 60 points out of 200 possible. So it's worth 30% (combined comp/sportsmanship) while painting is worth 20% and battle points are worth 50%.

...

I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

Ahh another fun aspect of "Comp".

You know what happens when someone brings a complete WAAC army to a tournament with Comp, knows that they're getting a Zero and intend to make up the difference via Battle & Painting scores; and then actually wins the event?

What happens is that people BITCH about comp scores even more, because somehow "comp has failed" in that situation.

Kilkrazy wrote:
I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

I agree. I also wonder how many WAAC players would sit and think about their 4 OTT armies that they own and figure out which list is most likely to still get those 10 comp points. Or they'll try to figure out what kind of minor tweaks they can make to keep the effectiveness but get the comp.

And then I wonder how many not OTT lists will get dinged on comp because someone feels like Unit X is just too strong period so they don't like the fact that it's in their opponents army.

That being said...I do like the SoCal Slaughters system and I'm bummed that I can't go this weekend. But unless the judges are making sure people are being truthful in their comp checking it's still room to chipmunk or just complain without justification.

I think what Lambadomy is saying relates to MDG's point earlier:

All comp does is change the system so that only "stealth cheese" gets through.

The problem is that certain lists (especially in WHFB) have such inherant advantages based on the way the army interacts with the core rules of the game (Vampires, Daemons) that they're just going to get "auto-dinged" in comp.

This leads to the problem where you can realize that "well if I'm going to get auto-dinged in comp X number of points already, I may as well just bring the hardest WAAC list I can make then, since the loss to me is negligible anyway."

Kilkrazy wrote:I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

When I originally analyzed the early 40k GT and RTT scoring results, it was clear that winning out was worth more than trying to make things up via "soft" scores. As I was a WAAC player, I took *very* hard lists to RTTs hoping to win out with mediocre soft scores. In those days, that would have been enough for a good finish, and got me a consolation prize as "Best General".

Based on the current weighting and results, there is less emphasis on battle and more variation in soft scores but winning out will still guarantee a high finish.

I assume most WAAC players will still go for the full Battle points, as there's no significant penalty for doing so.
____

See? I'm OK to admit that I was a WAAC player and brought hard lists. It's not a sin. The only sin is fooling yourself and thinking that you're fooling others...

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

I'm now waiting for you to retract the hypocrisy statement.

If you're doing that, then I strongly suggest that you hold your breath whilst doing so.

It's not like your "proof" is any better than mine.

The "proof" is what GW puts in it's codicies. If it's in the book, that's what they wanted.

@Lab

But at least they can only chipmunk a total of 9 points a game instead of around 14 . And if your chipmunking on most of them it's going to be pretty obvious.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:A completely unsupported assertion for which you've never presented any credible evidence.

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

I'm now waiting for you to retract the hypocrisy statement.

If you're doing that, then I strongly suggest that you hold your breath whilst doing so.

It's not like your "proof" is any better than mine.

Wow...totally edit out my response so that yours looks justified, then claim that a reference to GW's printed materials isn't as valid (or has equal validity to your own unsupported opinions.

As I wrote:

And naturally, you have "proof" and "evidence" for you assertions above, right?

Because you're not some kind of hypocrite who's holding others to a higher standard of correctness than yourself, right?

Yeah, like I said, it's all opinion.

Well, you could look through WD Batreps, and the writeups - specifically the part where the featured players explain why they took why they took. Count the number of "Happened to have this painted up" or "wanted to show off this new unit" rationales comes up more often than some variant of "an army from this codex should have this unit". In fact, the only time I can recall ever seen the second involves troop units, which I think we can safely discount now.

I'm now waiting for you to retract the hypocrisy statement.

Your arguments remind me a lot of Stelek's style.

Kilkrazy wrote:I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

All of them.

I have overheard or been told this directly in more conversations than I can count: "I knew my army was going to get dinged for comp so I cheesed it up to make sure I made up for it in battle points".

So what is Comp scoring for?

whitedragon wrote:The "proof" is what GW puts in it's codicies. If it's in the book, that's what they wanted.

It's what they *allow*, not what they *encourage*. There's a difference.

If it's what they encourage, why aren't GW batreps and features filled with hard-as-nails armies?

Kilkrazy wrote:So what is Comp scoring for?

To try and discourage power builds.

Which leads to the reasons why its an Epic Failure:
#1) Any objective universal comp list can be abused.
#2) Any subjective comp scoring is fundamentally unfair.

As I said in the other thread, the best way to discourage so-called power builds (that still, BTW, fail in the hands of a weaker player) is through better missions.

Why were Guard considered a contender in this year's 'Ard Boyz?

Centurian99 wrote:As I said in the other thread, the best way to discourage so-called power builds (that still, BTW, fail in the hands of a weaker player) is through better missions.

QFT. How many times are we going to play table quarters OVER and OVER and OVER...???

The Green Git wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:As I said in the other thread, the best way to discourage so-called power builds (that still, BTW, fail in the hands of a weaker player) is through better missions.

QFT. How many times are we going to play table quarters OVER and OVER and OVER...???

I'm guessing it'll be the same number of times we played Cleanse...

As many times as this thread can re-hash the same arguments OVER and OVER and OVER

Phazael wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:I have never chipmunked anyone in my life.

The rest of your reply is mostly your opinion versus mine, but we both know that particular statement to be untrue. I can recall with great clarity at one tournament I ran, which had ten point scales for both sportsmanship and composition, where your opponents recieved a combined total of about 9 points (out of a possible 60) and because of that particular incident Kyle Kinghorn started posting soft scores out in the open for a while (because this was not a unique occurance). If you feel the reindeer games and score trading that happened around there merrited it, then so be it.

I do not know of the exact tournament you are speaking of, but if I scored someone low, they should have deserved it. If given a 1-10 scale I do tend to grade on the lower side, but I try to be consistent. Everyone marks 10s all of the time when it states that it was “Your best game ever!”. I tend to mark a lot in the 5-6 range because it states that is was “average game of 40k”.

There was only one time where I regretted giving someone a bad score and that was against Todd E. (Cypher on this board). We had never met before and we were playing at a tournament at the Bunker and we had a big rules argument. We ended up with no resolution after quickly scanning the rulebook, so I conceded the point, and we went with his ruling. Well, that ended up costing me the game, and afterwards I found the rule and I was right. So I ended giving him a very bad sports score for rules arguing/disagreeing because we went with his wrong interpretation of the rules. If he was right, I would have given him full points. In hindsight I might not have handled that as well as I could have, and I do make mistakes. The funny thing is that Todd and I became friends years later.

The other problem at the Bunker (all my problems happen there) I was playing against Adam G. (Mortetvie here) and he kicked my butt in a game. It was one of my worse losses ever. I was not angry at him, but more amazed. Well, at the end of the game we had paint judging and it was on a 1-10 scale and I gave him either a 2 of a 3. Half of his army was well painted, 25% was partially painted, and 25% was unpainted. His friends jumped all over me on a thread in Warseer (I can get the link if anyone wants to see it) because I chipmunked him because I was beat, and that I cost him the tournament. Well, I gave him the score I thought he deserved, and I thought I was being generous at the time.

In hindsight I think that might be where my reputation for chipmunking came from. I rarely come down to the Bunker, and that was only for RTTs, so I can see how all of the regulars there get a good laugh over how I tank someones scores. I do not care. As you can see by my avatar I wear it with pride because I know that I don’t chipmunk.

Blackmoor wrote:[If given a 1-10 scale I do tend to grade on the lower side, but I try to be consistent. Everyone marks 10s all of the time when it states that it was “Your best game ever!”. I tend to mark a lot in the 5-6 range because it states that is was “average game of 40k”.

This is my least favorite thing about soft scores of any kind. People decide to use a different convention than what is written on the pages. You're doing it right as written, but no one else was doing it that way (they're reading it as 'give them a 10 unless something went wrong'.) I had an opponent I actually would never want to play again in my third game at a gamesday tournament, but I still gave them a 10 because they weren't actually offensive (not saying this is right, just using an example) The fact that people are personally interpreting soft score rules causes all sorts of problems, and is really difficult to fix. Following the rules as written will often be considered chipmunking if everyone else has just decided to give 10s to anyone but TFG. Personally I think the idea of just giving 10s unless there was a problem came from the fact that otherwise chipmunking was harder to detect. But if that is the case well, it'd be nice if the sports rules got rewritten to reflect that

The Green Git wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I wonder how many WAAC players would be happy to forgo the maximum 10 points on comp in order to have the most powerful list available for garnering the possible 100 points in battle.

All of them.

I have overheard or been told this directly in more conversations than I can count: "I knew my army was going to get dinged for comp so I cheesed it up to make sure I made up for it in battle points".

And I wonder how many of those same folks planned on taking a power-list anyway, but then use the "I knew I'd get dinged on comp so I took a cheesier list" excuse?

We'll probably never really know.

I once got called cheesy for playing my Ravenwing...

That kinda killed comp for me.

Ozymandias wrote:I once got called cheesy for playing my Ravenwing...

That kinda killed comp for me.

Yep. I've gotten called cheesy for taking maxed FA choices (with Night Lords), Ravenwing, Deathwing, and even Guard.

Observation: It seems that comp advocates want to allow for broader participation in events. Seems like the power list advocates want to call comp advocates pussies and tell them to suck it up. Why the hate on comp? Just sort of comes across as Nerd Rage to me.

You know... in Golf they have handicaps. In drag racing you have dial ins and bracket racing. It's not unprecedented that competitors of differing skill levels or equipment capabilities compete in the same event with some sort of leveling mechanism. Maybe there should be a national ranking system or some such that tracks players and assigns them a handicap based on their winning records. Then you could have the WAAC guys bringing their biggest and baddest to the table and have newbs not afraid of getting crushed with no hope of anything near success. I mean after all every power list advocate out there says they will still fail in the hands of an inferior player, right? So if it's not the list it's the player that needs the comp. If it's no challenge for a seasoned vet to play a first time tourney goer, how about spotting him points?

The problem with comp is as follows:

No one can write an extensive set of guidelines for fairly judging all armies

Some players will use it to ding others for whatever reason

G

”Mad Dok Grotsnik” wrote:'Comp Scoring is fundamentally flawed, as it simply introduces another level of metagame to be exploited, further reducing the emphasis on how one plays in favour of what one takes'

40k Codices are fundamentally flawed for use in tournament play, in large part due to internal and cross-codex imbalances. Comp scoring introduces another level to the tournament metagame to compensate for this fact, thus giving play skill greater importance relative to army list strength, and giving a material incentive to use less powerful (or less obviously powerful) armies.

Green Blow Fly wrote:No one can write an extensive set of guidelines for fairly judging all armies

Applies only to checklist comp. And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/113472.page

Green Blow Fly wrote:Some players will use it to ding others for whatever reason

Only applies to player-judged. Not a factor for judge-scored (either subjective or checklist version).

Centurian99 wrote: #1) Any objective universal comp list can be abused.

And then tweaked. Comp can evolve organically if overlooked power lists come to light. “Stealth Cheese” is not a bad thing; if competitive players are encouraged to find new builds which still win reliably, but are more interesting and more enjoyable to play against, that’s a net good.

Centurian99 wrote: #2) Any subjective comp scoring is fundamentally unfair.

The current codex system is fundamentally unbalanced. If you have a good event organizer whose judgment is better than the designers, is it unreasonable to substitute his judgment on lists? You advocate “better missions.” Well, when you write new missions you’re substituting your design for GW’s, in the interest of a better, fairer game. It’s largely same thing, just implemented in a different area of the game.
]

Mannahnin wrote:And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/113472.page

Following that link, I found this as the comp checklist

An army scores based on the following list, with a maximum of 22 points. Each Yes answer is worth 2 points, except for questions 7, 9 and 11, which are each worth 4. At the end of the third round each player will also vote for his favorite army of the three he played against. Each vote an army gets is worth an additional 2 points, for a total maximum of 26 points. All questions are cumulative.

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit?
2. Does the army have more than two Troops units?
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?
5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category?
6. Does the army have EITHER no Elite units or one Elite unit?
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?
8. Does the army have EITHER no Fast Attack units or one Fast Attack unit?
9. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same Fast Attack unit?
10. Does the army have EITHER no Heavy Support units or one Heavy Support unit?
11. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?
12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points?

Looking at that with my (fairly fluffy, nono-powergamed Tau army)
I would get a check for 1 & 2, but not for 3. (I play all Tau, no Kroot, so I only have one Troop unit to choose from), I think it'd fail 4 as well, depends on whether transports/vehicle upgrades apply here.
I would get 5, only having the 2 railheads. I would fail 6 & 7, as would [nearly] every Tau army because they need there Elite Crisis suits to compete. I would get point 8 for my Pathfinders. Not get 9. (Tau non-Pathfinder fast attack choices suck) I would not get 10, but would get 11 (2 Railheads & a Broadside squad). 12 I'd probably not get.

So my tough, but non min-maxed Tau force could only score me a maximum of 12 (16 at Judge's discretion) out of 22 points. Does anybody honestly think that Tau have any incredibly over-cheesy builds in 5th? I'm not sure why it's Penalized that way. I'd imagine Necrons would fair even worse under such a checklist.

Comp is an un-needed crutch.

Centurian99 wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:So what is Comp scoring for?

To try and discourage power builds.

Which leads to the reasons why its an Epic Failure:
#1) Any objective universal comp list can be abused.
#2) Any subjective comp scoring is fundamentally unfair.
As I said in the other thread, the best way to discourage so-called power builds (that still, BTW, fail in the hands of a weaker player) is through better missions.

See, I think this is the fundamental problem and why so many people seem to be against Comp.

Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

Comp should be used to encourage and open up alternative power builds for different races.

lambadomy wrote:...I also wonder how many WAAC players would sit and think about their 4 OTT armies that they own and figure out which list is most likely to still get those 10 comp points...

If the reason comp is included is to diversify the lists in the tournament, and those WAAC players start taking their alternative armies, then the Comp system hasn't failed, it has worked perfectly; the best general still wins by winning the most battle points, but everyone else (including TO) is happy because the tournament has had a far more diverse field.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/113472.page

Following that link, I found this as the comp checklist

An army scores based on the following list, with a maximum of 22 points. Each Yes answer is worth 2 points, except for questions 7, 9 and 11, which are each worth 4. At the end of the third round each player will also vote for his favorite army of the three he played against. Each vote an army gets is worth an additional 2 points, for a total maximum of 26 points. All questions are cumulative.

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit?
2. Does the army have more than two Troops units?
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?
5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category?
6. Does the army have EITHER no Elite units or one Elite unit?
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?
8. Does the army have EITHER no Fast Attack units or one Fast Attack unit?
9. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same Fast Attack unit?
10. Does the army have EITHER no Heavy Support units or one Heavy Support unit?
11. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?
12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points?

Looking at that with my (fairly fluffy, nono-powergamed Tau army)
I would get a check for 1 & 2, but not for 3. (I play all Tau, no Kroot, so I only have one Troop unit to choose from), I think it'd fail 4 as well, depends on whether transports/vehicle upgrades apply here.
I would get 5, only having the 2 railheads. I would fail 6 & 7, as would [nearly] every Tau army because they need there Elite Crisis suits to compete. I would get point 8 for my Pathfinders. Not get 9. (Tau non-Pathfinder fast attack choices suck) I would not get 10, but would get 11 (2 Railheads & a Broadside squad). 12 I'd probably not get.

So my tough, but non min-maxed Tau force could only score me a maximum of 12 (16 at Judge's discretion) out of 22 points. Does anybody honestly think that Tau have any incredibly over-cheesy builds in 5th? I'm not sure why it's Penalized that way. I'd imagine Necrons would fair even worse under such a checklist.

Comp is an un-needed crutch.

The question isn't "How many comp points of out X does my army get?" It's "What is the average number of comp points all the armies in play will receive, and how does my comp score compare to that?"

Put another way: you don't need max comp points, and a "good" checklist should never award max comp points to a single army. Instead, different armies get their points in different places, with most armies falling into a fairly narrow range.

Comp checklists can be fine, but I'd prefer if it was possible to get max comp points without hitting every checkbox.

For example, maybe there are 14 different comp checks...but the max comp points is 10, and you only need 10/14 checked to get max points.

Darth Fugly wrote:
Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

I can't agree with this at all.

Any monkey can look at a codex and see what the best combos/ powerlists are. Also with the internet, any monkey can find out what the powerlists are.

GG

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:'Comp Scoring is fundamentally flawed, as it simply introduces another level of metagame to be exploited, further reducing the emphasis on how one plays in favour of what one takes'

Kinda...

Comp scoring is flawed, and does merely change the metagame so that what counts as a 'competitive list' is changed. However, the point of this is to change the metagame so that more lists count as competitive lists, sometimes by limiting the really really powerful ones.

So in a metagame where the most powerful armies involve (for example) Spamming Something Really Powerful (Nob bikers, Oblits, Land Raiders, whatever), we can introduce another set of rules that make fielding these armies unfavourable.

We then allow a greater range of builds to seriously compete in the tournament, thus making the tournament much more fun for everyone...(and more a test of generalship that a test of disposable income, predictable power building, etc...)

Darth Fugly wrote:Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

Sort of. Writing a good, balanced list is part of being a good general. But writing most of the power builds around at the minute doesn't exactly take list-building genius. You can either look on the interweb, or just followed the age old formula of figuring out the most powerful unit and taking three of them!!

I could never agree that someone fielding a dual-lash/oblit or nob biker army is some sort of list-building wizard, compared to, say, someone who fields a balanced and representative list which STILL manages to win loads of games...

The problem is that comp doesn't *add* more powerful lists, it *changes* what the power lists are.

Neither of which changes the fact that some people feel they should be able to field sub-optimal lists while having an equal chance of winning.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

whitedragon wrote:The "proof" is what GW puts in it's codicies. If it's in the book, that's what they wanted.

It's what they *allow*, not what they *encourage*. There's a difference.

If it's what they encourage, why aren't GW batreps and features filled with hard-as-nails armies?

Because the only purpose of WD batreps is to promote this month's new releases.

The Green Git wrote:Observation: It seems that comp advocates want to allow for broader participation in events. Seems like the power list advocates want to call comp advocates pussies and tell them to suck it up. Why the hate on comp? Just sort of comes across as Nerd Rage to me.

You know... in Golf they have handicaps. In drag racing you have dial ins and bracket racing. It's not unprecedented that competitors of differing skill levels or equipment capabilities compete in the same event with some sort of leveling mechanism. Maybe there should be a national ranking system or some such that tracks players and assigns them a handicap based on their winning records. Then you could have the WAAC guys bringing their biggest and baddest to the table and have newbs not afraid of getting crushed with no hope of anything near success. I mean after all every power list advocate out there says they will still fail in the hands of an inferior player, right? So if it's not the list it's the player that needs the comp. If it's no challenge for a seasoned vet to play a first time tourney goer, how about spotting him points?

Levelling is done through the tournament structure where the top players end up playing each other in later rounds. It doesn't need comp at all.

Everyone doesn't hate comp. A lot of people are like me who simply sees comp (and theme) as not working and being a waste of time and effort. I'm all for interesting armies, variety and so on, I just don't believe there is a comp system which can achieve it.

Centurian99 wrote:The problem is that comp doesn't *add* more powerful lists, it *changes* what the power lists are.

Neither of which changes the fact that some people feel they should be able to field sub-optimal lists while having an equal chance of winning.

While this is true, it isn't just about sub optimal lists, but sometimes sub optimal entire armies or codexes. I think there are many more sub-groups of gamers than just "fluffy/friendly" and "tournament hard core". One group wants to play competitively in tournaments, doesn't care so much about fluff/etc, but only has one or two painted armies. Rules changes and new codexes obviously will weaken or completely cripple some armies, and make others stronger. Sometimes people are using comp to help a wider group of sub optimal lists compete because not doing so isn't just rewarding hard core players, it's rewarding people with deeper pockets or more free time. Or people who can impressively paint a whole new daemon army in 8 days .

Not saying this is good or bad, just postulating that it might be logical to think you can attract more players with more nicely painted armies if they can compete with something old or not the current power builds from the new codexes or things that were made more powerful by the new rules.

lambadomy wrote:
Not saying this is good or bad, just postulating that it might be logical to think you can attract more players with more nicely painted armies if they can compete with something old or not the current power builds from the new codexes or things that were made more powerful by the new rules.

And again, comp doesn't really do anything to fix that. A far, far, far better solution is to write better missions.

As I keep using as an example: The AdeptiCon Gladiator. #1 Rule: no whining. Anything goes (well, almost).

And here are the armies that won:
3rd Ed: Iron Warriors, Imperial Guard
4th Ed: World Eaters, Drop Pod Space Marines, Eldar (tri-falcon), Tyranids (non-Godzilla)

Hardly a collection of the dominant lists. 33/66 (with only IW & Eldar really "power" build) is pretty good, by my reckoning

Write better missions, publicize them (or drafts of them) ahead of time, and if you do it correctly, the list of strong armies will increase, without making either WAAC or fluffier competitive gamers complain (as much).

I'm not saying it works, I'm saying the intent is sometimes broader than just trying to limit power, and that the intentions are good. Good intentions don't make the rules actually good.

I'd be more interested in the overall rankings and how each army matched up than just what armies won (I know thats not available, just saying). There is plenty of room for the not-quite-most-powerful builds to win, in my opinion, in 4th and 5th edition (I have no 3rd edition or previous experience). There's little room for bad or fluff-at-all-costs (can we get FAAC as an abbrevation? .

Anyway, we agree, I was just expanding on the reasons why people might want to field sub optimal lists and have a chance to win. And yes, missions are a far better way to do it than comp. But if you know the missions ahead of time you can still WAACs those too.

While checklists aren't an effective means of comp scoring, I think some kind of comp score should be required, if only to encourage a wider variety of lists. I have spent the past few days building up a chaos army list, and reading alot of other army lists for inspiration, and at LEAST 4 out of 5 that I have looked at were some minor variation on the dual lash/oblit army.

To me, this was just depressing, and a little distasteful. The whole appeal of Chaos is the wild, well, chaos of it, and having an army list that shows up 80% of the time in or out of a tourney is just ridiculous. To me, this is just the most obvious example, but I'm sure the issue afflicts other races as well.

I don't think penalizing an army for having more than one of an elite/FA/HS unit is really fair, but power build aside, I don't want to go to a tourney and fight the same damn Dual Lash army 3 times.

Hulksmash wrote:I've found the new system to seem to work well that they have developed for US GT's, Indy (Adepticon i think and Socal Slaughter) and GW ran. A simple, easily explained checklist system that combines all soft scores except for painting. Even painting now has a checklist so you can know how your probably going to do before showing up. Ex. is I'll probably pull a 25-30 out of 40 for painting this weekend but I know that going in. In big events chipmunking is easy to spot at the most you can get knocked by someone is just a few points. This means it's harder for a group to collude before on scoring before the tournement and while you can still "game" the system I find it's one of the better ways to go.

Example of SoCal Slaughters slightly modified soft score checklist.

The Pre-Game: These are the items an opponent can reasonably expect you to be prepared with, including being on time, having everything you need, and explaining you army
My opponent was on time (or early). 1 Point
My opponent had all the materials they needed to play (dice, templates, army 1 Point
list, rules for their army, rules for the game).
My opponent’s army list is easy to understand with conversions explained prior 1 Point
to the game or the list is completely WYSWIG.


Game Play - These items include courses of action your opponent took during the game or in deciding what to field in their army.

1) My opponent played their turns in a reasonable amount of time (taking in 1 Point
account time to plan strategy, and includes playing throughout all the phases)?
2) My opponent conducted measurements clearly and accurately for both model 1 Point
movement and shooting distances?
3) My opponent and I were able to solve all rules and games issues in a 1 Point
reasonable manner and my opponent did not dwell on unfavorable rulings.
4) My opponent built an army based on a theme relevant to the gaming universe. 1 Point
5) My opponent’s brought an army built for solid Tournament play as opposed to an 1 Point
army built with the sole idea of maximum point efficiency and the game winning
abilities of a few units.
6) My opponent’s army was built for a fun and challenging game, as opposed to an 1 Point
army designed to abuse loopholes in the rules.

Behaviors - These items include basic social skills (or lack thereof)
My opponent was of good humor and was not angry/grumbling/complaining/ 1 Point
upset/whining during the game?
My opponent was helpful in explaining correct rules and explaining how their 1 Point
army works?
Win or lose, my opponent played with a pleasant demeanor and if given the 1 Point
opportunity I would play them again.

Total Up to 12 Points which over the 5 games for the weekend makes for 60 points out of 200. So it's worth 30% of your points. More if you don't max out on battle points.

Just my opinion but I like it a lot.

That is indeed the Slaughter Checklist, at least the last update of it I saw. Thats a 40k adapted modification by Charlie Nichols (the main event organizer of the Slaughter in Space) of the one I used for our Fantasy Slaughter, which people seemed to really like as it allowed more variation in the scores. The other thing that we did with the Fantasy one (and will be doing with the 40k one) is have a judge committee of people not playing do blind comping of all armies (each guy gives a 1-5 score over martinis at the hotel the night before) and the first two round pairings are determined based on these comp scores (which have no other effect in the tourney). This means that the guys who come with soft lists at least get two good games and the hard asses play each other for the first two rounds, at least. After that, its all battle points. I think that is about as close to a perfect comp system as you will ever be able to achieve, but of course I devised it so I am biased. The main drawback is that it requires lists in advance or else you have latecommers playing each other.

But I maintain that comp is still dead and has been for years. The only way to control army composition on the scale and scope of the 40k playerbase is through constant rules balance adjustments (ala War Machine), but GW has no interest in this.

Lots of good thoughts in this thread.

I used to be pro-comp, but the way the game's evolved, I don't know that it works or can even be salvaged. If I had to pick one, I'd pick judge-scored subjective, as Mannahnin described. If you've ever been on the wrong end of a rigid checklist when you're actually taking a *weaker* army, you'd know how I feel.

I agree that missions could change things for the better. But I've also played some GT missions that basically handed me a win before a miniature was placed on the table. I suspect the missions book will have some significant "what were they thinking" examples in it.

fatal_GRACE wrote: I have spent the past few days building up a chaos army list, and reading alot of other army lists for inspiration, and at LEAST 4 out of 5 that I have looked at were some minor variation on the dual lash/oblit army.

To me, this was just depressing, and a little distasteful. The whole appeal of Chaos is the wild, well, chaos of it, and having an army list that shows up 80% of the time in or out of a tourney is just ridiculous.

As others have said, this is how comp tries to address the failings of codices. I don't really blame a player taking a strong build like double lash/Oblit to a competition. I do think it's a sad state of affairs when *Chaos* has been reduced to a core build with other stuff sprinkled to taste around it.

The really appalling thing is how the guilty parties try to point the fingers at the players. If you're playing a game of one-on-one basketball with someone, would you choose to wear a set of work boots or Nikes?

I think some players take GW gaming FAR too seriously. Nothing about the hobby is chest-bump-worthy, IMO. But the studio staff must collectively not have a single competitive bone in their bodies. Which is weird, because most humans are at least a little competitive, as shown by things like sports and gambling. Not that anyone in the world is interested in either.

I don't like dumping on the GW studio. I like so much of what they do. But I really don't think I'll *ever* understand them.

Mannahnin wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Some players will use it to ding others for whatever reason

Only applies to player-judged. Not a factor for judge-scored (either subjective or checklist version).

Unless the judges don't like you for some reason or if, say, one of the players is one of the judge's son...Judges aren't impartial, just less likely to be extremely partial.

If you have a set of rules to judge comp then people will figure out to max the scores and still power game.

G

Mannahnin wrote:

Centurian99 wrote: #1) Any objective universal comp list can be abused.

And then tweaked. Comp can evolve organically if overlooked power lists come to light. “Stealth Cheese” is not a bad thing; if competitive players are encouraged to find new builds which still win reliably, but are more interesting and more enjoyable to play against, that’s a net good.

Centurian99 wrote: #2) Any subjective comp scoring is fundamentally unfair.

The current codex system is fundamentally unbalanced. If you have a good event organizer whose judgment is better than the designers, is it unreasonable to substitute his judgment on lists? You advocate “better missions.” Well, when you write new missions you’re substituting your design for GW’s, in the interest of a better, fairer game. It’s largely same thing, just implemented in a different area of the game.
]

chaplaingrabthar wrote:So my tough, but non min-maxed Tau force could only score me a maximum of 12 (16 at Judge's discretion) out of 22 points. Does anybody honestly think that Tau have any incredibly over-cheesy builds in 5th? I'm not sure why it's Penalized that way. .

You’re not penalized. You’re given fewer points (under this checklist, which was, bear in mind, for 1500pt tournaments under 4th edition rules), if you have less variety of stuff in your army. This particular checklist was actually built to encourage variety/discourage repetition in lists.

Limiting yourself from Kroot is a personal choice. It does reduce the variety of stuff in your army, which does tend to make it a little more monotonous to play against. Transports & vehicle upgrades are clarified in the text immediately below the list. I’m surprised to see you miss 7, 9, AND 11. Those are worth 4 each. I’d be curious to see the actual list. Remember that you can also get up to 2 bonus points per opponent who votes you (at the end of the day) the coolest/compiest army list they faced. So if your list is on the softer end, you’re more likely to pick up some extra points there too.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I'd imagine Necrons would fair even worse under such a checklist.

One of my tournaments was won by Necrons, with a deliberately unusual list, which scored the max possible of 28 on comp (full 22 plus all three opponents voted it the coolest army list they faced that day).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/133277.page#133278

Centurian99 wrote:

lambadomy wrote:
Not saying this is good or bad, just postulating that it might be logical to think you can attract more players with more nicely painted armies if they can compete with something old or not the current power builds from the new codexes or things that were made more powerful by the new rules.

And again, comp doesn't really do anything to fix that. A far, far, far better solution is to write better missions.

If Comp isn’t fixing it, it’s just badly designed and/or executed Comp. Just like Missions won’t fix anything if they’re bad missions.

Centurian99 wrote:[Write better missions, publicize them (or drafts of them) ahead of time, and if you do it correctly, the list of strong armies will increase, without making either WAAC or fluffier competitive gamers complain (as much).

How is writing new missions not changing the game? How is rebalancing via different missions qualitatively different than rebalancing via giving a small points advantage to softer armies? Either way you’re tweaking the rules of the game.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/113472.page

Following that link, I found this as the comp checklist

An army scores based on the following list, with a maximum of 22 points. Each Yes answer is worth 2 points, except for questions 7, 9 and 11, which are each worth 4. At the end of the third round each player will also vote for his favorite army of the three he played against. Each vote an army gets is worth an additional 2 points, for a total maximum of 26 points. All questions are cumulative.

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit?
2. Does the army have more than two Troops units?
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?
5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category?
6. Does the army have EITHER no Elite units or one Elite unit?
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?
8. Does the army have EITHER no Fast Attack units or one Fast Attack unit?
9. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same Fast Attack unit?
10. Does the army have EITHER no Heavy Support units or one Heavy Support unit?
11. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?
12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points?

Looking at that with my (fairly fluffy, nono-powergamed Tau army)
I would get a check for 1 & 2, but not for 3. (I play all Tau, no Kroot, so I only have one Troop unit to choose from), I think it'd fail 4 as well, depends on whether transports/vehicle upgrades apply here.
I would get 5, only having the 2 railheads. I would fail 6 & 7, as would [nearly] every Tau army because they need there Elite Crisis suits to compete. I would get point 8 for my Pathfinders. Not get 9. (Tau non-Pathfinder fast attack choices suck) I would not get 10, but would get 11 (2 Railheads & a Broadside squad). 12 I'd probably not get.

So my tough, but non min-maxed Tau force could only score me a maximum of 12 (16 at Judge's discretion) out of 22 points. Does anybody honestly think that Tau have any incredibly over-cheesy builds in 5th? I'm not sure why it's Penalized that way. I'd imagine Necrons would fair even worse under such a checklist.

Comp is an un-needed crutch.

I agree. There are simply armies out there that would get unfairly chipped for using what they were given, fluffy and balanced or otherwise..

generalgrog wrote:

Darth Fugly wrote:
Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

I can't agree with this at all.

Any monkey can look at a codex and see what the best combos/ powerlists are. Also with the internet, any monkey can find out what the powerlists are.

GG

Yes, any monkey could, but tournaments are used to see who the better tactician/player is, not who is the best list builder. Surely a monkey with a power-build would lose to an intelligent player with the same power-build.

ArbitorIan wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:'Comp Scoring is fundamentally flawed, as it simply introduces another level of metagame to be exploited, further reducing the emphasis on how one plays in favour of what one takes'

Kinda...

Comp scoring is flawed, and does merely change the metagame so that what counts as a 'competitive list' is changed. However, the point of this is to change the metagame so that more lists count as competitive lists, sometimes by limiting the really really powerful ones.

So in a metagame where the most powerful armies involve (for example) Spamming Something Really Powerful (Nob bikers, Oblits, Land Raiders, whatever), we can introduce another set of rules that make fielding these armies unfavourable.

We then allow a greater range of builds to seriously compete in the tournament, thus making the tournament much more fun for everyone...(and more a test of generalship that a test of disposable income, predictable power building, etc...)

Darth Fugly wrote:Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

Sort of. Writing a good, balanced list is part of being a good general. But writing most of the power builds around at the minute doesn't exactly take list-building genius. You can either look on the interweb, or just followed the age old formula of figuring out the most powerful unit and taking three of them!!

I could never agree that someone fielding a dual-lash/oblit or nob biker army is some sort of list-building wizard, compared to, say, someone who fields a balanced and representative list which STILL manages to win loads of games...

Perhaps, but should people that take "effective" lists for winning be denied winning just because they made a powerful build? Perhaps composition scores should be reserved for composition based competitions, such as golden daemon or other painting/modeling tournaments. Sports teams don't get marked up or down in world tournaments for having a team representing the ethnic backgrounds of their nation/state or for having the the most colorful jerseys. Why should 40k tournaments attempting to determine the best tacticians be any different? Comp wouldn't even be necessary if GW made better codexes with options available for each force organization chart that were comparable in ability. Orks have biker nobs, while burna boys, tankbustas, mega armoed nobs and kommandos are comparably much crappier in competitive setting. Killpoints doesn't help either, as that even further push players to make armies that abuse powerful units that give away the same amount of KP or less than more basic, cheaper unit.

skyth wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Some players will use it to ding others for whatever reason

Only applies to player-judged. Not a factor for judge-scored (either subjective or checklist version).

Unless the judges don't like you for some reason or if, say, one of the players is one of the judge's son...Judges aren't impartial, just less likely to be extremely partial.

If the organizer is not a good organizer, that’s a different issue.

If it’s a checklist system, there’s transparency, and you can check the numbers.

If it’s subjective judge scoring, you either trust the judge or you don’t. If you don’t, I recommend not attending his events. There are also process refinements which can be applied to reduce bias. For example, the GTs which use a panel of judges for pre-scoring take the players’ names off the lists before circulating them to the judges.

Comp makes no sense from a tournament-competition standpoint. It's simply a system that encourages a wider variety of people to enter into GW endorsed events but has some counter-intuitive and unfair side effects--enough to be aggravating and annoying, but not enough for people to throw away the armies they've spent hundreds of dollars on. Welcome to the continuous, capitalistic circle jerk of GW.

Judges can bugger off with their subjective condemnations/praise on different army compositions, because whose to say what is a balanced, fluffy army. If an army can be reasonably explained, which you can do with even the most power-buildy of lists like nob bikers, nidzilla and dual lash chaos, than it shouldn't be knocked off for comp (but it will fail anyway due to the subjectivity of the matter.) People assume that armies that use a random assortment of non-synergistic, judge-sucking lists that are more eye candy than anything resembling a tactical military force are what GW sees as a "proper" list.

As far as leaving it to the players to judge, it is so easy for people to purposefully screw over another players record because they are either a) bitter b) understand that if they screw over their opponents comp score, it would logically increase their standings and/or c) can go into a tournament with friends/cohorts that add to this insane unfairness by agreeing to give each other perfect comp scores while screwing over other players. I don't want to go to a tournament only to see that I am getting scored by that "fat creepy over-competitive 35 year old guy with ego issues" or the "hyperactive 13 year old that plays ultramarines".

Mannahnin wrote:
How is writing new missions not changing the game? How is rebalancing via different missions qualitatively different than rebalancing via giving a small points advantage to softer armies? Either way you’re tweaking the rules of the game.

I personally don't really see how writing new missions would change the fundamental nature of the game. I'm assuming, of course, that the new missions don't blatantly favor certain lists over others (4th ed Escalation, bogus scenarios like "Move all your units more than 6" every turn... +2 points").

The reason I feel this way, and I think many other players would concur, is because you still get to build whatever list you want to play. Most people that I know have a "core" that they like to maintain from list to list, like Lash+Oblits, Shrike+Assault Terminators, 2x Seer Council and 9x War Walkers, et cetera. Mission parameters may change the nature of how you play that list, or it may require you to optimize it in certain ways to have better odds of achieving the mission objective, but the core is still playable.

Composition, on the other hand, will penalize your core, either directly by telling you what you can or can't take, or indirectly by requiring points to be allocated away from the core. In a mission-centric structure, I can play whatever I want and my performance will determine how well I succeed. In a comp-centric structure, I can technically still play whatever I want, but there is no way to gain points back by performing better.

You can call this a handicap, ego check, cheese penalty, or whatever you like, but the reality is if I play what I want to play I get points taken away from me when I walk through the door.

Another thing people forget to realize is that if there is a small handful of common-power builds rotating in 40k tournaments, a smart player would make a list with that in mind and make counters for them. Most army lists have the ability to vary their equipment/selections just enough to make themselves effective vs. Nob Bikers or Lash. They aren't unstoppable, they just have a lot of "shock and awe" power against players bringing very balanced lists.

What it really comes down to, for me, is that the powerbuild lists really detract from the dynamic aspect of the game. If most ork players play nob bikers, and most chaos play dual lash armies, the game quickly grows static and repetitive. It really bothers me that if I play any list that can really be competitive in a tournament filled with identical power-builds, I would have to have something similar. After a very short amount of time, it would just be a circle-jerk, with everybody just trying to play the same list.

I can't imagine that the same dual lash army, for example, would be very fun to play anymore after playing it the same way over and over again, against the same army lists, over and over again.

Like I said before, it's not about the 'unfair' aspects of a hrd build vs a soft build, but about the lack of innovation present in its overuse.

sourclams wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
How is writing new missions not changing the game? How is rebalancing via different missions qualitatively different than rebalancing via giving a small points advantage to softer armies? Either way you’re tweaking the rules of the game.

I personally don't really see how writing new missions would change the fundamental nature of the game. I'm assuming, of course, that the new missions don't blatantly favor certain lists over others (4th ed Escalation, bogus scenarios like "Move all your units more than 6" every turn... +2 points").

The reason I feel this way, and I think many other players would concur, is because you still get to build whatever list you want to play. Most people that I know have a "core" that they like to maintain from list to list, like Lash+Oblits, Shrike+Assault Terminators, 2x Seer Council and 9x War Walkers, et cetera. Mission parameters may change the nature of how you play that list, or it may require you to optimize it in certain ways to have better odds of achieving the mission objective, but the core is still playable.

Composition, on the other hand, will penalize your core, either directly by telling you what you can or can't take, or indirectly by requiring points to be allocated away from the core. In a mission-centric structure, I can play whatever I want and my performance will determine how well I succeed. In a comp-centric structure, I can technically still play whatever I want, but there is no way to gain points back by performing better.

You can call this a handicap, ego check, cheese penalty, or whatever you like, but the reality is if I play what I want to play I get points taken away from me when I walk through the door.

The problem here is that as more people realize the value of these lists, everybody will utilize the same few cores. And then the game loses variation, and it's predictability is unsatisfying.

Mannahnin wrote:
If Comp isn’t fixing it, it’s just badly designed and/or executed Comp. Just like Missions won’t fix anything if they’re bad missions.

I've came to the belief that its impossible to design a universal checklist comp system that isn't ultimately epic fail at achieving its objectives. I have seen good missions that opened up the field to non-standard builds.

Mannahnin wrote:
How is writing new missions not changing the game? How is rebalancing via different missions qualitatively different than rebalancing via giving a small points advantage to softer armies? Either way you’re tweaking the rules of the game.

What sourclams said.

Anyone remember 3rd Edition tournaments. Who remembers playing 5-6 games at a GT against SM's or CSM's? There was no variation back then because comp favored the marine lists more than anything. The lists were normally slightly different but the fact remains everyone was MEQ with few exceptions.

The fact remains that almost all comp is going to favor certain armies. IF you make a comp list that is meant to limit certain builds I see the return of 3rd edition tournements where there was only 1-2 codexs being used by 90% of the attendees.

As for missions i think this is the direction to go. You wanna limit Nidzilla? Make it so that to massacre you need to hold 3 objectives (very hard with most Nidzilla). Wanna hurt nob bikers? Slightly modify the KP system (i.e. 750pts=7 KPs). Wanna hurt Lash/Oblits either of the above can hurt them. Now this will lead to other powerbuilds (Ork Hordes, Most Mechanized Forces) but it'll help spread the field a little better.

Crazy Idea Two (the first being standardized lists (one per army book or codex)): Last round of the tourney, you and your opponent swap armies.

Buh, buh, buh, he's fielding a ton of Nob bikers!
Don't worry, those are your models. Good luck.

Another thing to consider is that there are different reasons for comp scoring...

Some people want variety

Some people want to balance things out

Some people want to hurt people who play differently than they do.

The last category is what gives comp scoring a bad name...In that case, it's just another form of bullying, along with name-calling, etc...

fatal_GRACE wrote:What it really comes down to, for me, is that the powerbuild lists really detract from the dynamic aspect of the game. If most ork players play nob bikers, and most chaos play dual lash armies, the game quickly grows static and repetitive. It really bothers me that if I play any list that can really be competitive in a tournament filled with identical power-builds, I would have to have something similar. After a very short amount of time, it would just be a circle-jerk, with everybody just trying to play the same list.

I can't imagine that the same dual lash army, for example, would be very fun to play anymore after playing it the same way over and over again, against the same army lists, over and over again.

Like I said before, it's not about the 'unfair' aspects of a hrd build vs a soft build, but about the lack of innovation present in its overuse.

The problem here is that as more people realize the value of these lists, everybody will utilize the same few cores. And then the game loses variation, and it's predictability is unsatisfying.

I like power builds. I like my opponent to play power builds. I like opening up a Codex and finding the hardest list that can be made out of it, for me thats part of the fun. I like my opponents to do the same.

I get variety by varying missions, points, terrain. The dice themselves ensure no two games are the same.

This is how I like to play, is it the wrong way to play?

I think that ideally, a tournament should be about 20% battlepoints, 10% army composition, 5% painting, and 65% fluff trivia quiz.

There are problems with every comp system.

In the check list there are armies that are perfectly fine that end up getting penalized for the way they have to build their armies to be competitive. Tau are usually a prime example of an army that gets caught up in a lot of check list comp scoring because they have a few crappy troops, and they have a lot of elites and heavy support that get repeated like crisis suits and hammerheads. At the same time Space Marines and Orks can take a lot of good troops, and their armies do not have to depend on Elite or Heavy Support choices.

As far as check lists goes, I think the WPS had a comp system where they did it by each codex and restricted and penalized each army individually, and not as a blanket score, which to me seems like a better way to go, but rather labor intensive.


Having an “impartial” judge do the scoring, seems like it is better, but then you are open to the judges own prejudices. Hulksmash took this army to the Broadside Bash and got a bad score for it:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229531.page

When I first saw his list I did not think much of it. No genestealers, one dakkafex, etc. And then he took Warriors... Warriors! He ended up scoring poorly in comp. Why? The TOs were from San Diego and they hate Nids (especially Godzilla) down there. They have a good player who plays them any he rarely loses. Because of this they score Tyranids poorly in comp. I took my well painted nids down there one day and went 3-0 and lost to someone who when 2-1 because my comp scores where in the toilet.

So there is no good, easy or simple solution to balance out GWs crappy rule writing. Of course I think they do it on purpose to make some units better just to sell models because the bean counters tell them that they have to move the latest product, and they have no real interest in balancing the game.

Hulksmash wrote:Anyone remember 3rd Edition tournaments. Who remembers playing 5-6 games at a GT against SM's or CSM's? There was no variation back then because comp favored the marine lists more than anything. The lists were normally slightly different but the fact remains everyone was MEQ with few exceptions.

The fact remains that almost all comp is going to favor certain armies. IF you make a comp list that is meant to limit certain builds I see the return of 3rd edition tournements where there was only 1-2 codexs being used by 90% of the attendees.

Speaking as someone who played non-Marines in just every competitive event during 3E, the 3E metagame was pretty easy to counterprogram. I played anti-MEQ Biel-Tan Eldar and cleaned house big time. I got to be exceptionally good at beating Marines, to the point where seeing Marines across the board was pretty close to an auto-win for me. When you out-shoot shooty Marines with more AP guns, and out-fight fighty Marines with higher-quality HtH, it's not a hard game. Of course, my Comp was *terrible* by modern standards, but that wasn't the point.

Comp merely favors a *different* set of armies than "no comp". Nothing wrong with that.

Blackmoor wrote:As far as check lists goes, I think the WPS had a comp system where they did it by each codex and restricted and penalized each army individually, and not as a blanket score, which to me seems like a better way to go, but rather labor intensive.

I know WPS did this for WFB for a few years, and ultimately, they abandoned this process because it was a lot of work, and the balancing was a lot harder than it seemed, trying to find a "fair" set of rewards and penalties. It was very complex and the biggest problem was that the WPS then mandated a certain Comp floor for participation.

I'm against mandating a Comp requirement. If the army is legal, you should be able to play it. However, if it is badly-Comped, then it should have penalties that more-or-less take itself out of the running unless all other factors are exceptional. to compensate.

The Green Git wrote:in Golf they have handicaps. In drag racing you have dial ins and bracket racing. It's not unprecedented that competitors of differing skill levels or equipment capabilities compete in the same event with some sort of leveling mechanism.

QFT.

And that's really the crux of the matter:

What is a Tournament trying to reward?

- WAAC wants to reward pure win-loss record and victory margin based almost entirely on Battle
- Comp wants to reward the overall play experience that one brings to the event

These are two totally different, and largely incompatible objectives.

I do not understand the sheer vehemence by the WAAC crowd against Comp. Nobody is planning to take away your WAAC events, so why should you protest Comp?

It's not like there's only one form of golf scoring or drag racing, so why must WAAC be the only way?

But "Comp" can just as easily hurt none WAAC lists. That is what most people's problem with comp is in my opinion.

And as for the example of handicaps thats all well and good but those events are annouced or the system is set up that way to allow for the weaker competitors to have a shot.

If you don't announce, with the rules the comp will follow, before an event then you have no right to cry when someone brings a harder list. You didn't tell them there was a handicap so why should they have to accept it? And if you do announce it that way then expect people to game that comp system. It's still a WAAC list, just under a different one that works with the comp system. WAAC isn't the only way to play but you have to accept that people that *gasp* pay for the chance to compete are going to *gasp again* try to win.

Oh, and for years I was a comp/fluff nazi when it came to army building but it's just not the accepted style of play anymore in a tournement setting. I don't mind it, in fact it's actually a lot nicer not having to write up a story to explain why I like playing my army the way I do.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
What is a Tournament trying to reward?

- WAAC wants to reward pure win-loss record and victory margin based almost entirely on Battle
- Comp wants to reward the overall play experience that one brings to the event

These are two totally different, and largely incompatible objectives.

I do not understand the sheer vehemence by the WAAC crowd against Comp. Nobody is planning to take away your WAAC events, so why should you protest Comp?

It's not like there's only one form of golf scoring or drag racing, so why must WAAC be the only way?

I love how you phrase it as WAAC, so that you can make it sound like the people who are fielding stronger armies are somehow morally deficient.

Of course, you've never acknowledged the counter-argument, which people have made...that if winning isn't important, then why both putting a comp score together in the first place?

In my mind "WAAC" play is a whole lot more about how the player treats his opponent, and a lot less about lists. Everyone has access to the same models to purchase, and the same books to buy, so everyone pretty much starts on a level playing field. It's the players' choice whether or not to bring an army that is a "power build" or to bring something else (that IMO can be just as effective). So lists are not inherently "WAAC" because another player can bring another list just as hard as your own.

Players on the other hand, can definitely be playing in a manner that bends or breaks rules, not caring about whether or not they are cheating their opponents, and deliberately trying to create a non-level playing field. This is a WAAC attitude, and it's something that players have, not lists.

kadun wrote:

fatal_GRACE wrote:What it really comes down to, for me, is that the powerbuild lists really detract from the dynamic aspect of the game. If most ork players play nob bikers, and most chaos play dual lash armies, the game quickly grows static and repetitive. It really bothers me that if I play any list that can really be competitive in a tournament filled with identical power-builds, I would have to have something similar. After a very short amount of time, it would just be a circle-jerk, with everybody just trying to play the same list.

I can't imagine that the same dual lash army, for example, would be very fun to play anymore after playing it the same way over and over again, against the same army lists, over and over again.

Like I said before, it's not about the 'unfair' aspects of a hrd build vs a soft build, but about the lack of innovation present in its overuse.

The problem here is that as more people realize the value of these lists, everybody will utilize the same few cores. And then the game loses variation, and it's predictability is unsatisfying.

I like power builds. I like my opponent to play power builds. I like opening up a Codex and finding the hardest list that can be made out of it, for me thats part of the fun. I like my opponents to do the same.

I get variety by varying missions, points, terrain. The dice themselves ensure no two games are the same.

This is how I like to play, is it the wrong way to play?

Power builds would be OK if every codex contained several different varieties. As things stand, maybe three or four codexes contain one major power build each, and several codexes have nothing.

Perhaps it would be easier simply to ban Twin Lash, Twin Nob Bikers, Drop Pod Spam or whatever are the current major power lists.

*Lurk Mode - Off*

Centurian99 wrote:I love how you phrase it as WAAC, so that you can make it sound like the people who are fielding stronger armies are somehow morally deficient.

C'mon Cent. We've been over this. This is John's MO. He has to make the other side the 'bad guy' so that he can jump up on his Soapbox of Moral Self-Righteousness +1 and begin spouting his usual incoherent nonsense. The guy wouldn't know a well constructed and logical argument if it came up and bit him in the face.

That said, I look forward to watching another argument between you two, right up until the point where one of the Mods forgets that 'rebuttal/criticism' isn't the same as 'being impolite' and locks the thread.

That's all.

*Lurk Mode - On*

Mannahnin wrote:And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/113472.page

Its an interesting checklist to be sure and a lot better than most I have seen, if not all.

But I do have a question regarding clarification of #'s 7, 9 and 11 if you do not mind.

(Army list included as the attachment for comparative purposes of this checklist)

If I am not mistaken, my army would have 12 comp points going by the rubric you linked to.

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit? Check
2. Does the army have more than two Troops units? Check
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?
5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category? Check
6. Does the army have EITHER no Elite units or one Elite unit? Check
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?
8. Does the army have EITHER no Fast Attack units or one Fast Attack unit? Check
9. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same Fast Attack unit?
10. Does the army have EITHER no Heavy Support units or one Heavy Support unit? Check
11. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?
12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points? I would hope that I would receive at least two points here as it follows what GW dictates as their fluff for a deathwing/ravenwing styled list pretty closely. But of course, this being the subjective score I wouldn't count on it.

Correct me if I am mistaken, but it seems that by bringing one or none of Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy Support choices, that I would receive 2 bonus points in each of those categories and if I bring at least two Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy Support choices that are not identical, that I would receive 4 points for each pf those categories?

It seems odd to me that there is a greater reward for bringing two non identical choices than it is to bring one or none of those choices if it is indeed true that my reading comprehension has not failed me. Its almost as if points for 6, 8 and 10 are reversed for 7, 9 and 11. That's merely my opinion of course, but I am curious as to what situation incited that decision and why it was implemented that way.

If you thought that you had to change anything about this comp score sheet to integrate it into 5th edition, what would it be?

[edited to correct hasty syntax errors]

@KillKrazy

Actually I think every codex does have a power build and most have several varieties of power build. The only ones I can think of that are well and truly underpowered are DA (Questionable), DH (which have stood me in good stead so far since I restarted them just last month), and Necrons.

Even on Necrons i'm iffy since I don't play them enough to be comfortable stating they don't have a power build.

Chaos has several power lists, only one of which is twin lash. Orks have loota spam lists, heavy horde lists, battlewagon lists, and nob biker lists, or a combination of all of them. Drop Pod spam isn't a power list but Marines can build some nasty ones like 30 Fleeting TH/SS Termies or 30 Scoring Sternguard or even all bike armies. Guard have their list that I just think most people don't play right but they don't really count as in less than 2 months now they will be in a new edition. DE have the raider/ravager spam. Eldar have the biker seer council of doom among others. WH have Immolator/Sister Spam lists. Tyrannids have 'Nidzilla and it's million variants. Have I missed any armies?

All codexes have "power builds". But my personal opinion and observations show that it's the personalized lists built specially to meld with each other that actually do very well in tournements. They might start with a power template but very seldom do they field a pure "power build".

SmoovKriminal wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

Darth Fugly wrote:
Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

I can't agree with this at all.

Any monkey can look at a codex and see what the best combos/ powerlists are. Also with the internet, any monkey can find out what the powerlists are.

Yes, any monkey could, but tournaments are used to see who the better tactician/player is, not who is the best list builder. Surely a monkey with a power-build would lose to an intelligent player with the same power-build.

Yes, this is true. Are you then advocating a system where every single player turns up with a Dual Lash list (for example) and we'd really see who'd the better general? If they don't turn up to the tournament with a powerlist they deserve to lose? Well, that may be so, but the point of the comp score debate is to try and find a way of 'levelling' the playing field so that more armies become competitive. That way people you're not discriminating against players who can't afford to go and buy 20 biker nobs!!

SmoovKriminal wrote:

ArbitorIan wrote:Sort of. Writing a good, balanced list is part of being a good general. But writing most of the power builds around at the minute doesn't exactly take list-building genius. You can either look on the interweb, or just followed the age old formula of figuring out the most powerful unit and taking three of them!! I could never agree that someone fielding a dual-lash/oblit or nob biker army is some sort of list-building wizard, compared to, say, someone who fields a balanced and representative list which STILL manages to win loads of games...

Perhaps, but should people that take "effective" lists for winning be denied winning just because they made a powerful build? Perhaps composition scores should be reserved for composition based competitions, such as golden daemon or other painting/modeling tournaments. Sports teams don't get marked up or down in world tournaments for having a team representing the ethnic backgrounds of their nation/state or for having the the most colorful jerseys. Why should 40k tournaments attempting to determine the best tacticians be any different? Comp wouldn't even be necessary if GW made better codexes with options available for each force organization chart that were comparable in ability. Orks have biker nobs, while burna boys, tankbustas, mega armoed nobs and kommandos are comparably much crappier in competitive setting. Killpoints doesn't help either, as that even further push players to make armies that abuse powerful units that give away the same amount of KP or less than more basic, cheaper unit.

National sports teams DO get limited by their nationality. The England cricket team, for example, can only take players born in England, or of English parentage. But that's off topic.

What's more interesting is that, while league/local teams are not limited in such a way, you quickly see the effect of money. The richest teams buy the best players and win the most games (with exceptions, but i think that's a fair statement). We want to avoid this situation. We've also discussed that many many sports impose handicaps to compensate for 'equipment' difficulties. Why is this any different from giving a comp 'handicap' to armies that have more powerful equipment (power builds)?

It would be nice if the Codexes were better balanced. But firstly, thats a very difficult thing to achieve with a complex game and a ton of different codices. Secondly, they don't have to balance them for tournament play, as they repeatedly state that the game isn't intended for tournament play. And lastly, they only write the codices to sell models anyway, so they're never actually going to spend time balancing them properly. Oh well. No point returning to this.

If you want a 'fair' tournament, give everyone exactly the same army. If you still want to allow a large variety of lists AND keep the game 'fair' for all players (whatever army they own) you're going to have to introduce some sort of handicapping system...

skyth wrote:Another thing to consider is that there are different reasons for comp scoring...

Some people want variety

Some people want to balance things out

Some people want to hurt people who play differently than they do.

The last category is what gives comp scoring a bad name...In that case, it's just another form of bullying, along with name-calling, etc...

Nail. On. The. Head.

I personally view an attempt at additional balance as imprecise and essentially unachievable. Everyone will have an opinion on balance, meaning that some people will inevitably be unhappy. If you state from the outset that the goal of comp is to encourage variety then it’s pretty easy to achieve and any debate is easily brushed aside by the TO.

Modquisition on:
There have been several reports of this thread due to interpersonal attacks. Please remember you can argue the points without insulting the person. If these attacks continue disciplinary action will be taken.

Hulksmash wrote:@KillKrazy

Actually I think every codex does have a power build and most have several varieties of power build. The only ones I can think of that are well and truly underpowered are DA (Questionable), DH (which have stood me in good stead so far since I restarted them just last month), and Necrons.

Even on Necrons i'm iffy since I don't play them enough to be comfortable stating they don't have a power build.

Chaos has several power lists, only one of which is twin lash. Orks have loota spam lists, heavy horde lists, battlewagon lists, and nob biker lists, or a combination of all of them. Drop Pod spam isn't a power list but Marines can build some nasty ones like 30 Fleeting TH/SS Termies or 30 Scoring Sternguard or even all bike armies. Guard have their list that I just think most people don't play right but they don't really count as in less than 2 months now they will be in a new edition. DE have the raider/ravager spam. Eldar have the biker seer council of doom among others. WH have Immolator/Sister Spam lists. Tyrannids have 'Nidzilla and it's million variants. Have I missed any armies?

All codexes have "power builds". But my personal opinion and observations show that it's the personalized lists built specially to meld with each other that actually do very well in tournements. They might start with a power template but very seldom do they field a pure "power build".

I am assuming that by 'power build' you mean a best possible build out of the codex. My interpretation of 'power build' is a list which is much more powerful than its points value, thanks to some combination of rules and special abilities. The classic current examples being Twin Lash and Nob Bikers.

I would argue that the Tau codex has no power builds under the second definition, nor does the IG codex. These codexes haven't been updated to 5e, of course, but that is no reason for making them worse by a comp system which is supposed to suppress the Twin Lashes.

For example, systems being discussed here may penalise Tau for not having two choices in their elites slot, troops slot, or HQ slot. Tau only have two elites choices, two troops choices, and two HQ choices, in their codex.

Not getting into detail of an argument but it is obvious that Tau are more disadvantaged under these conditions than SM with their numerous HQ and Elites options.

I'm not arguing against balancing the tournament scene, I am pointing out that even a well-designed comp system may have pernicious side effects on weak armies while perhaps not suppressing the power builds that people are mostly against.

And I agree with you totally KillKrazy. Like I said a few pages back I believe that most comp systems actually wind up hurting non-marine (SM or CSM) armies more than anything simply because those armies, along with orks now, have so many options and such good troops that they can much more easily game a comp system.

Tau vehicles counting as obscured and skimmers now blocking LOS means you have a very good moving cover now that allows you to use the jump-shoot-jump still. Mechanized Tau is a very tough list if done correctly. Personal opinion but I've yet to run into a "power build" that really was OTT, in a tournament or pick-up game.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
- A fair tourney system wants to reward pure win-loss record and victory margin based almost entirely on Battle because if you are the best you have also brought a great list.
- Comp wants to reward the people who put no effort into trying to win other than showing up.

Fixed.

Comp is socialist welfare of wargaming. It rewards those that dont try, and hinders those that are the best. It allows people with no skill to walk in and have a shot at winning.

Also dont say WAAC. I feel you are just saying it to draw ire but if not, then you dont realize the negative picture it paints of tourney players.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Comp merely favors a *different* set of armies than "no comp". Nothing wrong with that.

Also, pretty much no point to that.

kadun wrote:

fatal_GRACE wrote:What it really comes down to, for me, is that the powerbuild lists really detract from the dynamic aspect of the game. If most ork players play nob bikers, and most chaos play dual lash armies, the game quickly grows static and repetitive. It really bothers me that if I play any list that can really be competitive in a tournament filled with identical power-builds, I would have to have something similar. After a very short amount of time, it would just be a circle-jerk, with everybody just trying to play the same list.

I can't imagine that the same dual lash army, for example, would be very fun to play anymore after playing it the same way over and over again, against the same army lists, over and over again.

Like I said before, it's not about the 'unfair' aspects of a hrd build vs a soft build, but about the lack of innovation present in its overuse.

The problem here is that as more people realize the value of these lists, everybody will utilize the same few cores. And then the game loses variation, and it's predictability is unsatisfying.

I like power builds. I like my opponent to play power builds. I like opening up a Codex and finding the hardest list that can be made out of it, for me thats part of the fun. I like my opponents to do the same.

I get variety by varying missions, points, terrain. The dice themselves ensure no two games are the same.

This is how I like to play, is it the wrong way to play?

While there is no problem with the fact that you might choose to play this way, that doesn't mean every player wants to see the same armies over and over again, regardless of other variations. Even if you are satisfied with the repetition of a few army lists, it isn't fair to expect every player to feel the same way.

Hulksmash wrote:Chaos has several power lists, only one of which is twin lash. Orks have loota spam lists, heavy horde lists, battlewagon lists, and nob biker lists, or a combination of all of them. Drop Pod spam isn't a power list but Marines can build some nasty ones like 30 Fleeting TH/SS Termies or 30 Scoring Sternguard or even all bike armies. Guard have their list that I just think most people don't play right but they don't really count as in less than 2 months now they will be in a new edition. DE have the raider/ravager spam. Eldar have the biker seer council of doom among others. WH have Immolator/Sister Spam lists. Tyrannids have 'Nidzilla and it's million variants. Have I missed any armies?

Just saying...

Everyone keeps saying that comp scoring prevents seeing the same army list over and over. Does that really happen? Do people go to tourneys and see 50% of them being double warboss, 20 nob biker armies? Granted, I don't play in as many (or as big) of events as others, but I don't see this happening.

Now, I'm not usually playing at the top tables of any big event (can usually get there in a local event). But, I'm not seeing it. And frankly, the top 10 tables at Adepticon are not representative of the other 90, let alone the rest of the hobby. They're not, and no one should think they are.

If people aren't all bringing 'the same' 'borken' list, then comp scoring doesn't accomplish the goal of 'encouraging diversity in armies' since there is not a homogenous pile of 1 or 2 army lists at every event.

Somewhere along the way, we're losing sight of why we're in this hobby, because we all enjoy it. If someone's only joy is in winning all their games, I feel sorry for them, because they're most likely going to be disappointed at the end of the event. OTOH, if you're playing an army and a list that you had fun assembling, painting, and playing against your buddies - you're not going to go home disappointed. At the end of the day, this is a hobby. It's fun to go to tournies and play different people and see cool armies, but it's still a hobby. If I lose all 4 games, I don't lose my job, have my wife leave me, or the kids hate me. It just doesn't matter.

And people forget how much match-ups matter in a tourney. Kevin Kirby even told me, about winning 2007 Ard Boyz, "hey, I was lucky, I didn't play any Mech Tau." There's always some rock-paper-scissors with armies, if you're list is the rock, and 90% of armies are the scissors, you're in trouble if you play the 1 paper army in the first round - but it can happen. And not even because someone took paper to beat rock, just because some kid likes paper best and got some lucky rolls.

People need to make a decision about a tourney. If all they want to do is win, they'll probably be disappointed. If they want to assemble and paint 24 bloodcrushers, that's their choice. I could do the same thing. I'd rather assemble and paint an army that I want to. And if I don't win Adepticon - well, even if I had a 24 crusher army, I probably wouldn't anyway - that's okay with me. I go home, and the kids hug me and tell me that they love me.

edit: One of the problems with playing a power build, is that people are going to metagame against it. Dual Lash? OK, everyone's in a vehicle. Nob bikers? OK, markerlights and railguns (or TH/SS termies, etc.).

Blackmoor wrote:So there is no good, easy or simple solution to balance out GWs crappy rule writing. Of course I think they do it on purpose to make some units better just to sell models because the bean counters tell them that they have to move the latest product, and they have no real interest in balancing the game.

That implies a level of intelligence on their part that I think evidence shows they clearly lack. There is also the issue (and you touched on it) that the San Diego crowd tends to play by their own rules, when it comes to scoring. There were similar oddities in the Fantasy side, both this year and last year, with their comp scoring (all Saurus army w no skink priests or slaan getting low comp, ect) which just serve as a outright case study in why comp does not work. Honestly, this is why I play CC Nidzilla now, because it is easier to simply crush face than it is to appease the fluff nazis and (with my army at least) the other guy gets to roll dice so I don't get docked as much as you might expect.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Comp merely favors a *different* set of armies than "no comp". Nothing wrong with that.

Also, pretty much no point to that.

As long as it's run along-side no comp tournaments in a season then there is. Variety is always fun, and in theory it takes netlisting out of the equation.

p.s. JonnyW changes his tack/opinion so often -otherwise known as contrdicting himself- that it was inevitable that I would eventually agree with something he's written.

SmoovKriminal wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

Darth Fugly wrote:
Comp shouldn't be used to discourage power builds, because at the end of the day writing a powerful list is part of being a skillful tabletop general.

I can't agree with this at all.

Any monkey can look at a codex and see what the best combos/ powerlists are. Also with the internet, any monkey can find out what the powerlists are.

GG

Yes, any monkey could, but tournaments are used to see who the better tactician/player is, not who is the best list builder. Surely a monkey with a power-build would lose to an intelligent player with the same power-build.

So when did you become Captain Obvious?

Serioiusly.... I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or trying to pick a fight.

GG

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Comp merely favors a *different* set of armies than "no comp". Nothing wrong with that.

Also, pretty much no point to that.

Variety is the point, as had been repeatedly stated. To increase the number of codices which can compete, and the variety of lists from them which are in contention to win. Increased variety in competing armies makes for a more interesting event for everyone, both from a play experience and a visual standpoint. Which, along with socializing, are the reasons we’re there in the first place.

OddJob wrote:I personally view an attempt at additional balance as imprecise and essentially unachievable. Everyone will have an opinion on balance, meaning that some people will inevitably be unhappy.

Additional balance is certainly achievable, though perfect balance is an impossible dream. An inability to achieve perfection will leave a few people unhappy, but most folks are a little more mature, I hope.

OddJob wrote:If you state from the outset that the goal of comp is to encourage variety then it’s pretty easy to achieve and any debate is easily brushed aside by the TO.

Agreed! I tried to clearly label explain that in my publically-posted tournament packets, when I ran a few.

Hellfury wrote:12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points? I would hope that I would receive at least two points here as it follows what GW dictates as their fluff for a deathwing/ravenwing styled list pretty closely. But of course, this being the subjective score I wouldn't count on it.

Yes, Raven/Deathwing would qualify for bonus points. Generally speaking, part of the purpose of that category is also to help armies from codices which have only one Troops option.

Hellfury wrote: Correct me if I am mistaken, but it seems that by bringing one or none of Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy Support choices, that I would receive 2 bonus points in each of those categories and if I bring at least two Elite, Fast Attack or Heavy Support choices that are not identical, that I would receive 4 points for each pf those categories?

It seems odd to me that there is a greater reward for bringing two non identical choices than it is to bring one or none of those choices if it is indeed true that my reading comprehension has not failed me. Its almost as if points for 6, 8 and 10 are reversed for 7, 9 and 11. That's merely my opinion of course, but I am curious as to what situation incited that decision and why it was implemented that way.

The idea was that an army having one or no units from a given category hasn’t loaded up on that category to the exclusion of others, which is something I was trying to avoid. The codices vary a lot, and if there are none in one category, the points will be spent somewhere. 7, 9 and 11 are to reward armies which invest in one of these categories (often armies with sub-par Troops) but don’t load up on three identical choices. Again, the focus of this checklist is primarily on variety.

Hellfury wrote:If you thought that you had to change anything about this comp score sheet to integrate it into 5th edition, what would it be?

Hrm. I haven’t given it any serious thought yet. And I’d want to give it serious thought before running another event using a checklist. I might want to award some small bonus to armies that include units from all three optional areas- FA, HS, and Elite choices. I might actually award bonus points to armies which have unusually low numbers of scoring units, or (more likely) unusually high numbers of kill points, since those armies are weaker in the usual mission structure.

SmoovKriminal wrote:Another thing people forget to realize is that if there is a small handful of common-power builds rotating in 40k tournaments, a smart player would make a list with that in mind and make counters for them. Most army lists have the ability to vary their equipment/selections just enough to make themselves effective vs. Nob Bikers or Lash. They aren't unstoppable, they just have a lot of "shock and awe" power against players bringing very balanced lists.

And this right here is how I got away with doing well with both Sisters and Eldar for a long time (back in mid 4th), because no one was playing them so no one metagamed against them. When 99% of the field is playing MEQ, you can get away with playing Wave Serpent/Star Cannon/Aspect lists and min/maxed faith point lists, because no one is running the tools to beat them. In fact, half the time, you get great comp scores doing it because no one has ever even seen a list like that. I managed to win LA Games day with Sisters (max battle and max comp) because no one had a clue how to deal with the army and it was tailored to face the exact power lists at the time, in fact. Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of army creativity these days. I, myself, used to run different lists to every event but now I maybe tweak one or two things and stick with the same crap. Part of that comes from bad codex design (there are really only two ways to play Eldar now and every slot has one best option) and the rest comes from having to be prepared for the same powerbuilds.

There is still variety out there, though. Hulksmash (I think he is Brad, who I played last weekend) SHOULD have beaten me with his GKs, which are a bad matchup for my flavor of Nidzilla. His list matched up very well against Orks and Dual Lash, as well. I have also seen some really interesting Mech Sisters lists pop up the last year too.

Wouldn't the real solution to this problem be to just ban the "broken" lists?

I know that some of you are going to say, "Well you ban the "Broken" lists then you have an all new set of "Broken" lists that take their place. I think that is true to some extent, but if you can eliminate extremes than you have made progress, no?

I'm talking about the seriously hated lists that most people agree are "Broken".

Like Dual Warboss&Nob Biker, NidZilla (Although, this may not be true anymore in 5th), Dual Lash-Oblit Spam, etc.etc.

Comp doesn't work , but you can mitigate problems by just not allowing certain "power gaming" lists.

I know... I know you still going to have a lower tiered level of "power gameyness" but still, you got to start somewhere.

GG

You'd then have to constitute what level those armies become broken at. Biker Nobz for instance. Do you just say you can't take 2 units. Do you say that you can take 2 units but only if half of them are equipped identically? and as for Lash/Oblit spam how many is to many? is one lash ok? or 4 obliterators? To be honest most people I've run into don't run the 2 lash 9 oblit lists. They run a variant. Gonna outlaw all the variants?

Oh, and i'm not gonna touch Nidzilla since it's not even close to a power build anymore (though you acknowledge that in your statement ).

This isn't an attack on you generalgrog. I just don't like being told I can't play a list (note I have a cross between Nidzilla/Horde Nids, don't play the others). And it's also a where does it stop. Internet hype could make any army sound dreadfully broken so what evidence would most people use to decide a list is broken? Public opinion? Just doesn't work for me

Hulky I hear ya.

And I didn't say that it would be easy to do. But in the end, it could very well come down to exactly what you described.

I.E. No Nob Biker lists with two warbosses and two biker units equipped diferently to take advantage of the wounding loophole.

I am more talking about specific tournamnet organizers discretionary decisions regarding what is allowed at their tourney. Not talking about an across the board ultimatum.

And I agree with your point about, wheather or not the list is "truly" broken, and agian that would come down to the individual tourney organizer. But I feel that NidZilla in 4th edition was definately broken. Or what about the iron warrior shooty broken lists from 3rd edition.

GG

I'll agree to the Iron Warriors, I played them for over a year straight (a record for me ) and I toned mine way down to not get smacked hard on comp and sportsmanship. I disagree with Nidzilla but then again I played orks mainly thru 4th and didn't have the same problem with them that most people seem to have had.

And it totally is up to the organizer. The main thing is to make sure that if you advertising it your letting people know. Nothing worse than driving for an hour to a tournement to find out your list isn't allowed

generalgrog wrote:Wouldn't the real solution to this problem be to just ban the "borken" lists?

I know that some of you are going to say, "Well you ban the "Borken" lists then you have an all new set of "Borken" lists that take their place. I think that is true to some extent, but if you can eliminate extremes than you have made progress, no?

I'm talking about the seriously hated lists that most people agree are "Borken".

Like Dual Warboss&Nob Biker, NidZilla (Although, this may not be true anymore in 5th), Dual Lash-Oblit Spam, etc.etc.

Comp doesn't work , but you can mitigate problems by just not allowing certain "power gaming" lists.

I know... I know you still going to have a lower tiered level of "power gameyness" but still, you got to start somewhere.

GG

Fixed it for you.

Also, I agree. People seem to want comp to curb these high-end power lists, so why pussyfoot around with it?

Either ban outright or materially limit in some way (decreased battle points, increased point costs) the extremely powerful lists and chances are you'll do nothing at all to people who aren't specifically looking to make an extreme list.

Now you have more variety without stepping on too many toes or opening the tournament up for chipmunking.

I have mixed opinions about whether comp is really needed, but if I were to implement it, this is how I would go about it.

Some of the European countries make hard & fast restrictions like this. The European Warhammer championships have a fairly extensive list:

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=51141

They've actually gone substantially farther. I know some tournaments in Europe have simpler lists- stuff like, "No duplicate Rare Choices, max of 2 duplicate Special".

I do agree that just banning certain “power” combos would be a relatively simple approach, and would avoid the chance of certain corner case armies running afoul of general Comp scoring. Simply saying something like- Lash is 0-1, 0-1 unit of Nobs may be mounted on bikes, Bloodcrushers are capped at 8 in a list, and Snikrot & Eldrad are banned, would probably put us in a bit of a friendlier place.

This would be more like the Magic: The Gathering approach.

I just tend to prefer a system which lets people play whatever list they want, while handicapping some of them on points, rather than a ban.

Hrm. That’s another thought- maybe replace the ban with a points handicap for taking those items. Maybe something like 10% of the maximum points available for the event.

Eldrad is good but not game breaking. Snikrot is the same thing. As for the other parts I could see creating a 0-1 but where does it end? Are you gonna 0-1 LR's? What about 0-1'ing certain Carnifex or Tyrant builds? Who decides what is broken?

Like I said earlier at the tournement I was at this last weekend a bog standard marine list owned a 24 Bloodcrusher demon army. So should we start 0-1'ing marines since they are obviously to good if they can take out such a large number of broken units?

It's more of a where does it end and in my opinion leads to more similar looking lists than we currently have.

That list of restrictions actually made me angry, which surprised me. I guess I don't like being told how to play especially when the restrictions are totally arbitrary like that.

Maybe GW should put out a balanced set of rules. I think the whole arguing over this topic is pointless, when in all truthfullness, it should be flaming GW for putting out trash rules.

Techboss wrote:Maybe GW should put out a balanced set of rules. I think the whole arguing over this topic is pointless, when in all truthfullness, it should be flaming GW for putting out trash rules.

Yeah, no one on dakka dakka ever has a bad word to say about GW and the rules thereof

That's what every other thread is for.

As a band-aid to the problem I think all you have to do is ban Nob bikers and Lash and that will help a lot. These 2 armies are such outriders of power that stopping them will make the other armies more competitive.

You can still make viable Ork and Chaos armies without these units, and make it a much more even playing field.

There will still be discrepancies of power between the codexes, but you don’t have a couple of power build dominating.

Hulksmash wrote:Eldrad is good but not game breaking. Snikrot is the same thing. As for the other parts I could see creating a 0-1 but where does it end? Are you gonna 0-1 LR's? What about 0-1'ing certain Carnifex or Tyrant builds? Who decides what is broken?

The tournament organizers decide. As with every other tournament out there. The organizers make the rules, and players vote with their feet. If they like the event, they attend. If they don’t, they don’t.

Hulksmash wrote:Like I said earlier at the tournement I was at this last weekend a bog standard marine list owned a 24 Bloodcrusher demon army. So should we start 0-1'ing marines since they are obviously to good if they can take out such a large number of broken units?

Come on, man. You’re smarter than this. I may have had a single Guardian Defender kill 30 spinegaunts one time. That doesn’t mean squat in terms of the big picture. Just because the SM player at your tournament was a great player, and/or had super-hot dice, or because the Daemons player was an idiot, and/or had terrible scatters, doesn’t mean all SM suddenly own all 24 Bloodcrusher armies.

Hulksmash wrote:It's more of a where does it end

It ends wherever people want it to. The tournament scene is constantly evolving. That’s part of what keeps it interesting. Scoring systems, missions, the exact weighting of painting/sports/comp/battle, the number of games played, etc. etc. If the events are fun, people keep attending them. If they’re not fun, they give that feedback to the organizers and the events change.

Hulksmash wrote:and in my opinion leads to more similar looking lists than we currently have.

I don’t think there’s any good reason to think that.

Blackmoor wrote:As a band-aid to the problem I think all you have to do is ban Nob bikers and Lash and that will help a lot. These 2 armies are such outriders of power that stopping them will make the other armies more competitive.

You can still make viable Ork and Chaos armies without these units, and make it a much more even playing field.

There will still be discrepancies of power between the codexes, but you don’t have a couple of power build dominating.

In the entire time of 40k that I have played, there has only ever been one thing I ever truely felt needed to be banned and that was the Siren Prince. Double Lash is nasty, but it is beatable. Nob Bikers, I am not so sure, because the armies I use have no problems tackling them but I never play Marine lists, so I have no basis of comparisson. The problem with the Ban Hammer is that it starts a never ending sequence of the mouth breathing masses whining about things they cannot (or will not adapt against to) defeat and before you know it we are all back to 99% vanilla marines, like it was in 3rd edition.

Nob Bikers are the direct fault of the wound allocation system, which should have remained as it was in 4th. Dual Lash is a result of really dumb playtesting backed up by really dumb FAQs. If the chaos book still had the legion system (ie no Plague Marines in your Slaanesh led list) in place, then it would be far less of an issue. If Lash worked more like the old "Titilating Delusions" spell from fantasy, and let the owning player move their troops to a spot selected by the chaos player, it would be just fine and still rather powerful. Take the rules manipulation aspects out of both units and they cease to be the source of butthurt they currently are.

And, honestly, I really think a lot of it is still metagame changes that most people have not adjusted to. People are not mechanizing enough, including hoods, and/or adapting their list to counter horde. Its like the bulk of the 40k players think you can just swap out all their plasmaguns for flamers and they are ready for 5th edition, which is just not the case. People who are resistant to changes in the metagame often are unable (or unwilling) to adapt, so their natural reaction is to go comp nazi. I know this because the same thing is happening in Fantasy right now, as well. In a year or two, with a couple more army books out the door, people will forget all about bitching about Orks and Lash lists and the butthurt of the month will be Guard and Crons, because that is how these things work.

Phazael wrote:And, honestly, I really think a lot of it is still metagame changes that most people have not adjusted to. People are not mechanizing enough, including hoods, and/or adapting their list to counter horde. Its like the bulk of the 40k players think you can just swap out all their plasmaguns for flamers and they are ready for 5th edition, which is just not the case. People who are resistant to changes in the metagame often are unable (or unwilling) to adapt, so their natural reaction is to go comp nazi. I know this because the same thing is happening in Fantasy right now, as well. In a year or two, with a couple more army books out the door, people will forget all about bitching about Orks and Lash lists and the butthurt of the month will be Guard and Crons, because that is how these things work.

This right here gets a big damn QFT. Lash, Crusher spam, and dual Nob Bikes are hard to beat if you don't prepare for them during your list building. The majority of people I see still play either 4th ed with flamers or battlebox lists and are amazed that they don't pwn. If you "know" you're going to be fighting this stuff, why aren't your troops in transports and why aren't you bulking up on the obvious counters? If you're a competitive player and still somehow losing to Nob Bikers, that's your fault entirely.

I think your prediction about the Guard codex especially should be absolutely true; when you're lashing+Oblitting 10 guys worth a collective 40 points dead, and then the other 290 men or 12 tanks or whatever erase your troops from the table in one shooting turn, the metagame will be forced to adapt.

Not mention that with the number of S8+ large blasts that Guard may be able to take, Nob bikers are going to have a hard time of it. I don't care if you turbo-boost, dropping 6+ S8 blasts on a bike squad will put the hurt on it big time.

Phazael wrote:Nob Bikers are the direct fault of the wound allocation system, which should have remained as it was in 4th. Dual Lash is a result of really dumb playtesting backed up by really dumb FAQs. If the chaos book still had the legion system (ie no Plague Marines in your Slaanesh led list) in place, then it would be far less of an issue. If Lash worked more like the old "Titilating Delusions" spell from fantasy, and let the owning player move their troops to a spot selected by the chaos player, it would be just fine and still rather powerful. Take the rules manipulation aspects out of both units and they cease to be the source of butthurt they currently are.

QFT.

I think the frustrating part with GW is that it's actually the small mistakes they make that mushroom and do all the damage.

Look at Tyranids. I think Phil Kelly's the best designer they have, but he made two mistakes in the Tyranid codex which synergized to create Nidzilla. First, he tried to put the emphasis back on synapse, but didn't boost Warriors enough to make them the defacto synapse unit that was now required. That quickly had players looking for a synapse workaround. And they found it with the Shock Troops rule, Elite Dakkafex and Nidzilla build, which not only avoided the need for Warriors or synapse but ended up being extremely strong. Two seemingly unrelated missteps ended up undoing everything he tried to do.

It's kind of amazing to consider that Nob bikers are winning GTs mostly because of a poorly-considered rule regarding wound allocation. Wound allocation!

And, honestly, I really think a lot of it is still metagame changes that most people have not adjusted to. People are not mechanizing enough, including hoods, and/or adapting their list to counter horde. Its like the bulk of the 40k players think you can just swap out all their plasmaguns for flamers and they are ready for 5th edition, which is just not the case.

I think there's some truth here too. Mannahnin owned my (non-optimized) Orks at Baltimore with double lash. The way my army was composed, it was pretty much a sitting duck for him, and it got ugly. But I've rejiggered the army to include some mounted stuff he can't move, along with more ranged firepower to throw at the lashers and oblits when they peek out to lash or shoot. I can't guarantee it'd make a difference, but I feel like I have a lot more in my toolbox now to deal with not only double lash but other things too.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
What is a Tournament trying to reward?
- WAAC wants to reward pure win-loss record and victory margin based almost entirely on Battle
- Comp wants to reward the overall play experience that one brings to the event
These are two totally different, and largely incompatible objectives.

I do not understand the sheer vehemence by the WAAC crowd against Comp. Nobody is planning to take away your WAAC events, so why should you protest Comp?

It's not like there's only one form of golf scoring or drag racing, so why must WAAC be the only way?

I love how you phrase it as WAAC, so that you can make it sound like the people who are fielding stronger armies are somehow morally deficient.

if winning isn't important, then why both putting a comp score together in the first place?

Excuse me, but where did I say that WAAC was "somehow morally deficient"?

I acknowledge that WAAC is a valid way to play. I *tolerate* it. I don't accept it as desirable for standard play, but that's very different from saying it's "bad". Perhaps you need to read with a bit more understanding for nuance. Because I have *never* argued anything as simplistic as "Comp == GOOD / WAAC == double-plus ungood". I have repeatedly argued that there should be Comp tournaments in addition to non-Comp tournaments, for variety's sake. So why you so dead set against variety?

First, that isn't an argument, so there isn't anything to acknowledge. Second, I (and others) have clearly stated that the reason for having Comp is to allow for a *different* set of winners playing a different sort of game.

Or, put another way, you're so huge on varied missions, with only one set of comp rules (none) - so why can't one have varied comp rules as another way to add variety?
____

Mannahnin wrote:And you can do a pretty good job with it if you work hard enough:

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit?

So no duplicate?

2. Does the army have more than two Troops units?
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?

OK, good to limit Troops spam.
I'm assuming Las/Plas, Las/Plas, ML/Plas Tacs with 3 Razors would score full points here.

5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category?

OK, so I can double up as much as I like, but not triple (max)? OK...


Now, this next section is where I think things go a little bit wrong. You give +2 for 0-1 Elite/Fast/Heavy, but +4 for 2-3 non-triple Elite/Fast/Heavy, then +0 for max same. If keeping the same definitions, the scores should be reversed at +4 for 0-1 Special and +2 for 2-3 Specials and +0 for max same. Otherwise, you simply encourage full points for taking max good stuff with one sub-optimal pick (e.g. 2x 3 Oblits + 5 Havocs or 2 Demolishers + 1 Russ)

6. Does the army have EITHER no Elite units or one Elite unit?
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?

8. Does the army have EITHER no Fast Attack units or one Fast Attack unit?
9. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same Fast Attack unit?

10. Does the army have EITHER no Heavy Support units or one Heavy Support unit?
11. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?

So theoretically, you score max points for something that looks like this:
1(+1) HQ
2(+1) Elite
2(+1) Troops
2(+1) Fast
2(+1) Heavy
I don't really see how it penalizes any power build significantly... Maybe that was the intent?

[i]12. Judge’s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn’t already earn it the maximum 22 points? +4 points is a big chunk, but meh.

____

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Comp merely favors a *different* set of armies than "no comp". Nothing wrong with that.

Also, pretty much no point to that.

Aside from variety, which *is* the point.
____

OddJob. wrote:p.s. JonnyW changes his tack/opinion so often -otherwise known as contrdicting himself- that it was inevitable that I would eventually agree with something he's written.

How about you leave the attacks out, and refer to me properly?

"JohnH" or "JHDD" or "JohnHwangDD" would all be acceptable. "JonnyW" is NOT acceptable. It is insulting and impolite. Stop it.