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Timmah wrote:Pst, GBF, I know I said this in an earlier post. But some people can't go to all these tournaments located all over the country.

You know, some of us would have to drive 8+ hrs to the closest one.


I know you think peoples opinions only matter dependent on there geographic location and how easily they can attend "major" events.


/waits for post saying this thread isn't worth your time...

Personally, I think he has a point. If you were not there, simply stating "Those armies sucked!" is basically akin to taking a big dump on that event's (and the person that worked hard to win it) parade. You might have a point that the armies weren't the most competitive in a non-comp environment, but the event in question WAS comped, and the armies were designed with that constraint in mind. The fact that they looked "different" than what you would see in a non-comped event doesn't mean that the designers weren't very methodical and intentional in their choices. It's about context. In any case, a little tact goes a long way.

I understand that not everyone (including me) can't travel to GTs for whatever reason. But unless you did in fact go to it, trashing the competitivenes of the event seems pretty rude to me. Yeah, you can talk about how maybe you disagree with comp or having painting scores in best overall or other things, but to say or imply that "they're doing it wrong" or "I would thrash them" is out of line IMO.

EDIT: Look at how Dash has changed his tune over the past few weeks as he's been exposed to a wider world of GTs/Vassal with other players. It's one thing to harp on stuff from the sidelines... it's another thing entirely to go out and experience it for yourself.

And I want to add for Mikahala (sorry about spelling) that I think very few people would imply that locals receive better comp scores intentionally. It's more about knowing "how it's done here." Personally, I know how rules issues get ruled at the different FLGS in my area, or which stores use LOTS of terrain on their tables, so I can plan accordingly. For example, one store allows PotMS with smoke, but another does not. Another store uses 50%+ terrain on tables, and by knowing that, I can design my list to use that to my advantage. It's the same thing with comp. The locals probably have a better idea of what's kosher and can design their list with a little better knowledge of how not to get dinged.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I was whining about IG whining about KPs. Not the same thing you tried to allude to and gloss over. Not by any means Danny. Go back, read what I said, be honest with yourself about it. You'll be a better person if you can learn to honestly accept criticism... Glossy Boy

G

Ah, so it was the latter then.

imweasel wrote:

mikhaila wrote:And I think you miss the point. Blame a TO if you like, it is their system. (Or might be the system used by a large group of people putting on the event, but sure, he's in charge.) But really, do we need to keep inplying that TO's are adding a composition score to a tournament just so they can cheat and favor their friends? Really?! CT Gamer is the second person I've had say that. Possibly he read the earlier post and decided to throw it out because I mentioned it. You don't think that's going to make someone angry a bit, to be accused of blatantly cheating a tournament full of people so you can give prizes to friends? There are a lot of easier ways to give stuff to your friends, than putting in a huge amount of work, and cheating people, and then taking well deserved crap about it forever.

I don't like my friends that much. Not worth going through it. Rather just had them boxes off the wall.

Please tell me why else would someone put in an arbitrary, subjective system in place?

To be fair?

No need to read seven pages of this thread; imweasel just vivisected the argument.

On a side note, the history of comp. scoring is interesting. Seemingly it arose so that young gamers who live at home and don't have much money to spend on their armies would have a chance at winning. A two-tiered system would be preferable. An 'open' non-comp category, and a 'sesame street' category for comp. The latter would not have a winner; instead everyone would receive a prize and a few stickers.

At Timmah & Danny

Maybe if you nicely ask your parents they will spring the dough so ya can play in a big GT. yermom is also a teenager and it is working out for him.

: )

G

Obviously because if your not a teenager (I assure you I am not) and you have a job, you get to do whatever you want...

Nice with the personal attacks though.
Can you really not have a discussion without getting all upset?

Green Blow Fly wrote:At Timmah & Danny

Maybe if you nicely ask your parents they will spring the dough so ya can play in a big GT. yermom is also a teenager and it is working out for him.

: )

G

I began playing 40k about 2.5 years ago. I've finished first place in 1st round 'Ard Boyz locally for the past 2 years running. Last year I decided to "up my game" and carpooled with 4 other guys from the area to the semifinals, which was an 8 hour drive from Kansas to mid-Texas, both ways.

In the semifinals I massacred my first game, massacred my second game as well, and was well on my way to massacre the third game on Table 1 when the TO announced that the game was going to end prematurely 1.5 hours into the round and this had to be our last turn. I had just finished my movement phase.

So I'm forced to Run the majority of my army to try to claim center objective, my opponent is able to take his full turn and contest everything / claim a Minor win due to table quarters, and I drop from 1st with max points to 4th overall.

It was a long 8 hour drive back, and $150 in gas, meals, and hotel poorly spent.

In my experience, there's a lot of viable reasons why people don't go to GW tournaments. First is time commitment, second is cost, and third is they appear to be run on an amateurish level.

I'm a young, modestly successful Risk Analyst with disposable income and a Frequent Flyer club membership. I choose not to travel to GW tournaments for a number of valid reasons, reasons which your assinine comments do nothing to address or counter. That fluff Pedro list did fight against poorly built lists and, if indicative of the overall scene, that was not a very competitively-focused event. This doesn't mean it was a bad event or a non-fun event, but effectiveness of a list/option is lagely quantifiable in 40k and those lists posted were lacking.

sourclams wrote:
I began playing 40k about 2.5 years ago. I've finished first place in 1st round 'Ard Boyz locally for the past 2 years running. Last year I decided to "up my game" and carpooled with 4 other guys from the area to the semifinals, which was an 8 hour drive from Kansas to mid-Texas, both ways.

In the semifinals I massacred my first game, massacred my second game as well, and was well on my way to massacre the third game on Table 1 when the TO announced that the game was going to end prematurely 1.5 hours into the round and this had to be our last turn. I had just finished my movement phase.

So I'm forced to Run the majority of my army to try to claim center objective, my opponent is able to take his full turn and contest everything / claim a Minor win due to table quarters, and I drop from 1st with max points to 4th overall.

It was a long 8 hour drive back, and $150 in gas, meals, and hotel poorly spent.

In my experience, there's a lot of viable reasons why people don't go to GW tournaments. First is time commitment, second is cost, and third is they appear to be run on an amateurish level.

I'm a young, modestly successful Risk Analyst with disposable income and a Frequent Flyer club membership. I choose not to travel to GW tournaments for a number of valid reasons, reasons which your assinine comments do nothing to address or counter. That fluff Pedro list did fight against poorly built lists and, if indicative of the overall scene, that was not a very competitively-focused event. This doesn't mean it was a bad event or a non-fun event, but effectiveness of a list/option is lagely quantifiable in 40k and those lists posted were lacking.

Are you sure your not 12 and that's the reason you don't attend?

Damn, you refuted my entire anecdote!

@ sourclams

I thought you hung out in meat lockers (aka butcher)... well at least taht is what you said on the phone when I was talking to ya. Dead meat is popular in the midwest apparently. Also the area where your Ard Boyz were held are widely considered easy pickings. I'm not flaming you... just telling it like it is. : )

You dont seem like the yuppie type and I mean that as a compliment to you. Everyone says how much they like your avatar too.

G

I was never a butcher, although I did manage the supply chain for a mid-sized abattoir in Iowa. Merit-based promotions later, I became a risk analyst for a privately-owned agricultural supergiant's meat platform.

Unrelated rambling aside, central Texas is considered "easy pickings" for 'ard boyz pairings? Because I massacred my way through round 1 and 2 and I can say that most of the lists there were indeed bad lists, even in the 'most competitive' 40k event nationally.

Lists aside, how did you find the players? It's interesting reading the St. Valentine's Day Massacre battle reports to see the mistakes people make, the sort of mistakes that if raised in the Tactics forums earn the reproach "Oh, well, a smart player wouldn't do that..."

Maybe's it's just a matter of self-reporting. Maybe it's the bottle of rum DashofPepper apparently drank during the first three rounds, but DevianID certainly seemed to have a much better grasp of the game rules and nuances of play than DashofPepper did and I believe that skill is what wins the game rather than lists.

After all, if everyone at that tournament was playing bad lists, as sourclams and others assure us, then clearly it wasn't playing bad lists with good that gave DevianID the win, but being a better player.

That's one reason why I think that buying into pre-designed lists (i.e.: if you play Space Marines, you'll need to bring this particular list to the tournament to compete) is a better idea than simply abandoning the notion of composition altogether, because there's still people out there that put the list before the player.

Back when I started playing 40k in 3rd edition (Dark Eldar) I played a lot with my brother who went on to be a Canadian Grand Tournament winner with his Eldar, and I almost always lost. Around the beginning of 4th edition, before I got it into my head that I could design a better Warhammer, I was winning maybe a quarter of the games we would play and it was because I had developed the skills to know exactly how far I should move, and in which order to begin shooting.

Once my project to design a better Warhammer failed (or succeeded, depending on how you look at it), I came back to 40k after falling in love with the latest Chaos Space Marine Codex. This time I took it more serious and made sure that I learned the rules (it turned out they weren't as bad as everyone, including myself, had proclaimed), and that I practiced moving and measuring to take advantage of the target clipping tactics available in that era.

But not everyone has my experience of reverse-engineering Warhammer 40k to see how it works, or my experience of playing back-to-basics games, and they're still hung up on the "Build a super-army and demolish everyone" mentality that I used to have back when I started in 3rd edition, where I spent all my time building lists rather than, say, familiarizing myself with the game rules, or learning how to translate the ideas I had about lists into actual game play, and so on.

If you want to judge someone's skill, you start with the basics and you start with a common metric, and then see what happens when the chips are down - skill means you have the basics down pat even when conditions aren't optimal (or even satisfactory). Fancy freestyle tournaments with non-standard scenarios, armies, or terrain won't give you an accurate reading of who the best player actually is, although I think the partial-composition at the SVDM and other tournaments goes some distance towards a common metric. The spirit is there if the execution isn't.

If it went all the way, then we could start competitive gaming.

We can be very creative about our job titles and Im cool with that!

G

I will freely admit that my stance on composition scores is purely based on WHFB - a game which others have already admitted is currently broken.

That being said, my experiences in 40k are largely based in 3rd edition, during the Eye of Terror Campaign. I played extensively in that campaign, and played a total of 60 games - 54 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses. I played an Iron Warriors themed army (re: paint scheme, playstyle) but did not utilize the Iron Warriors special rules.

I did not think that my list was all that OP - Winged Demon Prince, 1 unit of Obliterators, two units of CSM, two Predator tanks - and I posted a fantastic record, never losing to the same player twice. By the time the EOT campaign started, I had played 40k, Fantasy, and Space Marine since 1989, so I had considerable experience at executing the types of strategies I needed to be successful.

Most of my opponents lost either because they brought armies that were poorly built (no synergy), they did not understand what they needed to do to be successful, or they mentally surrendered before the game was even played. I won, not because I was an amazing general or the vanilla CSM list was O/P, but rather because they failed to understand key aspects of the game.

I can say without a doubt that the current 40k system is better balanced than WHFB. While I wouldn't consider attending a WHFB tournament without Composition, I WOULD consider a 40k tournament without Comp scores. I recently picked up 'Nids and Tau, and although I haven't fielded my Tau, I have been having fun with my 'Nids. I have to say that I vastly prefer 5th ed over 3rd, and unlike Fantasy, I feel that regardless of what army list I bring, I can bring a competitive game to the table.

To bring this post back on-topic, objective composition scoring can help make an unbalanced game system more balanced, and it is why it exists. Should it be used in a system like WHFB? I would say definately - otherwise, you would only see 5 or 6 races at tournaments - and even then you would only likely see DoC at the top the majority of the time. Is it needed in WH40K? No, I don't believe that it is.

As has been previously mentioned, Games Workshop established that their GTs were 'hobby' tournaments and as such painting, sportsmanship and composition contributed towards determining the overall victor at the tournament. For the people who are complaining about how composition is ruining their experiences, composition list design is merely another facet of the game. I agree, without a doubt, that subjectively based composition scoring should be tossed out - I've lost a tournament because one opponent tanked my composition scores (I came second as a result) - but published composition criteria, judged impartially - can still have a place in the hobby.

To Timmah, you complain that you do not have a choice as to where to play - instead due to a lack of tournaments in your area you are forced to attend a comp tournament or not at all. Previously you asked about what o/p lists exist - and later you acknowledged that some armies are virtually unplayable (admittedly 2). GW does not have a good record of producing balanced, well thought out codices - and the next one that emerges could be an absolute disaster for the relatively balanced meta-game right now. If the BA emerge as being a horribly broken list (please see DoC in WHFB), would you be happy to play whatever it is you play against them, when in the hands of a competent general you would have a horribly uphill battle to win? Would you then turn around and play BA yourself, to gain competitive advantage? You say that you want to be able to play with whatever you own - to be able to bring whatever units you want. I suspect the Necron players are thinking the same thing. I hope that non-comp scored tournaments show up in your area, because I would like to see you have the option to attend the type of tournament you wish to attend. But turning around and saying that anyone who disagrees is wrong for prefering comp-scored tournaments is equally wrong.

Anyways, apologies for the wall of text. Sorry for singling you out Timmah - this commentary is not directed just at you, but at anyone who generalises that composition has no place in competitive war gaming. I'll be the first to say that subjective scoring of your opponent should be eliminated and replaced with an objective, published scoring system so that everyone has an equal chance of participating. Perhaps the relative value of Comp should be decreased as well - that way a player who brings a 'good' list has an equal shot at winning the whole thing, same as the person who brings a list gamed for composition scores.

My two cents:

I do have a problem with the whole "comp score figuring into your overrall tournament score", where as I like tournaments where they screen lists beforehand and kick ones back that are WOTT for changes. Some of the ones I've seen have you fill in your opponent's comp score AFTER you play them - you end up steamrolling them or have some lucky rolls, then they mark you down on comp. I forget which tournament it was (think Bayou Battle last year), but one guy had something like 98 or 99 out of 100 for battlepoints, had his army decently painted, and didn't win 1st overrall because several players (whom he massacred) marked him bad games for comp. Sportsmanship - he wasn't annoying or obnoxious or anything, but it came down to people thinking his army was WOTT because it beat them badly.

With the meta-gaming combinations in some of the newer codexes, I don't think your going to get away with open list tournaments that much anymore. If tournaments have a set guideline, such as no more than 9 power dice in your army, or no duplicate rare choices - so be it - thats their tournament rules. But submit them beforehand and let the tournament organizers sort out whats broken and whats a soft list. Use the swiss system and match up hard lists with hard lists - that way the people who play "soft" lists can still enjoy themselves against like people. Tournaments should be really be about battle points, painting and (maybe) sportsmanship, although I still think sportsmanship should be simply negative modifiers to your overrall score if your opponent's all say your a douche.

As well, painting and sportsmanship should be weighted accordingly in tournaments compared to battlepoints. I've seen some where BPs are 100, Sportsmanship and Painting are both 75, while comp is 25. Sure your army may be horrible on the competitive side, but boy if it's painted well and your a nice guy, you've got a chance at winning overrall. Doesn't seem right in my book.

Nurglitch wrote:
After all, if everyone at that tournament was playing bad lists, as sourclams and others assure us, then clearly it wasn't playing bad lists with good that gave DevianID the win, but being a better player.

Quite possible that he is a better player, and also quite possible that many people intentionally handicapped 'good' lists in order to score at a comp event. Certainly a good player with a bad list is going to beat not-as-good players who also have bad lists. And equally certain that a good player with a good list beats good players with bad lists -- this is exactly what you see in WHFB tournaments all the time.

I'm quite sure that DevianID could have built a more competitive list; he practically says as much himself. It's the idea of handicapping people in their competitive abilities and then holding a "competition" that competitive players, including myself, rail against.

That's one reason why I think that buying into pre-designed lists (i.e.: if you play Space Marines, you'll need to bring this particular list to the tournament to compete) is a better idea than simply abandoning the notion of composition altogether, because there's still people out there that put the list before the player.

Nobody has been able to show how composition actually does this. At their best, comp systems "penalize" more diverse codices (IG, Marines, Wolves) less than more homogenous ones (Necrons, Grey Knights, Tau). At their wosrt, comp systems reward ultracompetitive players willing to find a competitive list that also fits the comp restrictions while penalizing the non-ultracompetitive players who are simply bringing what they have, in which case comp fails as both a balancing factor and a handicap.

To take it a step further, and give players mirror-match type lists, which heuristics would say should be the "purest" form of competition since it takes all intercodex balance issues and list building out of the equation, simply weights the dice results more. If Player A rolls a 1 and Player B rolls a 6, Player B should have a distinct advantage even if Player A is 10% better. The sample size is simply too small to properly measure competitiveness between very closely-ranked players. Whomever the dice skew towards will have a greater advantage than "skill" would offset for.

It's the idea of handicapping people in their competitive abilities and then holding a "competition" that competitive players, including myself, rail against.

This happens all the time in real life. First you have to be honest and ask yourself was/is everybody really handicapped? You have said spam sucks so if comp encourages people not to spam then what have you really got? Some people got 1 for comp but still did well overall... IMO I would have liked to have seen an open comp system so everyone was on an even playing field. Anyways nothing is perfect and if you expect it to be that is just crazy. I'm not saying STFU and go away but try to be a little more realistic about it.

G

sourclams:

I understand that you might rail against restrictions beyond those of the ordinary game, such as composition restrictions. Something similar happened in the history of competitive swimming. Back in the day most people swam the breast-stroke, which is frankly one of the worst strokes in terms of efficiency and speed, but also has a pleasing element of grace and symmetry and requires a lot of skill to move fast ('fast' here understood as less than 2m/s...).

However, when people started innovating, such as the Hawaiians with their flutter kicking and alternating over-arm recovery, the breast-stroke simply wasn't competitive. But instead of advocating that breast-stroke was an offense to competitive swimmers, the powers that be decided to have two events: one for any kind of swimming (called "freestyle", but really front-crawl), and one for breast-stroke.

Similarly the style of swimming on one's back in a breast-stroke style was replaced by a more efficient alternating stroke called "back-crawl", but breast-stroke style back-crawl wasn't particularly graceful and so it was phased out in favour of back-crawl.

More recently some clever buggers (the Japanese I think) found an exploitable loop-hole in the breast-stroke rules to innovate a a symmetrical over-arm recovery and a dolphin-kick instead of the slower whip-kick of breast-stroke. That also got spun-off as Butterfly.

Even more recently it was discovered that a dolphin kick underwater was faster than a flutter-kick or even a crawl on the surface, but rather than being spun off into its own competition new restrictions were brought in to limit such underwater kicking to 15m rather than discarding established disciplines of backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle (especially in the sprint events, because lack of oxygen dealth with this strategy in anything over 200m).

Basically the sport of swimming diversified over a variety of stroke and distances until they were over-whelmed with the number of events (Michael Phelps being notorious for winning an overwhelming number of gold medals not because he was a great all-around athlete, but because his skills applied to a wide range of swimming events, or ~12 in total depending on how you count them), and then they started implementing essentially arbitrary rules, and especially to the more stylised events.

My point is that even established and highly competitive sports such as sprint swimming continue to produce the highest levels of competition (I topped out at 24 hours a week in training for the Canadian National level, which is pretty weak compared to American and Australian pools), and far beyond the level of competition achieved by Warhammer.

If people want to have a competition where they're all handi-capped in the same way, then why not? The problem you seem to have with composition is not that they institute arbitrary restrictions, but that the composition is not fairly applied to everyone (like it is in swimming), not as strictly enforced (as it is in swimming), and much harder to judge (as it is not in swimming). But you don't seem interested in the alternative, which would be adopting the preset list approach I've proposed.

If composition could be enforced so that players were on an objectively equal basis, at least in terms of equipment, wouldn't you be in favour of it? After all, Warhammer 40k already has composition rules in the form of points values and the force organization chart. After all, these restrictions don't limit people's competitive abilities, so why should any others unless they're not applied equally?

That's why I'm in favour of preset lists for Warhammer 40k tournaments, because I come from a sporting background where you picked your races (equivalent to lists since they combined size and style, or points-values and choice of units) from a set of established options.

And the fact is that in swimming, at least, that resulted in people being able to develop a style and a specialization: often people who were good at asymmetrial strokes weren't so good at symmetrical strokes, and specialized in particular distances with particular strokes since each event required a different set of skills despite all being swimming. Michael Phelps, to pick on him again, like all the best swimmings was excellent in all skills-sets (mainly thanks to his physical advantages, but there's been plenty of people with those advantages who haven't trained as well as he did and didn't have the mental skills or racing skills to eke out winning over just breaking records).

To recap: If a good player with a good list trumps a good player with a bad list, then isn't allowing that difference in the value or utility of different lists bad whether it's a open or freestyle competition as it is when it's a competition involving unfairly applied composition rules?

Unless you count list-building as a skill, in which case it's not a good player with a good list beating a good player with a bad list, it's a good player beating a bad player.

If additional composition rules cannot be made objectively, then the established composition rules are not objective. The only way to promote fair composition then is to have people choose to compete with a pre-balanced lists in pre-determined missions and terrain.

Nurglitch wrote:Unless you count list-building as a skill, in which case it's not a good player with a good list beating a good player with a bad list, it's a good player beating a bad player.

Personally, I think list-building is a skill. And I'm not just talking from a netlist standpoint. I'm talking about a building a list that fits your playstyle best and that you're comfortable with.

Gornall:

Yeah, but if we consider skill to be the range of a player's ability, their ability to win outside of their comfort zone, then building a list that you're comfortable with is beside the point.

I don't agree with the notion that there are playstyles that you should adapt your army to: I think that you need to adapt to the situation and the material at hand. I think that's the skill in wargaming and generalship, making do with what you have rather than tweaking conditions where you can work in your comfort zone.

By my notion the tournament lists would be known well before hand so that people can learn and adapt, and that the tournament lists themselves would be designed so that players would have to solve problems as well as avoid them through list-building.

Nurglitch: There are so many things wrong with the "preset list" model that it just won't ever happen. How many people want to attend an event where the TO tells them how they're supposed to play their codex? I mean what additional insight does that TO have that allows him to design a list from every single codex that is perfectly balanced against all the others? Also, why should I have to go out and buy models that I might possibly never use just so I can field the list the TO has specified? What if I want to run Biker Marines but that's not the approved list? What if my Libby doesn't have a SS modeled on it? The list goes on and on. I can't speak for anyone else, but any event that wants to go to that extreme is NOT getting my time or money.

If you want to get people outside their comfort zone, you do that with terrain and scenarios... not by telling them they can't play their army.

Gornall wrote:How many people want to attend an event where the TO tells them how they're supposed to play their codex? I mean what additional insight does that TO have that allows him to design a list from every single codex that is perfectly balanced against all the others?

Yup, pretty much. The first fallacy of "pre-set list building" is that the TO is able to create more balanced/more fun to play lists than the players are themselves capable of doing. The second fallacy is that people would actually want to play in this context, on a greater scale than a single one-off event every blue moon.

This happens all the time in real life. First you have to be honest and ask yourself was/is everybody really handicapped? You have said spam sucks so if comp encourages people not to spam then what have you really got? Some people got 1 for comp but still did well overall... IMO I would have liked to have seen an open comp system so everyone was on an even playing field. Anyways nothing is perfect and if you expect it to be that is just crazy. I'm not saying STFU and go away but try to be a little more realistic about it.

My viewpoint is that it's not going to be perfectly balanced anyways, so leave the system as pure and unaltered as possible (GW codices, GW rules, GW FAQs) and let the playerbase sort itself out. The opportunity for participation is perfectly level, (everybody can download an Internet list, everybody can play any army, or the same army, everybody is free within the constraints to the system).

Everybody knows the system isn't perfect, but throwing more arbitrary constraints into an imperfect system isn't going to improve anything. It's the difference between an unbalanced system and the freedom of choice versus an unbalanced system without the freedom of choice.

First off I hate comp...

BUT, If you add it to the battle points... why not also....

have comp for painting?

seriously! my necrons are at a disadvantage... look how play the models are... and my dark eldar too.. . they are soo old... i think they need extra points... (/sarcasm)

think about how absurd it sounds when you apply comp to painting....

how about to sportsman ship?

seriously... i am tfg... i don't stand a chance in sportsmanship... i need extra points (/sarcasm)

hmm doesn't work here too...

why penalize people there to play competitive games?

I absolutely agree with you. Having Comp and Sportsmanship scores during the Painting event makes just as much sense to me as during Playing.

I suggested comp for painting and sports in another thread (Maybe even this one)

You could always divide total points scored by a player in each category by the total points scored in other categories to look for trends. For example, divide paint by battle... If dividend is low then you the player doesn't put much effort into painting but is a good general while on the other hand if the dividend was high you know that said player tends to be a better painter than general. It might seem obvious but consider sportsmanship versus battlepoints. If on average the dividend is high then that could clearly indicate sportsmanship was a nonfactor while on the other hand if the dividend was low then this could clearly indicate that the better generals were taking hits on their sportsmanship. To me it's interesting to run these types of exercises to see if certain scoring categories follow trends.

G

I am still waiting for an answer to my question.

How can an arbitrary, subjective system be fair?

Gornall:

Except that no one is telling you how to play the army. You demonstrate skill at the game by using an army more successfully than other people, must like the first person past the line wins the 100m freestyle: No one tells you what style of swimming you have to do; how you get from the starting blocks to the finish line is your own business. But rather than letting people choose the distance they want to swim, everyone swims 100m and takes their comparative ability to finish this distance in the shortest time as determining the overall winner. Nobody is forcing you to compete and disgrace yourself with an army you can't handle.

But you ask how many people want to attend a competitive Warhammer event? Apparently nearly everyone here. I would like to attend one someday.

The neat thing about the system I have proposed is that it doesn't matter who writes the armies because everyone who plays Space Marines plays the same army, and if they want a different style of play, then they choose the army that they want to play that best matches that style. The organizer merely has to decide on something, and the players automatically select fair lists. If Space Marines are the only competitive army/list available, then the tournament will be entirely composed of the most competitive army.

The lists don't need to be set for anyone's idea of "fun" or "balance" as those are subjective, and I think it's established that a subjective judgment of value is what's wrong with composition rules. The lists merely have to be the same within armies, and the same points between armies.

But why should the tournament organizer waste brain cells writing lists? Throw the army design open to the public, and post lists and missions to be voted on (rated 1-10 and have the number of votes cast weighted by rating). Each voter or competitor gets to vote for which list they want to see representing each army, and which particular missions will be played at the tournament. Forums such as this one are almost ideal for vetting lists and missions. Likewise the missions and terrain for them will be decided by weighted proportional poll (A rating of 10 multiplies all votes by 10, for example) of the competitors.

It's interesting that the main objection to this proposal seems to be that designing an army that you find "fun" or "balanced" is what people want. After all, what people object to about composition is that it substitutes an army someone else wants to play for the army you want to play: it forces someone's opinion on others. I suppose it's natural that it carries over to one of the alternatives, of regimenting the army lists and missions so that people are all playing according to the same metric, since they didn't get to choose that metric.

But you can: it's just that your vote counts as much as anyone else's. After all, the goal is to win the tournament and demonstrate that you are objectively better at Warhammer for those five games.

After all, isn't that generalship? Your ability to make do with the logistics at hand? Would Rommel have been a better commander if he hadn't constantly been short of equipment and supplies? Would Guderian have won France if they had been prepared for him to circumvent the Maginot Line? Wargaming is often about these last two questions, but that's just testing scenarios. If you want to see how you measure up to Rommel and Guderian then you try to win under the same conditions. That goes for any competition: you have to compete on a level playing field.

I should note the difference between a level playing field and a "fair" or "balanced" playing field is that if a competition is fair or balanced, then it's a toss-up if anyone can even win. A level playing field just means you can tell who won, without any excuses for losing except that the opponent either couldn't or wouldn't win.

Something worth reiterating is the point that I'm proposing composing missions and terrain and army lists by regimenting them rather than trying to impose my idea of fair or balanced on the community. Instead, the community itself choose the lists that are available, and which it wants to play.

That the thing about 40k that many people don't notice: the players govern their own conduct. Players don't have to let an outside force conduct their games for them, they decide how it is played as much as that it is played. Players consent to playing by tournament rules because those common rules provide a standard by which everyone can be measured.

If the tournament doesn't include an army that you want to play, then don't play. I haven't played in a tournament since the Canadian GT at the end of 5th edition WFB (nick-named "Hero-Hammer"). I can play friendly games with my friends, so why pay money to play friendly games in a tournament?

I honestly don't know whether you're trolling or not, Nurglitch. You honestly think that the best way to have "competitive" 40k is by directly specifying what lists can be played? What you are proposing is basically reduce everything to a net list. What's worse, if the lists aren't "balanced" between the codicies, you will soon find that everyone will be playing whatever the "best" list is. Voting system or not, it's a horrible idea, IMO. I could be off-base in saying that, but I bet if you put a Dakka poll up, it'd come back that very few people would be interested in such a system.

So yeah, in a perfect world if everyone played the exact same lists, you'd find out who the "best player" is... but if I wanted that system, I'd just go play Chess.

You're whole argument of "Rommel wasn't supplied" doesn't hold any weight with me personally. Yeah, he was a great general, but he still lost... because he didn't have the right tools for the job. I think 40k should be the same way. You might be a great tactician, but if you can't put together a coherent army without someone holding your hand, are you really a good player? To me, being a good 40k player starts with making a good list and ends with using it well. Unless you do both of those, you're going to have a hard time winning against those who can.

Nurglitch wrote:Lists aside, how did you find the players? It's interesting reading the St. Valentine's Day Massacre battle reports to see the mistakes people make, the sort of mistakes that if raised in the Tactics forums earn the reproach "Oh, well, a smart player wouldn't do that..."

Maybe's it's just a matter of self-reporting. Maybe it's the bottle of rum DashofPepper apparently drank during the first three rounds, but DevianID certainly seemed to have a much better grasp of the game rules and nuances of play than DashofPepper did and I believe that skill is what wins the game rather than lists.

I'll not have you slandering my booze!!!!

The reason I didn't win had nothing to do with me drinking - it was because I faced two difficult lists that I was unfamiliar with and made incorrect decisions about how to react to them. Experience will fix that.