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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.