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Yeah it is pretty wack that alot of people expect you to build your list in a certain fashion or be penalized for being cheesy(competitive).

It does really suck when you try to do something interesting(build a list with synergy, let's say Vulkan for example) and then they want to penalize you if you don't make idiotic choices like taking missiles and plasma instead of flamers and melta(which are fluffy, taking these plasma and missile should hurt your "theme").

It just blows when you love a certain faction(say Chaos) and if you play the only competitive build(Lash) people handicap you(even though your build is not so hot with IG and Mech all over).

Yep, if it wasn't for the amazing background material and conerting/modeling I would have quit playing along time ago. There are just too many super opinionated fans who don't really understand the game. Whether they realize it or not they strongly dislike competition. And sadly these are usually the people running the tournaments.


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I like how it is supposed to be good to blow up a vehicle(which takes all 9 oblits on average to do so) and then lash the expendable squad while your Oblits and Princes are getting vapored by a great amount of firepower. In just a few turns all of your hated units are reduced to cinder and ash if facing strong shooting, but hey your army is way overpowered and even if you get lucky to not fight this sort of strong shooting list or overcome the odds to beat it don't worry you won't have a chance to win the event anyways the Organizers have made sure of that bro.

Nice.

I recall compostion being placed into tournaments at the mid to end of second edtion. While many people here may not understand why it was put in, it was largely put in to control armies that never came close to something that would be seen in the fluff of 40k ( is one part ). I confess back in Rogue trader through 2nd edtion I ran the hardest lists I could put together, as I cared about winning and not about the fluff or story. Spacewolves in Terminator Armor all with assault cannons + Cyclone Missle Rack ( fire the entire rack for 12" Str 8 1d10? wounds and a neg armor modifier that most things couldnt save, this is per terminator ) then an Imperrial Assassin in Terminator Armor, 4+ dodge save, 3+ Distortion Field Save, with Polymorphine ( I remove a troop member in your squad killing him and replacing with my assassin ) who then Vortexed your highest point unit or character then killed your entire squad in hth. Land Raiders mopped up anything left and the game was packed up by the end of turn 2.


The space wolf list was disgusting and looking back at it now, I should of never of ran it. The spirit of the game was never in my mind and I made more people quit the game who were just starting out then playing something more to fluff or theme so we could have a good game.Sadly I grew up with the game with many min / maxer friends who ran tooled list that could also 1 turn the game as well or Pulsa Rocket your entire army off the board in 1 turn. Logan Griminar isn't going to show up at every small battle and back when comp went into the game, taking any named character would dock you to a zero score ( irony since many tooled non nameds were far cheesier ). The old rule of thumb to get a good comp score was painting, conversions, theme, non nameds, 50+% troops, around 30% mixed Elites / Hvy / Fast,10-15% HQ and about 5-10% Wargear / Upgrades.

Third Edition took away the Hero Hammer aspect of the game and brought more focus to squads, tho many of the advanced rules were lost due to GW simplifying the game. Comp was pretty much the same as I posted above and nameds character were again taboo to play with. Compostion became tougher though to judge due to judges showing bias to local friends and when comp was given to other players to judge, since it was a competitive tournament, people would mark their opponents harshly to hope that may give them an advantage in points to win the competition. A good compostion, well themed, nicely painted and a good attitude in the game tho went a long ways in getting a good score. Yet in some cases comp scores were given fairly based on what I posted on what judges usually look for.

As to fourth edition to present I have been away from the game. So much has changed as no longer do I hear about cheesy / beardy armies and named characters seem like staples in every list. Everyone seems to be running the most tooled list they can or like me, use the name competitive list to hide my need to power game. As to what judges are looking for now in composition, I couldn't tell you. All I can say it what was based in the past since I have been playing back in the late 80s. I will say sportsmanship was needed back when I was in my RT hayday as I have watched people at tables flip out on bad dice rolls. Everything from throwing their dice ( in one case a beautifully painted Land Raider ) across the room, cussing non stop "f-cking fine! What ever! Just go! Yeah thats total BS! Your army is cheese!Yeah what ever, f-ck it I give up" is what I came across. FYI I am a quiet player when playing and I don't push peoples buttons and I'am very polite, yet people can get totally bent out of shape when playing these tournaments do to RL issues or they are self perfectionist.

I'am sure many others out there are super competitve and while they don't mean to abuse the rules or fluff they just want to make the best army they can with the rules and codex in front of them. These kind of people ( I think ) like myself just want to work with a set of rules that are set before us, heck I even like when a neutral party makes the list for my opponent and myself and then we try to play it out to our best ability. I think if tournaments are going to run with compostion they should be very crystal clear, way ahead of time on what they are looking for, so players can try to achieve that score w/o trying to second guess the judges. This makes judging a simple check list rather then what could be percieved as a biased score with no explanation on how or why you were scored that and makes it so the opponent who may be playing super competively doesn't simply spike your score due to spite or being overly "competitive". The other option is remove it all together ( as many have said ) and just give awards for Paint. Theme, Composition, Best General and Best Overall etc.

skyth wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

skyth wrote:To be fair, the 'you must handicap yourself as much as possible' is the attitude that a vocal portion of the pro-comp crowd advocates and creates the antagonism.

Please quote one person expressing that sentiment on this forum, and please link to the post.

So an attitude only exists if I can find a specific example on Dakka? I provided an example of it happening to me. That should be good enough (If I felt like it, I could link to the thread, but it's on another board)

Sourclams said “people”, which is broad, and indicates a group. His further comment that we ‘may as well start handing out “Everyone is a Winner” ribbons’ implies that it’s so prevalent as to ruin the whole scene.

In your post you said “a vocal portion of the pro-comp crowd advocates and creates the antagonism”, which again is talking about a group, and clearly placing the responsibility for antagonism on the “pro-comp crowd”. Your citing one particular individual who clearly didn’t know what they were talking about, and implying that they are representative, seems to me a pretty serious and kind of insulting misrepresentation of what the “pro-comp crowd” generally believes.

If you were just saying "people exist who hold unfounded, dumb opinions", then sure, quoting one guy proves your point. But you seem to be arguing that this kind of junk is representative of my "side" of the argument as a whole, which I don't think is accurate at all.


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Fearspect wrote:All of their events are created by their sales department, I don't see what your point is there.

That’s not true at all. They’ve historically had an “events” department or a “community & events” department in charge of official tournaments. At least in the US. I’m fairly certain that in the UK it’s also not the sales guys in charge of tournaments. Is Canada different?

In the US, the only tournament event that Trade Sales has ever (to my knowledge) been responsible for is ‘Ard Boyz, which is clearly designed to sell more stuff- having higher point-value games than normal, with no painting requirement and no composition limitations.

Fearspect wrote:I just generally hate the idea of everyone being forced to drop to the lowest common denominator of skill.

Nonsequitur. A) Play skill is different than list-building skill. B) A comp score doesn’t ‘force’ anyone to do anything. Under every system I’ve ever played (at GTs and RTs since 2000), a maxed-out list piloted by a good general is still competitive for the overall win. He just usually has a mild points handicap compared to a weaker list, which he can often make up in battle points. If another player manages to do equally well in Battle with a weaker list, IME that’s indicative of greater play skill. If you've ever played in any of the comp-scored GTs, than you could easily see that superior players with strong lists do the best.

Mannahnin wrote:
Sourclams said “people”, which is broad, and indicates a group. His further comment that we ‘may as well start handing out “Everyone is a Winner” ribbons’ implies that it’s so prevalent as to ruin the whole scene.

In your post you said “a vocal portion of the pro-comp crowd advocates and creates the antagonism”, which again is talking about a group, and clearly placing the responsibility for antagonism on the “pro-comp crowd”. Your citing one particular individual who clearly didn’t know what they were talking about, and implying that they are representative, seems to me a pretty serious and kind of insulting misrepresentation of what the “pro-comp crowd” generally believes.

If you were just saying "people exist who hold unfounded, dumb opinions", then sure, quoting one guy proves your point. But you seem to be arguing that this kind of junk is representative of my "side" of the argument as a whole, which I don't think is accurate at all.

Well, I know personally, the biggest reason I no longer play 40k is that the local group is part of the vocal 'you must handicap yourself as much as possible or you're a bad person' group.

I’m sorry to hear that they’re so unpleasant. That sucks.

I only play in tournies so I can avoid store politics and it works for me.

G