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Comp, usually short for composition, is one of the most polarizing terms in competitive 40K play and environments. Comp is usually taken to signify elements of theme (how tightly the army conforms to the “background”). The “powergamer” stereotypically despises the whole idea of “composition” because of the simple fact that armies that do not tightly conform to the “background” materials are often more powerful in the game. The “casual gamer” brings a themed army that tightly conforms to the “background” materials, but is often less powerful.

Now comp taken as “theme” has some horrible problems. The most obvious of these problems is the simple fact that people’s views on how tightly a certain army build conforms to the “background” material differ. Therefore, consistency in scoring is a practical impossibility. Furthermore, two opponents whose views differ will often lead to unhappiness with the score given by said opponent. For example, a player running a Raider Rush build might play someone who believes that 2 Land Raiders in a non-Apoc game does not line up with the “background”. The second player will give the other player an artificially low score because of their beliefs. This kind of inconsistency is detrimental to competitive play because it introduces a variable non-dependent upon player ability into an environment that is supposed to test player ability.

Another problem with comp as theme is the timing of its scoring. Most tournaments with comp scoring have players score their opponent’s army after the game finishes. The composition and sportsmanship scores are often kept secret to the opponent, the idea being that people will be less inclined to judge others honestly if they have to give their opponent the news that they are an ass face-to-face. The problem here is sore losers. Someone who did not like the loss that the other player just handed them will often dramatically underscore their opponent’s comp.

A third problem with comp as theme is that it decreases the equivalency of high-level play. When players try to compensate for the beliefs of others by making a “softer” army (one that is easier to defeat, has more weaknesses, etc.), they are artificially limiting the tools that they would otherwise have to try for victory. If all the players make such armies, then the level of play decreases and the players who want to challenge themselves are unhappy because of these artificial limitations. If several people decide to ignore the comp score (seeing as how it is usually less than 10% of the overall score) and just bring the best armies they can, they’ll beat all the people who limited themselves. Those people will then be upset that the winners “didn’t play by the rules” and violated the social norm for a better outcome. Both of these are bad in an environment where competition and a striving for victory are supposed to be the motivation for players.

So comp as theme is a broken idea. It’s easily shown by the fact that comp is such a highly contended topic.
Then what should comp be? Comp should be taken to be a scalar for the “competetiveness”, or ability to win in an all-comers environment of a particular army. If comp is to be player scored, it should be done before the game to prevent “sore loser syndrome”. A baseline army should be established before the event and players should be asked what they think about their opponent’s army. For example:

Given an all-comers environment, do you think that your opponent’s army is (pick one):
Way stronger than
Stronger than
About the same as
Weaker than
Far weaker than
the following:
…army list…
Points would then be assigned to each value and scoring would proceed.

Now player-scored comp scoring still has problems. If the two opponents know and do not like each other, scores will still be artificially low. Furthermore, players who are not very skilled at judging the relative power of two armies will assign incorrect, and often artificially low, scores. As another point, local gaming groups or teams of players can coordinate to lower the scores of players who are not part of the group or team.

What about judge-scored comp? Where one or multiple judges sit down with all the army lists before the event and assign comp scores? This has fewer problems than player-scored comp (no “sore-loser syndrome”). But all the other problems from above apply. A judge who dislikes a player can lower their scores. Judges are not omniscient and can make mistakes about relative power levels. And a group of local judges can decide to arbitrarily dock everyone they don’t know to give their buddies an advantage.

So comp contributing to overall score, while in theory a lovely balancer for high-level play, often turns out to be a nightmare in practice, leading to hurt feelings and a substandard event.

Then what place does comp have in high-level play? Some people argue that it has none. However, comp is very useful for setting initial pairings in tournaments. If pairing is random, a “powergamer” can run up against a “casual player” round 1 or round 2. This often produces a tabling and unhappiness on both sides. However, if comp is scored before the event and players with equivalent comp scores are paired up, then a higher level of equivalency of play will emerge. Furthermore, this minimizes the amount that scoring errors will contribute to the final overall scores.

So the use that comp has is pairings-and this fulfills the idea behind comp, to lend to an equivalence of play in competitive environments.

I'll just chime in for a sec. Disclaimer: I'm against Comp. Never seen it do an ounce of real good, seen it instead used by a lot of fairly insecure folks.

The idea of comp, in a tournament, to my understanding, is the following.

Precondition: Certain army builds make a player more or less likely to win.
Precondition: Army builds should have nothing to do with the outcome of the tourney. The tourney is supposed to measure who is the best player.
Therefore: Comp score compensates for the army list's strength or weakness. After it's applied the best player will win.

Thus I can win by taking the strongest list and playing so well I overcome my bad comp score, or taking the weakest list and doing even a little better than abysmally. No matter which army I take I have an equal chance to win the tournament. I will do so if I do more better (not quite correct but you take my meaning) than I "ought" to do, with my list.

Say there are 60 Battle Points up for grabs in a tourney. Say the expected outcome for the almighty doom list is two wins and a draw, for 50 points. So give them comp of -20. By contrast, say that the worst imaginable list's outcome is expected to be two losses and a draw, for 10 opints. Give them a comp of +20. Now no matter what list I take I've got an equal chance of winning the tourney, I just have to do better than I'm expected to.

The flaws in this scheme are obvious and manifold, and this is the BEST implementation of Comp.

Another, even worse, implementations of comp include the ever popular "Comp as theme", which just amounts to a points incentive for playing like the fluff suggests your list should. This is obviously unablancing. Say Army A is supposed to be horde, and army B is supposed to be Mech, but the meta is that Mech is best. B is now a better (degenerate in game theory parlance) chocie. Worse yet, A is objectively a bad choice. If you make a Mech A list you are penalized, in addition to fighting the army's normal inclinations.

Also ever popular is the "Comp as stick" theory. Say I want to encourage large blocks in WHFB. I want infantry, think the game should have more of it. I put my comp in such a way as to reward players for taking more infantry. It distorts the game, and ends up with a bizarre hybrid of folks trying to take tourney scores (who obey the new comp), folks who just have the only army they have (who are randomly punished) and folks who just want to play and don't care about the tourney scoring (who disregard the new comp, lose the tourney, but face stomp those who alter their army).

Then we have "Comp as super-sportsmanship", where Comp becomes essentially another soft score your opponent grades your list on. It's just another checkbox/list like sportsmanship/paint. As any judge will tell you tourney players have an unwritten rule to give max points for soft scores barring a terribly unpleasant experience, so Comp in this instance merely increases the power of those who abuse soft scores to wreck enemy's overall points.

The word "comp" means many things, and none of them has ever struck me as something that'll actually improve the game.

Composition is a good idea... in theory. In practice, it probably sucks balls. It would be best if they had it to have a panel of judges review it. Each player could submit their list and maybe a very short explanation of its composition and why and then the judges assign a score. Bam, no sore loser syndrome and perhaps a more impartial process. But this is probably too time-consuming/difficult to implement, and you will still have consistency issues.

But then, any scoring method is going to have problems. Kill points aren't very good either and some objective missions also favor certain lists over others. There's no perfect answer.

Wow.. Comp is complete crap.

"Don't worry if you lost because you're complete gak at the game, your blue marines were supposed to lose to those bugs. You get more points than him!
Your buigs were supposed to beat the crap out of the blue marines, but it seems like you're a power gamer...."

That's the first example that came to mind


They could have a panel of judges, but from the stories I've heard most of the time they are biased towards the army they like. What would be best is if they dropped it and went to a normal scoring format like most other tournaments. You get points for winning and none for losing

@OP: I'm OK with Comp

Comp is the anti-christ, the four horsemen, sheva, and a world full of reality tv shows (we're not there yet!) all rolled into 1!

Basically it sucks and is used as a way to make others conform to the way they play. While those of us against comp kill baby bunnies and eat baby humans

Comp can turn a competitive tourney into something akin to a figure skating event, where pleasing the judges might be as important as the actual competition.

I'm fine with it.

Then again, I gave up trophy hunting years ago. I'm only there for the games. Win, lose - it's all the same to me (unless my opponent is a douche - in which case I WILL lose as quickly as possible to just get out of the game).

Comp is for the weak.