Using an ELO Rating System for 40K and potentially other Tabletop Strategy Games

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**jbunny**

Kevin Nash wrote:
lambadomy wrote:I think ELO is bull because I am second and not first.

Other than that, I think it is definitely a fun thing to do for your tournaments and will eventually be a good rating for people who play in those tournaments.

I think that there is more information that probably needs to go into it before it really measures anything, and there may not be enough games actually reported every year at tournaments to get enough information on enough players. There is not a lot of dice rolling, slow playing, army building, unlucky matchups, or necrons in Go and Chess. I've done well in the two RTTs I played in at Aero...but I didn't deserve it. I've gotten very lucky, or accidentally cheated, or slow played my way to victory or a tie. None of this is really reflected in the results, and obviously shouldn't be - but until you have an absolutely huge games database, it won't really be removed as a major factor.

Obviously a small sample size means the ranking we have compiled at present should be taken with a grain of salt.

They have been using Elo in Magic: The Gathering for years now and that contains a lot of the same elements of 40k. It is a card game so players are prone to bad draws (dice). Every deck can be different and therefore subject to bad match-ups.

But every game of magic has the exact same way of winning. Each scenerio in 40K completely changes how the game is played and won. Just look at how people complain about the Ard boyz missions. You are never going to hear a Magic player say, well I would of won if not for that Second round game where you could only win by drawing 7 cards at once, and my deck is not set up for that.