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I have 13 assault cannons in my 1850 list, and its not lysander wing.

Yeah I mean, how dare someone build an army within the guidelines of the army list!

Come on people, blame the army lists themselves, not the players who choose to utilize powerfully designed units/weapons.

Posted By moosifer on 12/08/2006 6:20 PM
Its no big deal, I wont dock much, but if a "competitive list" can be played by a monkey, then I have issue with it

Any list can be played by a monkey...But it can't be played well and in a competetive manner.

Stop complaining moosifer, just play with AC. Its true why get called cheesy when all you have done is build an army within the confines of the list? Blame GW

I've just built an 1850 Tournament list that I've begun playtesting on and it has 10 Assault Cannons. The reason I posted what I did was that I had finished my first playtesting game with it and I had him resign on Turn 5. When done right, with the right trait combo, assault cannons are evil.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 12/09/2006 6:15 AM

When done right, with the right trait combo, assault cannons are evil.

Would you like to share with the rest of the class?

My rant from another thread.

I dont mark anyone down. Comp is a false sense of security only utlized by those who feel an army is beardy.

if it is legal to take, then its is legal in comp. American comp is slowed and I cannot wait for the day when we go to the more reasonable UK standard.

Thats why the rules system for 40K isnt meant for competition. The rules are just too damned flawed to really recognize actual winners.

So they make a comp system to attempt to fix what should have been fixed in the rules.

MTG is a very solid card game system. The rules are very clear and by playing the rules winners are recognized. You dont see WOTC handing out slips of paper asking if that arcbound ravager deck were "'within the spirit of the game". For them the rules are the game. They spend quite a bit of money to make sure the game is solid. Somethings slip through development *coughskullclampcough* but in general, even the screwups they stand behind until it is time to ban a mistake because it is overwhelmingly and obviously broken. Which overall, is very few indeed.

40K is meant for sitting at home and playing games with friends. For GW to push the RaW as they do lately is biting them in the ass, as the rules are flawed.

Posted By logan007 on 12/08/2006 9:15 AM

Posted By jfrazell on 12/08/2006 8:52 AM

Reasonable people can disagree and your score either benefits or gets hammered because there is NO DEFINED TERM FOR WHAT IS COMP.

 

  Yeah, I've only been to two tournaments so far, but I'm already disliking comp when it's player scored. What's a "fair and characterful" army varies greatly with the person you're playing against.

I'm all for promoting fun and characterful armies, but I'd rather the judges score the comp for everyone, with general comp expectations outlined before the tournament.

Thats the problem though. GW does define comp to be scored by judges in 40k Tourneies. (40% troops, etc.) You either follow their comp for more points, or you dont.

Why they give an opponent a score sheet for comp is beyond me. To me its just an excuse for sore losers to be true buttfaces. I have played in a few rtt's and later found out that even though I let the guy actually reroll dice when the roll sucked, I was scored low in both comp and sportsmanship.

I was playing 3rd ed sisters from the rulebook, before they had a codex. Yep, pretty cheesy for me to do that.

The abuse of comp scoring is alot more harsher and open to abuse than the list "cheesy" people bring.

Comp is made to fix what GW doesnt, and in so doing, further breaks the competitive game.

Comp scoring by players is broken.

Yes assualt cannons are nasty but sometimes they work sometimes they dont, if you rely soley on them you will lose.

Posted By beef on 12/09/2006 3:57 PM
Yes assualt cannons are nasty but sometimes they work sometimes they dont, if you rely soley on them you will lose.

Dude, that's simply not true.  If you take enough of them, and thus rely on them, you can and will win.  I just took my tournament army for another test run and it was a Crushing Victory.  My army is practically nothing but 10 Assault Cannon toting monstrosities. 

Give those suckers Tank Hunters and you have the best gun in the game against anything.

I just came back from a small store tourney today. Logan007 won (ya punk) with a very balanced list with 4 assault cannons. Many of the marine players, except me, had at least 3 assault cannons in it. Is that cheese? Nope. It is to the point where voodoo is talking about 7/8/9 assault cannons where it stops becoming a fine comp scoring list to something that is just ridiculous.

I would like to come out and say, I am not mad at the players who do this, most are fine individuals. They build what is within the confines of the game that GW gave to us. GW is to blame by creating such insane rules for assault cannons in 4th ed. But just because you can do it does not mean you SHOULD do it.

I do not know Voodoo's tourney list, but off the top of my head I am guessing that he has 3x5 man termy squads with 2 assualt cannons, a dread with AssCannon, and either 1 unit or 3 single Landspeeder Tornados. Right there is 10 assault cannons, and voodoo please correct me if I am wrong, min scout squads with teleport homers.

The scouts with homers come out to 85 a peice without other gear so a total of 170 points in troop choices. Now cost for him to upgrade all but one AssCannon (Dred), is roughly 120 for the Termies (6x20) and 90 for the Land speeders (3x30) which comes out to 210 points. 210 points for JUST assault cannons which is 40 points more than his ENTIRE troop choice.

That to me SCREAMS Gouda

www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/14/postid/125110/view/topic/Default.aspx

I was loathe to post this here as I was kind of hoping that people wouldn't realize that cheese of that level was going to show up at the GT's, but considering I have to take it to the local shops and tournies to practice with, local players who would also go to the GT would know about it anyway.

After Xmas I can stop proxying my last Terminator Squad and should have the army 100% painted, marked, based, and WYSIWYG, and it will be hitting the local area.

I think only Iron Warriors can contest this list for being cheesier. 

I had two assault cannons

My bad, 2 assault cannons you didnt have the speedy mc speeders. And that list is sick voodoo, I wouldnt give min comp score, but half cause half is list, half is painting

I would like to add that I'm very angry at all those people that say you should just build a powerful list because cheese is a flawed concept.

I listened to these people. My friends don't play me anymore.

Tournaments, fine, but get a perspective on things.

Very true. Thats why its called a friendly game. be on the same level. have fun.

Unless of course youre both wearing your cheddar hemets, then its go time!

If you are competitive build a cheese list, if not then build what you like. when codex space marines firts came out I was tempted to build a 1500 point army for a tournie with 3x3landspeeders with AC and 3 dreds with ac, 12 ac altogether, with a 5 man tac and scout squad. however after building and painting the 3rd landspeeder I got bored and never bothered with the list as it was sooo boring to play with. I personally always try and make lists which i like, Hence my HQ is always so damn expensive (hq does rep the player after all) so if all else in my army dies my Hq either lives or has kicked so much ass before dying that I am very happy. you should see how expensive my wolf lord can is. he tops out at the upper levels of 200pts.

I know one level for comp that has been bandied about is the 40% troops points total.  In an 1850pt game that is 740pts.  One way to encourage more rounded lists would be to award the opponent the difference in victory points.  So in Voodoo's list for example:  His opponent would recieve 450vps just for showing up with 740pts worth of troops.  He wouldn't get any more points even if he had more than 740pts invested in troops.  His grunts might all get smoked by the massive amount of assault cannons, but the marine player had better be careful with his terminators.

Another way to shake things up would be to have certain missions not permit more than two elites, fast attack, or heavy support.  Any extra choices take no part in the battle.  This would shake things up and make all asscan terminators or 4 heavy support Iron Warrior lists a little more of a risky proposition. 

The problem with a lot of the top-tier lists is that they are built around putting all the eggs in a few totally awesome, bulletproof baskets.  These rules would encourage the player to spread their points around and think about flexibility.  If there is the possibility of an Alpha game, a VP comp differential, and a random floating limit on Force Org. Charts.  Voodoo's list goes from being insanely good to having a real fight on its hands against a more balanced army.

I think that the ability to always know the terms and conditions your army will be fighting on leads to stagnant gameplay.  This is especially true in competitive play, where the same four or five army build types face off against each other at the top, leading to ridiculous situations like two marine armies firing their drop pods at some random point on the map and having it out. 

Comp should be a factor in competitive play, but the opponent scoring it is pure crap.  If the tournament rules penalize "cheesy" lists, then people will have to compensate, and that can't be all bad.  My main reason for saying this is that  balanced lists really are more fun to play with and against.  I'd like to see more balanced armies be competitive.

Good post. I agree.

I am not so sure about how to go about making a truly fair comp scoring, but anything to encourages balance and flexibility isnt bad.

Its not that list have become more abusisve as opposed to the 2nd edition, its just that more people play now and the players have evolved and become smarter at abusing the system and the loop holes. All this RAW crap and faqs. In the old days people played an army cos they liked the models or background, not cos of its distructive or game winning qualities. People were genrally more into playing for the sake of playeing rather than playing only for the sake of winning.

When I first started gaming 14 years ago My first army was SW. not cos of the snazzy rule etc but because of the cool model. that was my reason for playing SW. Same with my brother, heliked the red colour of the BA and thats why he choose them. I did not pick up a codex to see how powerful the army was before purchase. Most people never bought the codex befofre the models. now the codex is bought first.

To this day my main army is SW.

Posted By moosifer on 12/08/2006 4:10 PM
No Comp means the player can voice his opinion about the makeup of the opponents list. A trained monkey could win with a maxed out assault cannon list and that is not very sporting. To me comp score should weigh in as about 10% of the score, not to much but enough to matter. It really is no fun paying all that money to go up against a list that is metagamed/power gamed to death

Logan my army is 2 HQ, 5 Troop, 1 Fast 1 Elite and 2 heavy. And the HQ's are not the same type of HQ.

A trained monkey could win only if their opponent also were not taking a maxed out list.  Then you have a fair fight. But thats the argument isn't it?  If you're going to a GT and you want to be competitive you have to take a competitive list. Simple as that.

If you want to take your fluffy super converted list and just play games to have fun then thats also excellent (and in my mind the proper view on life).  But don't expect to win every game.

 

Posted By logan007 on 12/08/2006 5:23 PM

Why should players score comp? Why can't the judges score comp? If one of the goals of a tournament is to promote fun/fair lists, why should the players decide if what they're playing against is fun/fair? Is it fair to assume that people playing in a tournament are knowledgeable about EVERY army and what's cheesey and what's not? What if a player thinks a certain unit is cheesey because they haven't thought of a strategy to counter them? What if a player tanks another person's comp score out of spite?

I've met people who think that regardless of the number of points involved, 2 HQs are cheesey. I've met people who think having two identical units are cheesey. I've met people who think paying more than 160 points in your HQ slot is cheesey. Not devoting 40% or more of your points to troops is cheesey. Not using a minimum of 5 troop slots is cheesey.

Who decides these things?

Quoted for truth.

I'm of the opinion that comp scoring in a competitive environment is never going to be fair.

The game itself just suffers from too many rock/paper/scissors matchups, so what's fair to one person is death to another.

The best situation you could get is trying to find an unbiased judge to go through each army, but they'd have to be familiar with every army in the game and all the rules for it. Not impossible to do, but no one will ever be fair.

If you put arbitrary restrictions like "40% Troops" then you just reward some armies and punish others. Marines would largely be OK, Chaos would be great (Demonbombs ahoy!), and Tau & Eldar would get screwed.

I don't disagree that playing more "for-fun" and friendly games is much more rewarding and more "fun" overall than the cut throat stuff, there is the appeal of competition and when you go to a tournament you go to win, at least that's how I look at it. My list will never go to a GW store to be played without the opponent first hearing "Hey I have a nasty tournament list I want to test out, but if you don't want to play that kind of game, I can do something else". It also won't show up as a list to use against my friends outside of them helping me playtest it in practice.

I have much more fun playing with my pure Ultramarine lists that have 10 Man Squads w/ Honor Guard in Rhinos, a LR loaded with Assault Terminators and a Vindicator running support with some preds. But it's not something I'm going to take to a tournament since you know, I want to win. The prospect of going to a GT or even the RT at a games day and winning is something I want to try to do, and well sometimes playing "the cheese game" can be fun to, but in a different way.

I think the 40% troops guideline is valid.  After all,  armies are supposed to be made up primarily of their basic soldier.  Yes, this restriction favors certain armies, but those are armies that use lots of troops.  Daemonbombs (other than Siren ones) are pretty fluffy for Chaos armies, but they have issues against mech forces and hordes.  You don't see many horde armies in tourny play because without some sort of comp benefit they can't compete.

Most of the fighting should be done by basic soldiers.  Mech Tau and Eldar armies can make powerful and fluffy lists (Kroot + Devilfish-Firewarriors, or Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents, Jetbikes) my suggested alterations would just make them question how many points they want to have be troops and how many they want to be elites.  Right now, min/maxed troop choices and maxed out Force org everything else, benefit some armies more than others.  This just makes it so there is something to compensate for that.

I mean, stationary Marine armies can be deadly and are fluffy, the same goes for Iron Warriors with a decent number of infantry squads.  Imperial Guard, using the regular platoon structure in a tournament is a joke.  It will get tabled by the top tier armies every time.  It seems like the only way to play IG and be competive at that level is to use an all plasma drop troops list, which is about as unfluffy as possible. 

Another neat remedy would be to mix in a certain amount of jungle, swamp, cityfight, and desert tables, plus the special rules to further throw players for a loop.  A Teminator drop pod list will have issues in a swamp.  And Mech armies will have a hell of a time in jungle terrain.  This variety would make some lists that are awesome become crappy overnight.  It also would breathe new life into horde armies.  I think  swarm style nids are much more characterful than Zilla nids.

Posted By beef on 12/11/2006 2:12 AM
Its not that list have become more abusisve as opposed to the 2nd edition, its just that more people play now and the players have evolved and become smarter at abusing the system and the loop holes. All this RAW crap and faqs. In the old days people played an army cos they liked the models or background, not cos of its distructive or game winning qualities. People were genrally more into playing for the sake of playeing rather than playing only for the sake of winning.

When I first started gaming 14 years ago My first army was SW. not cos of the snazzy rule etc but because of the cool model. that was my reason for playing SW. Same with my brother, heliked the red colour of the BA and thats why he choose them. I did not pick up a codex to see how powerful the army was before purchase. Most people never bought the codex befofre the models. now the codex is bought first.

To this day my main army is SW.

That was a very long time ago and you are right, being a new gamer I have found most people to be very competitive.  They play to win.  Its not much fun when you are starting out to get totally thrashed by a really good army list.  No fun at all.  the only thing you learn is that to win you have to have certain kinds of lists.

You need better friends.



The reason this comp rule isn't used anymore is its bad for some armies. Some armies work better with min troops others work better with max troops.

There never should be min troops, ever. Of course your elites are better than your troops that is why they are elites. I think the best work around for these would be to create a elite/heavy/fast for every troop choice. That would be the fairest way

Posted By Samwise158 on 12/11/2006 8:56 AM
I think the 40% troops guideline is valid.  After all,  armies are supposed to be made up primarily of their basic soldier.  Yes, this restriction favors certain armies, but those are armies that use lots of troops. 

Which makes it, on its face, an invalid method for measuring comp. If its not equitable its sucks.

The problem with comp, is that there would have to be different rules for every single army. Rules that would be more than fair for one army "three full size troop choices" (fine for marines) Would completely bone others (IG would have to fill two platoons and an armored fist just to be in the min size).

It would only be fair if every choice in an army list were worth taking. The simple fact of the matter is that alot of armies have crap units. Making someone take garbage to make YOU feel better won't improve the game it will only reduce the number of armies seen on the table.