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Comp is close to dead in the US. To me spam hurts your ability to grow as a good gamer... Especially if you rely upon spam to consistently win. Spam is legal, I have no problem with others using it in abundance but I just see it as an easy means to win games. Often you have little choice in regards to your troop choices for certain armies but other than most codices have a variety of useful units for other slots, which is most typically true for heavy support and fast attack but not slays the case... It all comes down to each codex.

At the end of the day people should be able to play what they want as long as it's legal. The flipside is utter reliance on spam you can find yourself painted into a corner if you aren't careful. Maybe it's not a big deal... You simply find another codex that has plenty of good units to spam.

If I was asked does an army list that slams non troop choices is fairly representative of it's background I'd probably say no. CSM and IG come to mind at the forefront... Dual lash princes, 3x 3x Oblits plus many meched Nurghal Marine units.... It's probably the most popular list right now. You are seeing some horde/blob IG lists but most seem to have lots of vets riding in chimeras with hull mounted heavy flamers.

G

How is mechvets unfluffy?

because they are supposed to be many, many more normal guardsmen than vets.

Horst wrote:Of course at some point in 10,000 years of constant war things, wierd were probably fielded that were unconventional. However, this does not make your fateweaver + bloodcrusher list fluffy. it does not make your 9 oblit list fluffy. instances like this were probably exceedingly rare in the fluff, and obviously show a desire to win without regard to established storylines.

By that same logic, any army using a special character is 'unfluffy' since, in terms of 10000 years of history, the battles in which any one individual took part would add up a miniscule number.

Of course, some tournies disallow special characters as well.


For myself, I would much rather see tournaments do their army balancing with missions and decent table set-ups than by telling players that how they want to play the game is wrong.

There are supposed to many more Guardsmen than Spehss Muhrens. Does that make playing IG more fluffy?

The idea of a Mech Vet army is NOT unfluffy. It just doesn't mesh with your idea of Imperial Guard.

Vindicator#9 wrote:Wheres Calvin... off doing a number one on something i suppose.

If my Adobe skills were better, he'd be peeing on "No-Comp" as espoused by Stelek and the OP...

RustyKnight wrote:There are supposed to many more Space Marines than Imperial Guardsmen. Does that make playing IG more fluffy?

The idea of a Mech Vet army is NOT unfluffy. It just doesn't mesh with your idea of Imperial Guard.

Um, maybe you meant that the other way around?

ugh... the point of comp as I see it is not that you cannot run an all vets army.

sure you can run an all vets army. However, to get a good comp score, you cannot run a 6 vet mech list, where all 6 vet squads pack 3 melta guns. flamers and grenade launchers are both fairly good weapons.

the goal of comp is to encourage variation, not to ban certain types of lists. taking identical squads is a definite way to get a low comp score at a tournament.

Special characters really shouldn't be used in the majority of lists, but sadly, games workshop is forcing this with the new codex design. The space wolf codex does a good job at allowing you to make good heroes though, and hopefully future codexes will follow its example.

RustyKnight wrote:There are supposed to many more Space Marines than Imperial Guardsmen.

Really?

I think it's the other way around: far more IG than SM.

Arbitrary systems are arbitrary. Comp just allows for one more thing to be gamed and penalizes certain codicies more than others.

AgeOfEgos wrote:Perhaps many of you are talking past each other or assuming that the other party desires/disdains comp for nefarious reasons. I think there is a common ground that everyone can agree on;

Playing unique armies in tournaments is a good/fun experience.
Playing cookie-cutter lists that consist of the same units on each table is a bad/boring experience.

If everyone can agree with that, then the discussion will be less personal and more focused on how to achieve it. Possibilities;

Cannot agree that playing "cookie-cutter" lists is boring/bad. Hence, the issue I imagine.

Horst wrote:ugh... the point of comp as I see it is not that you cannot run an all vets army.

sure you can run an all vets army. However, to get a good comp score, you cannot run a 6 vet mech list, where all 6 vet squads pack 3 melta guns. flamers and grenade launchers are both fairly good weapons.

the goal of comp is to encourage variation, not to ban certain types of lists. taking identical squads is a definite way to get a low comp score at a tournament.

Special characters really shouldn't be used in the majority of lists, but sadly, games workshop is forcing this with the new codex design. The space wolf codex does a good job at allowing you to make good heroes though, and hopefully future codexes will follow its example.

Definetely don't agree with any of your points there. Why are six mech vets with meltas "better" than with flamers/grenade launchers? If you run into nothing but footslogging horde lists in your matches, you'll kinda be wishing you didn't take the meltas, and it's really a wash. Why should the comp "penalize/restrict" someone more than just matchups?

Also, as insaniak said, your argument about special characters is moot since GW espouses "counts as" and also placed the special characters in the main army lists.

Next.

the reason that the guy who takes 6 melta gun squads should be penalized is simple....

its a wash in terms of benefit to him, sure..... over a large enough sample size. Imagine the game has 4 choices... rock, paper, scissors, or balanced between the 3.

If you pick rock, and draw nothing but scissors as opponents, you won, through no skill of your own. You play against only paper, you loose all the games, no matter how skillful you are. This is why balanced lists that can handle each element somewhat well normally wins tournaments.

The problem with that, is that because each tournament is only 5 games, is that if a balanced list comes up against a non-balanced list that it is weak against (example the guard with mixed mech vets vs melta vets) the melta vets have a serious advantage, and will probably win the game. While the melta vet guy will probably not win the tournament, because the odds are he will play against a horde guy, he also ensured that the guy he knocked won't win the tournament either.

the point of forcing players to balance their lists artificially is that you don't have a guy bringing an all melta spam list, to ensure any mech players he fights against won't win the tournament. Thats not friendly play, thats downright nastyness. If everyone brings balanced lists, this doesn't happen.

Just because things will wash out over the course of 100 or so matchups does not mean you can rely on that to deter people from bringing their imbalanced lists... hence, you put comp scores in there to encourage them to balance in order to win. Otherwise, you have people bringing a rock, hoping to fight only scissors armies. If they don't, they can say "oh well, bad matchups" while the one or two good matchups for them they had are crushed.

If we had 100 games to play, I'd agree with you, comp is not needed.

whitedragon wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:Perhaps many of you are talking past each other or assuming that the other party desires/disdains comp for nefarious reasons. I think there is a common ground that everyone can agree on;

Playing unique armies in tournaments is a good/fun experience.
Playing cookie-cutter lists that consist of the same units on each table is a bad/boring experience.

If everyone can agree with that, then the discussion will be less personal and more focused on how to achieve it. Possibilities;

Cannot agree that playing "cookie-cutter" lists is boring/bad. Hence, the issue I imagine.

Really? That's pretty surprising to me, I honestly thought that variety in opponent lists would be something everyone would agree on. When I go play in a tournament, I hope for a few things;

1. I have fun
2. I don't ruin anyone's fun
3. I play a variety of interesting/different armies/lists

There's other reasons as well, such as the social aspect, getting a chance to see cool armies on display, etc...but I think that's all covered under my main 3. Mileage may vary though .

ageofegos, I agree with you on all 3 points.

If you have an idea on how to ensure all 3 of those points without a comp system, i'm all ears.

I like diversity in armies, and that is the goal of their comp system.

I played in the Adepticon Invitational last year and there were really only 3 armies represented: Chaos, Orks and Demons.

If you want your tournaments scene to devolve into nothing but the hardest armies winning, then that is the option that the tournament organizers will have to make, or they can choose to have some form of comp like they do in Oz. As players whatever they decide you will have to deal with it, or choose not to attend.

Edit: Are we all talking about comp in general, or the Aus. comp system that the original poster was talking about?

If we are talking about regular comp, I am generally against it. If we are talking about the Aus. comp system I am for it.

CT GAMER wrote:IF your list is codex legal play it.

If mine is codex legal then STFU ...

QFT

Comp is dead, just like seeing fully painted armies in tourneys. All dead!

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:IF your list is codex legal play it.

If mine is codex legal then STFU ...

QFT

Comp is dead, just like seeing fully painted armies in tourneys. All dead!

That is not quite true.

You need to get out of WI a little more.

America is too large to make such a generalization. Since you live in the mid-west they do not have comp (at least that is my experience in the Chicago area)

There are a lot of places where they still embrace comp. California is very comp friendly, and I hear the North East is as well, and those are the ones that I know about. For everyplace that has abandoned comp there are places that still embrace it.

Painting has seen a slight decline in importance, and some events have dropped it all together, but for the most part it is still a major factor in tournament scores.

yea, i've never been to a tournament outside the NY-PA-NJ region, so I really can't speak to how tournaments are held otherplaces... but in my regions, saying comp is dead is tantamount to heresy.

Horst wrote:ugh... the point of comp as I see it is not that you cannot run an all vets army.

sure you can run an all vets army. However, to get a good comp score, you cannot run a 6 vet mech list, where all 6 vet squads pack 3 melta guns. flamers and grenade launchers are both fairly good weapons.

the goal of comp is to encourage variation, not to ban certain types of lists. taking identical squads is a definite way to get a low comp score at a tournament.

Because in a real army, every unit is unique, amirite?

RustyKnight wrote:There are supposed to many more Guardsmen than Spehss Muhrens. Does that make playing IG more fluffy?

The idea of a Mech Vet army is NOT unfluffy. It just doesn't mesh with your idea of Imperial Guard.

This is exactly the problem with "fuffy" comp - it forces a single concept of the fluff on everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Horst wrote:
The problem with that, is that because each tournament is only 5 games, is that if a balanced list comes up against a non-balanced list that it is weak against (example the guard with mixed mech vets vs melta vets) the melta vets have a serious advantage, and will probably win the game. While the melta vet guy will probably not win the tournament, because the odds are he will play against a horde guy, he also ensured that the guy he knocked won't win the tournament either.

the point of forcing players to balance their lists artificially is that you don't have a guy bringing an all melta spam list, to ensure any mech players he fights against won't win the tournament. Thats not friendly play, thats downright nastyness. If everyone brings balanced lists, this doesn't happen.

Comp doesn't fix this - there will still be good and poor matchups.

It seems to me that there are only two ways to avoid this problems - mandatory army lists or leagues.

Okay, I'll bite.

Generally speaking I see two camps, those who believe anything legal should be allowed and those who believe there should be some restrictions due to reasons of 'fun', 'diversity' etc.

Personally I fall into the second camp (outside of 'Ardboys) because:

a) Too much importance is given to the metagame of list creation rather than the tabletop game
b) Those who do not excel at the metagame for whatever reason (not got the latest models, don't play the newest armies etc.) are handicapped.
c) The reduction in army types that are encountered reduces the variety on the table and it's generally more fun playing with and against a greater variety of models

However I don't agree with army comp scores for the simple reason that it is just an arbitrary extension of the metagame and it doesn’t do anything to address the root problem - it just jiggles it round a bit.

My preferred method would be to reduce the effect of the metagame and in particular the creation of all-powerful lists by having much more variation on the table, more (different) missions, more variation in the amount of terrain, more use of special rules and even more variation in the size of tables and deployment zones (+/- a few inches can make a huge difference). Of course this all has to be properly published beforehand

For example if players could end up playing on either an:
(i) objective capture mission on a crowed table with 2 first turns of night fighting
(ii) 3rd ed style 'breakout mission' on a more open table but with the attacker starting in reserve

These are just two examples I've thought up on the spot but hopefully illustrate the point, this sort of variation if properly done (which mine may not be ) can push people to use much more varied lists, and produce success for those who play with a greater variety of units/armies and are better at the table, without the need for arbitrary decision on how many similar units should be taken.

CT GAMER wrote:IF your list is codex legal play it.

If mine is codex legal then STFU ...

Darkness wrote:Comp limits fun. By forcing a comp on me you have hindered my concept of fun and fluff. Comp does nothing for balance, on changes what armies are on top. As for fluff it kills it too. The game spans 10k years. To say what I have isnt fluffy is to say that in 10k years of constant war, this formation never battled.

Gornall wrote:Arbitrary systems are arbitrary. Comp just allows for one more thing to be gamed and penalizes certain codicies more than others.

This.

well, what if I considered murder fun. Are laws that hinder my fun wrong?

Are you fething kidding me? lmao, you just compared the way I enjoy 40k to fething MURDER. You lose the thread. Step away from the keyboard, stand over in the corner and think hard about what you said.

As far as "selfish" goes, comp is pretty selfish, too. It's one person pretending to be a game designer and selfishly rewriting the rules of the game to fit his idea of how it "should" be played, and attempting to force me to play his way. Okay, maybe not "forcing", since I don't have to play in his bs comp tournament, but still.

the goal of comp is to encourage variation, not to ban certain types of lists.

And yet by penalizing those lists so that you auto-lose by showing up with them you pretty much are banning them. "You can take whatever you want, as long as you take what I tell you to."

This is why balanced lists that can handle each element somewhat well normally wins tournaments.

And the funny thing is this is exactly what Stelek promotes on his website: BALANCE. He writes lists that are built for all comers, a list you can take to a tournament and, if you know how to use it, stand a good chance of winning. He doesn't often promote specialized armies like you're talking about that do very well against certain lists and get curb stomped by others.

Yeah, something else a lot of you people don't understand. There is no "point and click", the list doesn't play itself. You can't just give someone who has no idea what they're doing a "Best Of" list and expect them to win every game without effort. Case in point, my Tau list at the moment is identical to Stelek's, except with more pathfinders and only one squadron of piranhas (I only have one squadron of them to begin with), and I never win games because I personally am not a very skilled player. Hell, I've got less than 30 games under my belt since I first started playing 40k in 2007, I just don't get to play very often and as they say, practice makes perfect.

But I'm using Stelek's invincible uber WAAC powergaming list! How can that be?!

Comp is dead, just like seeing fully painted armies in tourneys. All dead!

Then require armies to be fully painted in order to participate. I'm using an unpainted army and even I condone that.

It seems to me that there are only two ways to avoid this problems - mandatory army lists or leagues.

Yes, now this I agree with. If you're going to enforce bs like comp then why not go all the way and write up lists for the players to use that score max points? That way no one gets screwed over on comp scoring and you get what you want: everyone plays the game your way, or they don't play. None of this "Oh you can still play, but we'll dock you on sportsmanship and comp so you'll have no chance of getting to the top whatsoever. By the way, when the tournament is over we'll have to ban you since none of your opponents had any fun. Have fun, human trash!"

Horst wrote:http://www.daboyzgt.com/gt09/Final%20Comp.htm

comp used at the local tournament by me. gave fair scores imo.

Not really that much. The question ":would the judge want to voluntarily play the list seems more than a bit subjective to me...and has nothing to do with actual comp.

Comp shows that causal gamers don't like to lose.

I dislike the Oz comp system. And the little comments people make... when you take something against the unwritten rules.

Let's see, Comp, where do I stand on it?

Get rid of it. A legal list is just that, legal. A player should not be penalized for taking a legal list.
I took a look at the posted link Comp system. 12 out of 15 points are subjective, ie In the Judge's Opinion. But at least they posted their comp system so you know what to expect. Me, I'd field whatever I was going to field anyways and they can dock me points for whatever they think it's necessary.

Horst wrote:http://www.daboyzgt.com/gt09/Final%20Comp.htm

comp used at the local tournament by me. gave fair scores imo.

Why don't you just drop the charade and say
"You will receive 0-15 points depending on how much I like you."

Probably because confronting people gets you no where.

Shaman wrote:Comp shows that causal gamers don't like to lose.

Very nicely put.

There is a chunk of the gamer population that says "I play for fun," but really mean "I dont' want to update my army, my tactics, or anything to deal with changes, but I still want to win half my games."

Wow, some of you anti-comp folks are way too harsh. It’s purely up to the tournament organizer so if you don’t like it, don’t enter into the tournament. There, simple.

I could care less about comp or no comp but in my experience comp has brought more benefits than drawbacks. In the worst case scenario, it’ll cost you a few points. However, if you plan on playing a tournament in my area with unpainted models, be prepared to loose many points as well as being taunted/laughed at by everyone around you. Unpainted models are heresy around here.

No, void, we're just against a single individual and his or her subjective bias determining what is or is not "themed" or "Comped" within our army. GW used to use Comp in the US GTs. Then it went away, primarily because it had to be nearly totally subjective, ie in the judge's opinion, which opens a HUGE can of worms at that level, as well as allowing a judge's bias for or against certain armies/army builds to severely affect the score. Maybe the judge just doesn't like MechDar or NidZilla armies, so penalizes them. Or it has to be a strict checklist of number crunching items, such as more than 40% Troops, no more than 2 of this or that, etc etc. Problem there is that no single checklist is fair across the board to all armies. That's why (IMO) the ONLY criteria shold be, is it a legal army?

Unpainted I'll totally agree on. Feel free to bring them and play with them, I'm not going to turn you away due to that (as some do). But you're most likely going to get a 0 on your painting score. Most likely because conversions, etc are figured into "appearance" so you could get points there.

Regardless, for both painting and Comp, the standards and guidelines should be posted up front, where every attendee (to include potential attendees) can see them. No "secret squirrel" scoring. And if the majority of your scoring is going to be "In the Judge's opinion" (12 out of 15 in the linked example), give examples of what the judge thinks is compy and what is not. Otherwise only the local players know the system and how to build to it, giving them an unfair advantage in the tourney.