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MVBrandt wrote:
From my perspective as someone trying to establish and execute as FAIR a system for a tournament as possible, one that eliminates "random" where feasible is important - and herein lies the rub.

One way or another, a tournament's missions should be announced ahead of time. If straight basic KP is one of the missions, how does one prepare? If you do consider it in the build you bring ... will that decision benefit you?

Honestly, the answer is NEVER "yes."

I disagree. I always consider KP when I decide what to bring, and I always assume that I'm going to get one easy game because I consider it, and others don't. I'm more likely to consider KP than I am to consider the difference between 2 and 5 objectives, because I can always contest or kill thing on objectives, while using my big, hard-to-kill units to decisively hold the objectives I choose to hold.

You seem to think that my approach is sub-optimal, and it may be. That's not really the issue. If there are no KP games, then my approach is invalidated from the get-go.

Same applies to most other missions ASIDE from KP, and I have just as much problem w/ any mission where your planning is basically at the pure whim of random chance;
models and painting time cost far too much to subject players to such vagary.

Right, vagary is boring. Why not just issue everyone their 15 missile launchers and say go? Removing vagary is the same as removing choice. If you remove alternate means to win, then all people have to do is optimize the one means left to them.

Back in 4th ed, Bill Kim came up with a stealer shock list that won a couple of major events. He admitted that he had a very poor game against mech eldar, but you know, due to vagary, he never had to face mech eldar in those big events. Is that 'fair'? Sometimes, these vagaries are what makes for an interesting field to play against.

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EDIT - Redbeard, in reply to your last comment in reply to me ... I think most of the issue with KP is they put too much random variable in play, especially for the lesser and more average players who may unwittingly commit too much to moderating their list in "fear" of them. My concern lies not just with "those who win events b/c they're good at 40k regardless of mission," but the average paying player who deserves the best fair opportunity to prepare for an event. Not everyone is bright enough to prepare for an event with lists that disregard mission for all-around effectiveness, and brightness (or experience) have no bearing (or shouldn't) on the value of a person's hard-earned bucks (spent on models, armies, paints, and tourney fees).

Wait, now you're saying that the goal of changing the core rules isn't to ensure that the best player wins the event, but to create some sort of socialist system where all players get an equal chance to win (provided they play the mandated SW or Guard list). Sorry, I respect most of your positions on this stuff, but I think this last paragraph is completely wrong.

IMO, a tournament should reward skill, and soft-scores and side-events should be a part of the event in order to draw the less skilled players. You want lesser-skilled players to have a good time, and feel that their money was well-spent? Give away door prizes. Don't dumb down the event to make it "fair" - it's a competition. Michael Phelps doesn't have to wear a weight-belt when he swims to make it fair for his opponents.

Luck of the draw becomes a huge determining factor when you play standard kill points. That is the biggest problem that I see with them. Why would you want to detract from skill being the deciding factor in a tournament?

MVBrandt, Danny, and others, are taking the stance that removing KP is okay because the good players still win in spite of their disadvantage in those games.

That's not really what I said at all...

I don't really care one way or the other about kill points. I find that the notion that they somehow balance the game is completely misguided because MSU armies gain a new set of unique advantages in KP missions that completely outweigh the "disadvantage" of potentially coughing up more points. In the end, it's just another scenario where taking a MSU comp grants a significant advantage, just like it does in objective missions.

Playing a MSU army allows you to target more units per turn over a low KP build. In almost all cases I'll take the MSU army over the low KP one even knowing I'm going into a standard KP mission. I consistently find that KP scenarios are the easiest to win with my mech IG simply because I can (usually) reliably kill or disable a much larger chunk of my opponent's army than they can do to me in return. It's an advantage that can be leveraged and which compounds over the course of the game.

Danny Internets wrote:
Playing a MSU army allows you to target more units per turn over a low KP build. In almost all cases I'll take the MSU army over the low KP one even knowing I'm going into a standard KP mission. I consistently find that KP scenarios are the easiest to win with my mech IG simply because I can (usually) reliably kill or disable a much larger chunk of my opponent's army than they can do to me in return. It's an advantage that can be leveraged and which compounds over the course of the game.

Yes, in many cases. I agree with your assessment in general. But against a dedicated KP-denial list, you're not going to have that. I beat a mech-guard army (played by a solid player) with my KP-denial footdar at the last tournament I played in. It's one thing to claim you can kill or disable an opponent's army. It's another thing to face armies without targets. Harlies+eldrad+maugan ra is a lot of points that you're simply not getting to shoot, and I only need one unit to survive the game. But, that's an extreme, and it's also an example of what someone -could- do. I'm not claiming it's an optimal list, nor am I asking for a detailed explanation of why your mech-guard would roll over that list. Let's agree that it's not a good list (I stated as much in my battle report with it), and that there are ways to defeat it. The point is, by going to extremes, it makes the job of the MSU player much much harder. If I can win the game by killing just four of your units, do you really think that's not an advantage to me, especially when some of your units are AV 10 on the sides...

And that's really the key. If you're running 21 KP and I'm running 7, you may eliminate my points faster. But, if I can keep one unit alive, I only need to kill seven of yours, and you're probably running a few that are easy to get. You have to table me, and that's harder (especially on tables with some percentage of LoS blocking terrain and an opponent who is really just seeking to keep one model alive at the end of the game) than a lot of people make it out to be.

I guess that's why I like KP. It allows for alternate strategies. They may not be optimal strategies, but the game is pretty boring if everyone plays optimally all the time. (Another chess analogy; it's a fairly well established notion that the optimal opening for white is 1: e4 (Move kings pawn forward 2, for those unfamiliar with the notation), yet there are many games where people don't play that. If you do the same thing all the time, it's just dull).

In the semi finals of Aard boyz I would have finished third if the third mission used victory points but because it used KP my opponents one surviving Land Raider stopped me getting a massecar instead I got a minor loss with my Dark Eldar. He had 7 total KP in his army and I had 18. All he killed was my Raiders and Scourges. It was an eye opener about 5th edition balance.

This thread sure took oof at a tangent

I had a great time - next time I won't go so easy on you, Mike

Redbeard wrote:Yes, in many cases. I agree with your assessment in general. But against a dedicated KP-denial list, you're not going to have that. I beat a mech-guard army (played by a solid player) with my KP-denial footdar at the last tournament I played in. It's one thing to claim you can kill or disable an opponent's army. It's another thing to face armies without targets. Harlies+eldrad+maugan ra is a lot of points that you're simply not getting to shoot, and I only need one unit to survive the game. But, that's an extreme, and it's also an example of what someone -could- do. I'm not claiming it's an optimal list, nor am I asking for a detailed explanation of why your mech-guard would roll over that list. Let's agree that it's not a good list (I stated as much in my battle report with it), and that there are ways to defeat it. The point is, by going to extremes, it makes the job of the MSU player much much harder. If I can win the game by killing just four of your units, do you really think that's not an advantage to me, especially when some of your units are AV 10 on the sides...

And that's really the key. If you're running 21 KP and I'm running 7, you may eliminate my points faster. But, if I can keep one unit alive, I only need to kill seven of yours, and you're probably running a few that are easy to get. You have to table me, and that's harder (especially on tables with some percentage of LoS blocking terrain and an opponent who is really just seeking to keep one model alive at the end of the game) than a lot of people make it out to be.

It doesn't sound like that would be a very fun game really. Encouraging negative play (IE not engaging) is not something that should be done in the game.

There are a lot of debates on KP vs VPs popping up. Here are Mike and I debating it in the 11th company forums:

http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/blackmoor-teach-us-how-mission-tournaments-favors-msu-armies-t987.html

Alex, I brought your name up and I would like to know your thoughts on KPs vs VP.


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DooDoo wrote:Luck of the draw becomes a huge determining factor when you play standard kill points. That is the biggest problem that I see with them. Why would you want to detract from skill being the deciding factor in a tournament?

As far as luck-of- the-draw matchups, there are a lot of bad match ups with every army, and luck of the draw is always going to be a factor. At the ‘Ard Boyz this year in game #3 of the first round I went up against a genestealer horde army with my foot elder. The mission was the one where you had to win by 5 more kill points than your opponent to get a massacre. I had about 15 KP in my army and my opponent was a tryanid army that had 8. Bad match up for me, but I still managed to get the massacre. Bad match-ups happen, but that is where your play has to make up for whatever disadvantage you may have (mission, army, terrain, etc.) no matter what it might be.

I remain 100% in agreement with Redbeard.

There are multiple competitive builds which use a low # of KPs, including Ork Nobs, Seer Council, SM/BA/SW terminator spam, and IG foot blob horde.

By eliminating KPs or going to a 5x5 system (in which an MSU army can hide some or all of their designated units but a low-KP army really cannot), a TO substantially changes the mission balance of 5th ed 40k. They also render irrelevant or change the worth of some unit or army special rules (such as Lone Wolves' special KP rule, and SM & IG armies' ability to change their number of units at deployment).

FYI I don't like the 5x5 System ... I really don't like "nominate 5 kill points," as it's TOO encouraging of MSU, which I'm not personally a blatant proponent of.

Just as I'm not a fan of using KP to tool down a list ... key note here that things such as those lists you mention Mannahnin, become BETTER in most cases in a no-KP-mission environment, b/c you're free to take a level of MSU to support them and go after things like objectives, or be used for movement shens and the like.

Nobz, seer council, termiespam, foot blob ... they all have strengths, none of which are infringed without KP as a mission.

Assertions abound! From me and, well, everyone else. Is this merry-go-round tiresome yet?



And Alex (Everliving) - I can't wait to play you again; one of my favorite games of 40k ever. If only KP had been in play in that mission it totally would have made it ... wait ... no your army was great with or without it

Hey Alan.

I much prefer kps to vps. Yes it does mean that some games can be heavily influenced by bad matchups but I don't think thats an inherent problem, rather its just a part of the game. Vps have their place to determine tie breakers. Also, to clarify, I also really didn't like the 'pick 5 kps and only 3 can be transports' victory condition that bfs ran.

As to my list, I had 13 kill points but only 2 of them (the razorbacks) were easy to get. It didn't feel like a high kp army because it just didn't give many up in the games I played.

So, what are all the different ideas being used? It is clear that some people feel KPs are necessary for a variety of reasons, and some feel that they hurt the game to the point where they shouldn't be used or should be significantly curtailed.

So far here's what I've seen:

-Normal KPs
-Pick 5 KP system (Battle for Salvation)
-Win by X KP system (Mike mentioned this in another thread)
-VPs (NOVA Open)

What about % of opponent's kill points? They have 12, you need to get 6 to win?

% of KPs (like VP) fails to fulfill the purpose of KP; which is to counterbalance high-KP armies' superior capabilities in objective missions.

skyth wrote:It doesn't sound like that would be a very fun game really. Encouraging negative play (IE not engaging) is not something that should be done in the game.

IMHO this right here is the crux of the issue for many people regarding KP or VP, and some other mission types as well. 'Negative play', which already shows bias (negative is bad and positive is good normally right?) is neither a good nor bad thing for the game. It is a gaming tactic for gaming missions, and if it can be successful then so be it! We need more than one way to play the game in order to have a robust game experience!

Case in point, take an Eldar reserve list. This list will win a game by hiding all game in reserve, and at the last possible moment swooping in to contest objectives. This list can, and has, won games without firing a single shot. If someone is not prepared to deal with such a tactic, and can not figure out how to cope with such a tactic, will they remember the game fondly? Or will they cry 'Cheezy Eldar! Stupid Mission!' I think that says a lot about what kind of player you are.

In KP, imagine a list that is really good in KP, and not as good in other matchups. As MVBrandt says,

MCBrandt wrote:Just as I'm not a fan of using KP to tool down a list ... key note here that things such as those lists you mention Mannahnin, become BETTER in most cases in a no-KP-mission environment, b/c you're free to take a level of MSU to support them and go after things like objectives, or be used for movement shens and the like.

Basicly, instead of being good in one aspect of the game, we should change the list so that this particular list is more well rounded. EXCEPT, what if one does not want well rounded? Ever play the 6 raider BA list at 2k points? About as well rounded as a rubix cube. These lopsided games are what defines the tourney scene!

In closing, I am 'all about' KP. I think it is a fantastic mission type. I am not 'all about' very small round tournies that, regardless of mission, revolve more about good pairings and dice than player skill. MVBrandt in particular, if you faced a reserve list that, due to mission and the opponent playing the tactic well, caused you to take a loss, would you a) be upset that the mission was included or b) think about changing your list/tactics to deal with such a match up in the future, or c) say that randomness in a single elim bracket ment that lady luck did not favor you, better luck next time?

Reading this thread, there seem to be two main points being raised:

1) Kill points are intended to "balance" against MSU armies that have advantages normally, and even larger ones in objective missions.

2) MSU style armies generally win despite being handicapped in Kill Point missions.

I think that Kill Points were added to deal with the ramifications of 5th and the newer codices: things like dirt cheap, reasonably durable transports, and the ability of even mundane squads getting a 3+ cover save nearly at will. As more and more codices make the leap to 5th, really only Tau are hamstrung by kill points explicitly

.

Polonius wrote:

I think that Kill Points were added to deal with the ramifications of 5th and the newer codices: things like dirt cheap, reasonably durable transports, and the ability of even mundane squads getting a 3+ cover save nearly at will. As more and more codices make the leap to 5th, really only Tau are hamstrung by kill points explicitly

.

Is the dominance of IG and Space Wolves less in tournaments with KP?

No, which shows that KPs aren't enough to really balance the game, not an unfair restriction on the meta game.

In closing, I am 'all about' KP. I think it is a fantastic mission type. I am not 'all about' very small round tournies that, regardless of mission, revolve more about good pairings and dice than player skill. MVBrandt in particular, if you faced a reserve list that, due to mission and the opponent playing the tactic well, caused you to take a loss, would you a) be upset that the mission was included or b) think about changing your list/tactics to deal with such a match up in the future, or c) say that randomness in a single elim bracket ment that lady luck did not favor you, better luck next time?

I'm not sure what mission in general you're referring to - I don't have a problem winning basically any mission, my own tournament record as the rock upon which I stand, I guess ... as Redbeard pointed out earlier, it's hard to judge the merits of a mission upon the success or failure of proven tournament winners at it.

That's to say, just b/c Future Hall of Fame Hitter A hits home runs off Future Hall of Fame Pitcher B's amazing curveball, you can't judge that the curveball is bad (or good) ... if that analogy works.

The KP vs. VP debate isn't "winnable," IMO ... there's too much "strong" opinion on both sides, without enough evidence. We collected a great deal of evidence on the subject as best we could from running leagues and tournaments for several years with VP calculated but KP the mission in full play, cross-ref'ed with army lists and # of kp possible, etc. It didn't have any material or statistical bearing on results or army lists over time - good players won regardless of their # of KP and the occurrence of the KP mission against higher or lower KP total opponents.

With that in consideration, numerous average and sub-average players would negatively impact the success of their army lists by moderating them with KP in mind, taking things like three landspeeders in a squadron instead of 3 of them solo ... which is a massive nerfbat to your own army, and to the tactical depth of a game, all in hopes of not giving up as many KP.

So ... the big questions, to ME (since I am biased by personal experience, playtest, and the data I have accumulated) ... are as follows ...

1) Biggest Question - Does NOT having KP in some capacity as a mission materially and negatively impact the attendance at your event?

2) Does the inclusion of KP as a mission materially and negatively impact the competitiveness of lists across the breadth of a tournament's attending crowd (that's to say, I believe it is fact that the superior players really aren't impacted either way)?

3) Were KP included in the sample book missions as a materially critical component of the "core" rules?

3b) Were KP included in order to "balance" cheap transports, or simply to make calculating results easier than VP (a statement that has been made by some GW personnel)?

There are other questions that can be made, but the above are important; I would argue there are plenty of BETTER missions out there than KP, but certain answers to the above questions would make inclusion of KP in your tournament formatting absolutely critical. The value of #1 above others is why we've now accumulated about 60 test games and growing (we'll aim to get to the 1000+ we had for the original 3 NOVA goals before we settled on them) utilizing the "win-by-X" KP approach.

For purposes of NOVA goal creation, the ability to "force ties" on primary or secondary goal to win on 2nd/3rd/4th tiebreakers is an important component, which is why we would have a more "tie-able" KP mission ... tactical depth in our mission format is established not by having w/l/d and tiered battle points accruals, but by having a variety of "active" missions every round where tying the primary forces a w/l decision based on the 2ndary, and thus ensures cross-codex "balance" by enabling codices that struggle more with things such as objective missions to force ties and take wins off the 2ndary or tertiary (for those who don't know, to explain why we're testing "win-by-x" KP instead of just using straight KP, which is much less likely to be draw-able tactically).

MVBrandt wrote:
1) Biggest Question - Does NOT having KP in some capacity as a mission materially and negatively impact the attendance at your event?

I can't see any mission that would impact attendance at an event, really. People show up to play. 'ard boyz had a KP mission that was announced well before the event, and still had huge turnout. Nova announced in advance that there wouldn't be KP, and had a huge turnout.


I think that your other questions yield a lot of 'I don't know' and 'no, they're not different' responses. And also that, really, they're irrelevant.

Whether they're a part of 5th edition to make it easy to count, or to balance transports, or because of something else entirely, the fact is, they are part of 5th edition.

In absence of a really good reason to remove them, an event advertising itself as a 5th edition Warhammer 40k event should strive to play with the rules defined for 5th edition 40k.

If your data shows that the inclusion, or not, of KP is irrelevant regarding who wins the event, then keep them in. It doesn't change the outcome of the game, and it keeps the event true to 5th ed 40k.


There are numerous small stupid rules that could just be brainfarts by the designers. Should we change them all? Should we get rid of wound allocation shenanigans? Should we declare that S5 is a better cutoff for defensive weapons? God forbid, should we adjust the cost of Long Fangs (which would go a long way to making tournaments less boring than they have been for the last few months).

We don't do those things, because as much as we can all see that maybe the designer's intent isn't being met, we're still all playing 40k(5e). For better or worse, we accept the rules of the game, and make our lists and our strategies with those rules in mind. We bring random meltabombs on thunderwolves, not because random meltabombs are good, but because they let us spread wounds around. We buy heavy stubbers on chimeras. We field 15 longfangs (YAWN).

And some of us design armies to take advantage of KP, and how the metagame has trended towards armies with 20+ KP in them. Some of us realize that if we bring 5 KP, we get an easy metagame matchup somewhere. You might claim that's suboptimal, and maybe it is, but it's my choice to bring something besides guard or space wolves. You might claim that's unfair to whoever gets matched up against me. Too bad. I claim that it's unfair to all of us that Long Fangs are as stupid as they are, and you're not changing that either.

Agree with Redbeard, again.

Except about his first point; I know that the lack of KP missions was a factor in some of my club deciding not to attend NOVA this year. Including myself.

To Redbeard: While eloquent, I'm not sure any of that really hits on most of the questions asked in the above - it also continues to kind of ignore your own argument about good players and their relevance to missions and game.

Capture and Control is a part of the game, but one well recognized as "poor" in terms of mission value, and rarely used in any tournament ... and keep in mind my own outlook revolves around tournaments and the missions they use; I'll play w/e in pick-up and casual games.

Objectives is another one - do you randomize d3+2 for every unique board? Why not? Kill Points is as much a randomization by table as it would be to d3+2 the objectives, b/c the difficulty of the match-up entirely revolves around a random data point.

Either way - are KP a part of the core rules, or a mission to play USING the rules? I tend to view ALL missions as the latter - objectives to accomplish VIA the rules of 5th edition. Something to do other than lining up models and shooting each other

Different strokes for different folks - again, opinion and assertion, which is a hard place to bargain from, and an easy place for lesser internet tools to lose track of mutual respect and devolve into RABBLE RABBLE land. Not a place I particularly enjoy.

I'm not really going to claim ANYTHING a "proven" player does is suboptimal - I'm not one of the net-tactica guys who runs about proclaiming my outlook as "best." In fact, I try not to even apply my personal outlook, so much as collate the inputs of a lot of other sources. Either way - those questions above are what I'm trying to personally answer in terms of whether to apply KP and how to future goals/missions for the NOVA ... passed that I don't have a major level of concern; if I have a 22 KP army and someone brings a 5 KP army, I'm confident in my ability to out-KP and/or table them ... and am not perturbed by KP ... but as you stated so long ago in this thread: skilled players shouldn't be the barometer by which we determine the merits or value of inclusion of ANY given mission, b/c most of us will do well regardless.

To Man: I know that about your clubmates - talked w/ Alex about it at the BFS. The widespread enjoyment of KP by certain players, many of them very competitive and top notch people, is why we're working on a KP goal that fits in with our tiered "force-able ties" goal/mission format. Not b/c I personally love or hate KP, but b/c inclusiveness and effective application of the game to a tournament is what we're going for.

MVBrandt wrote:To Redbeard: While eloquent, I'm not sure any of that really hits on most of the questions asked in the above - it also continues to kind of ignore your own argument about good players and their relevance to missions and game.

I didn't answer the questions you asked, because I'm not sure that the answers matter.

If KP are hugely important to the outcome of games, you should definitely keep them in, as their removal would alter the outcome of the tournament.

If KP are not hugely important to the outcome of games, then it doesn't matter if you keep them or not, but it does matter for keeping the event 5e. When a change doesn't make a difference, the default behaviour should be to maintain as much of the written game as possible. Making changes that have no impact is poor design.

While the reasoning is different, it doesn't matter what the answer to the initial question is, the answer is the same - in my opinion. Taking away an entire class of list archetypes (KP-denial) in exchange for making mediocre players feel like they have a fair chance simply is a bad trade-off.

Same for your question 3 and 3b: Whether they're there as a critical component of the game or as a minor point isn't as important as the fact that they are there, and that the fact that they are there enables a list archetype that would not be possible if they were not.

Capture and Control is a part of the game, but one well recognized as "poor" in terms of mission value, and rarely used in any tournament ... and keep in mind my own outlook revolves around tournaments and the missions they use; I'll play w/e in pick-up and casual games.

I actually think that's a poor decision too. Capture and Control is reviled because it leads to ties. Americans hate ties, it is why they don't get soccer, and why the NHA changed their games to avoid ties. But I think Capture and Control is actually the best mission for really testing player skill. Most average players have problems winning Capture and Control. To win the mission, you need to really judge how much your opponent is sending versus holding, and make those same decisions yourself. Those players who actually win the C&C mission tend to be the players who go on to win events. As a true skill-tester mission, I don't know that it's not the best.