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.

I've voted No.
Frankly I disagree with the perception that lists are broken, but that's my opinion. My reasoning is simply... for every list that is Over Powered, there is another list that will tear it to shreds.

Since we're sharing thoughts...
I've always wanted to see a "side board" style added to the tournament play. All still with in the force organization chart obviously but doing so would allow you to prepare for those "lop sided" armies.
Those of you not familiar with my reference, a tournament is 1850, you make a list but have (arbitrary) 150 extra points to bring other units. Before the game you can swap units out for the opponent you face with the new combination having to equal 1850. The wargear is unchangeable, only the units. You could, of course, never have 3 HQ choices.

I'm of the opinion that this would allow specialized units such as vespid, swooping hawks, and other units deemed non-tournament, to make more of an impact.

List building would also get more complex as you would now have to know more about your opponents potentials in the Codex and have a better understanding of your own Race.

I have railed for years about including Sideboards.

25% of the points can be spent on a sideboard that must be picked prior to the event.

It adds a bit of depth to the game, as you do not have to be completely shoehorned into a certain list, its more reactive.

While good in concept, Sideboards are a problem because it opens the door to forgetfulness and/or cheatyness. Basically, it becomes a second thing that the organizer and opponent need to validate.

For expediency, I prefer single lists. Tho I'd hate to have played a Chaos Player with a sideboard of Chaos Gifts for his various Characters...

John
not tryin to single you out but I don't think it would be another thing that they would have to double check. Its still just one list but with a unit or 2 not in the main list.

Simply imagine making a list for 1850, and then having another 175 points lying around. Just like you would normally make a list this is another unit that just didn't make the cut.

I was trying to be specific in that you COULDN"T change your current units simply replace them with another. It's tricky because in MTG you are replacing card for card where in 40k its point for point. a Unit you will drop may be 200pts for a unit that is only 175.

Sounds kinda silly but let's use orks for example.
Their elites are roughly the same points.

I'm playing against eldar... I bring a unit of 12 Lootas. Next round I'm playing chaos so I swap the 12 Lootas with my 12 Tankbustas.

I'm of the opinion that no matter what arbitrary restrictions you set in place, there will always be a number of builds that are perceived to outperform the pack. So sure, FOC restrictions, pre-built lists, or sideboards are a fine way to 'shake things up', but they don't 'FIX' the tournament scene. They just reward people for finding new powerbuilds under your made up rules.

I'm not interested in fixing the scene, I think it's fine. But we're tangenting into comp scores, and I've got some ideas on comp that have made for good tournaments in the past.

A lot of the problems with comp scoring systems that I've encountered usually deal with the single score trying to do too much at once. A single number from 0-10 that judges how strong the army is, how it's theme matches the fluff, how fun it would be to play against, how much duplication is present, how many troops choices it took, etc... This score could really be anything for any list and have some sort of bizarro justification. In the end, it's useless.

The first important part is separating what you want each final score/award to be representative of.
-Best General should be won by the guy who wins the most, with an edge given to the guy who does so with a 'weaker' list. You don't aim to punish the guys who bring power-lists, but if someone playing grey knights is tied for 1st battlepoints with a nidzilla player, the grey knights guy is obviously the best general of that day.

-Best Painted should be won by the guy who has the best paint job with an edge to the guy who's army also exemplifies the themes of 40k. Theme is really all about appearance.

-Best sportsmanship should go to the guy who was voted the most fun to play against, with an edge going to the guy who brought the most fun list.

-Best overall is simply adding these 3 together.

List construction enters all 3 scores here in different facets.

List Power - is a 0-10 that is added to battle points with 0 being a list purely designed to win at all costs, and 10 being something totally bizarre that you can't imagine will actually win any games at all.

List Theme - again 0-10 added to the final paint score. 0 being directly contradictory to GW fluff (Like Sisters of battle with mutants or Slaanesh with Khorne), and 10 is basically a list derived from a novel or fluff excerpt.

List Fun - 0-10 added to sportsmanship, is based on how much fun the players list is going to be to play against. 0 being a list that is designed to invalidate entire portions of an opponents list (all skimmer, all AV14, all troop, all behind blocked LOS) probably also saddled with a lot of repetition, and 10 is a list that has unusual fun choices (like Daemonhosts!) with a large variety of units, weaknesses, and strengths. Yes, Necrons are at a disadvantage here, did you really expect to win 'Most fun to play against' with Necrons?

These are best if judged by competent judges who will discuss the decisions with the players, but can be handled by the players if you really want to see some drama.

A typical GT type event with 4 rounds would have:
0-80 battle, with 0-10 'List Power' added.
0-20 painting, with 0-10 'List Theme' added.
0-20 sports, with 0-10 'List Fun' added.

Overall 0-150, with List selection (or Comp) being up to 30 points of that.

Moz wrote:I'm of the opinion that no matter what arbitrary restrictions you set in place, there will always be a number of builds that are perceived to outperform the pack.

And THATS the reason that you cant "fix" the tournament scene. This isn't really a tournament game anyways.

If you go play in tournamens for 40K then you would be wise to expect to see some stuff that isn't quite kosher.

Its not the tournaments that need to be fixed, but 40K.

Yes tournaments are broken, and I think most are missing the point, they are broken and it is not because of the rules or armies or compsoition, they are broken because of the people the judges and the scoring. 3 points:

(1) Awards aren't for what they are suppose to be. Giving away a best overall award and including subjective points for opponents painting and opponents sports is meaningless, of course most people who loose are going to ding comp, sports and paint, its just human nature. It needs to be fixed. Best general by game points, best painted by judged council and peoples choice for painting are the only 3 awards that make any sense, big events should have places 1 2 and 3. Painting and theme shouldnt hurt or help your generalship score. Sportsmanship points and awards are just random sillyness.

(2) Judges don't judge. With the exception of Adepticon and their pre emptive faq, judges don't really judge. For example, a disagreement arrises, a pair of players call a judge, one players is wrong, the wrong player looses the game, then he detracts the scores from the player who was right (About the call). Essentially the judge didn't judge, he just guided the game and then the bitter player Bolo'd the other guy! Thats not a judgement! If a judge is called, and you are in the wrong, you ought to loose sports! Till sports points are removed this will always be a problem when prepared players catch people (bitter weasels I like to think) who don't know the rules.

(3) The way to balance the game is not with comp, it's with missions. Telling people what they can bring is nothing but arogant pretentiousness when thats what the whole game is about. The best equalizer of all the 40k armies is mission! Adepticon does a great job of this by writing their own, and they probably have the best events ever! All the lists have a weakness in missions, and that's where to hit them with balance. Its a paradigm issue. It's also easier for organizers and doesnt inhibit the players ability to come with whatever they want.

IMO creating comp rules, rewriting the rulebook, or imposign extra sports comp, is inhernetly subjective and fanboyish in most cases. Get to the heart of the matter, give the right awards away make empirical judgements and use balancing mission design!

Tell that to Bill Kim getting perfect battle and winning a GT with superb sportsmanship scores.

Only those who use sportsmanship as a weapon see it as abusive.

I think the problem is the percentage of points. Painting when maxed out still counts for 2 massacres in GTs. The paint score should be adjusted along with battle to put a higher emphasis of battle around 60% of the points, 20% sportsmanship, 15% painting, and 5% comp.

If you want a tournament thats all battle and nothing else, theres always the ard boyz, gladiator, and theres nothing wrong with asking your store to do an all battle tournament once in a while.

Best overall represents someone who has done well in all aspects of the hobby, is a great person to play against, and wins his games.

the judging issue is regional and depends on tournaments. I was at the OWNED tournament and the judges were very responsive and gave their interpretations on the game rather than telling people to d6 it. I prefer that style and Id rather have a bad call against me than to d6 it.

thehod wrote:Tell that to Bill Kim getting perfect battle and winning a GT with superb sportsmanship scores. Only those who use sportsmanship as a weapon see it as abusive.

OK, Bill Kim,... uh what am I telling him again? How about Good Job sir!

Sportsmanship points are usually bitter vengeance denials or sympathy points for defeating people or for their bad luck, it's an easily manipulated bogus system. But hey, since your on the Wrecking Crew I'm sure you're use to your team mates manipulating it.

thehod wrote:I think the problem is the percentage of points. Painting when maxed out still counts for 2 massacres in GTs. The paint score should be adjusted along with battle to put a higher emphasis of battle around 60% of the points, 20% sportsmanship, 15% painting, and 5% comp.

OK, so you agree it ought to have less effect. Does the team with the best uniform at the superbowl get extra points at the end of the game?

thehod wrote:If you want a tournament thats all battle and nothing else, theres always the ard boyz, gladiator, and theres nothing wrong with asking your store to do an all battle tournament once in a while.

I wouldn't advocate a tournament with all battle points and nothing else. Just giving awards for what was earned, as I described. As an added note Hardboy missions are very interesting. (Custom)

thehod wrote:Best overall represents someone who has done well in all aspects of the hobby, is a great person to play against, and wins his games.

Best overall indicates thestatistical innevitability of at least 1 guy to get a reasonably fair shake from some people he beat. Tell all the other undefeated guys at the tourney why they didn't win anything though...

thehod wrote:...the judging issue is regional and depends on tournaments. I was at the OWNED tournament and the judges were very responsive and gave their interpretations on the game rather than telling people to d6 it. I prefer that style and Id rather have a bad call against me than to d6 it.

Kudos to the OWNED GUYS! Totally agree, that sounds like a good event. Certainly we can agree on the D6 thing being ridiculous.

biztheclown wrote:“Except for the Troop category, no army list may contain duplicates of any Unit Type in a single Force Organization category.”

To me, this is really two questions. Are tournaments broken? And is this a good solution?

Tournaments tend to be broken by their very nature. The goal of any tournament is to figure out what is the most powerful unit or combinations of units and then cram as many of those into a list as possible with the points and force org chart you have to work with. So while the limiting of duplicate units will remove nid zilla and not really affect eldar (serpents come from troop choices and heavy can take a falcon and a fire prism still) what it will do is show the real imbalances inherent in the various codexes. Its quite simply a fact that some codexes have much stronger choices than others in certain areas. Basic orc boyz are very very good troop choices where as armies like the tau are somewhat lacking on good troop options (or if they do have a good troop choice, it dictates the way the army will have to be played).

Implementing the changes you propose will change the scenery at the tournament quite a bit, but after a go around or possibly two, things are going to settle back down with 2-3 different power builds ruling the tournament scene once again. These will probably be different than the ones we see now so that in itself may make it worthwhile; however, getting bowled over by the green orc tide will get just as boring as being murdered by nid zilla or mech eldar soon enough.

All that aside though, I think the most broken thing about tournaments is the time limits. I've seen pleanty of games where the game only goes to turn 3 or 4 and then gets called. That and pleanty of games where things were very rushed and there was no time to really think or stratagize on the battle field. This in general favors fast armies that do a lot of damage early in the game since things that are more effective later on may never even get in the game. This is part of the reason why escilation is such a bad thing for tournaments.

Augustus wrote: If a judge is called, and you are in the wrong, you ought to loose sports!

Not when the judge rules by unstated house rules that differ from the published rules.

Sure Skyth, if it was an unadressed call, like DS onto friendly models or something...

But what about when the judge has to make a rule about something that's in the book/faq/codex? Think someone should still be able to ding an opponent for that?

(Broken)

What I mean is that there are a lot of 40k players that decide that they don't like a rule, so they don't play by that rule, regardless of how clear the rule it (True line of sight, Fleeting jetbikes, Marines with heavy weapons and bolters, etc).

These become 'house rules' that I've had the misfortune of a judge ruling against me several times in a couple different places with rules that go against the written rules.

So I'm against sports being docked automatically if a judge is called, besides the fact that by calling a judge, likely your opponent is going to dock you anyways.

I dont believe in docking points just because the judge was called. We all have rules arguments in nearly every game of 40K even the friendly ones.

jfrazell wrote:Someone would have to show me how a Nid player would have significant anti-vehicle in V5 under this. Rending is nerfed. That leaves MC's and carnies correct? So are we saying Nids would have have at most, 1 MC HQ, 1 MC dakkafex, and 1 MC carnifex?

What would Nid HS be reduced to: 1 fex and a biovore?

What about Tau? they would have maximum access to two units for HS.

Necrons-monolith and HDs? (or are HD's something else)

The chicks with sticks would be reduced to 1 exorcist and what else?

But of course marines and chaos marines retain three effective HS options. On that basis alone the proposal is unfair.

Replying on the Nids front... no not really.

Nid HS could comprise of 1 Fex, 1 brood of Biovores, 1 brood of Zoanthropes. The Zoanthropes are better @ punching tanks anyway.
Also the Nids Elite choice could be a S8 Barbed Strangler or S9/S10 CC fex with running.

By the way, I really don't like the restrictions but would certainly agree to play under them for the fun of the game & challenge.

The problem in 40K with spammed lists doesn’t come simply from poor points balances. There are certainly units that are so overpriced you can’t take them in a competitive army (possessed, flash gitz) but nothing in the game is underpriced to the extent that just taking one unit gives you a significant advantage. Sure, a carnifex is a solid unit but it’s the effect of having six of them that leads to dominant armies. One falcon is similarly an expensive unit, but it isn’t beyond good players to stun it and avoid it’s payload. It’s three falcons that will overwhelm your AT, and setup in such a way that you cannot avoid all possible payloads.

This doesn’t get solved through tightening a unit value or two, it gets solved by creating a tactical environment where a unit, no matter how underpriced it is, cannot perform the functions of other parts of the list. Right now a dakkafex can lay down decent fire against infantry and tanks, can sit on an objective and survive decent punishment, and can advance up the field and take an enemy objective. A falcon can shoot up infantry and light vehicles, and a harlie payload can slice through heavy tanks and skimmers alike. So why not take three?

In FoW there are plenty of units with points values that just make me shake my head. You can put small units of german troops on the board for a few points and they are almost impossible to dislodge from an objective. But that’s all the unit can do. If you want to destroy significant parts of the enemy or advance and seize objectives you need to take artillery, AT guns, tanks and mechanised infantry. As a result, there isn’t anywhere near the spam problem you see in 40k. Because everything has a distinct role, taking a lot of one specific unit means your army will be incapable of doing everything necessary to win.

40K will never fix the problem with cheesed out lists until different elements operate sufficiently differently.

sebster wrote:The problem in 40K with spammed lists doesn’t come simply from poor points balances. There are certainly units that are so overpriced you can’t take them in a competitive army (possessed, flash gitz) but nothing in the game is underpriced to the extent that just taking one unit gives you a significant advantage. Sure, a carnifex is a solid unit but it’s the effect of having six of them that leads to dominant armies. One falcon is similarly an expensive unit, but it isn’t beyond good players to stun it and avoid it’s payload. It’s three falcons that will overwhelm your AT, and setup in such a way that you cannot avoid all possible payloads.

This doesn’t get solved through tightening a unit value or two, it gets solved by creating a tactical environment where a unit, no matter how underpriced it is, cannot perform the functions of other parts of the list. Right now a dakkafex can lay down decent fire against infantry and tanks, can sit on an objective and survive decent punishment, and can advance up the field and take an enemy objective. A falcon can shoot up infantry and light vehicles, and a harlie payload can slice through heavy tanks and skimmers alike. So why not take three?

In FoW there are plenty of units with points values that just make me shake my head. You can put small units of german troops on the board for a few points and they are almost impossible to dislodge from an objective. But that’s all the unit can do. If you want to destroy significant parts of the enemy or advance and seize objectives you need to take artillery, AT guns, tanks and mechanised infantry. As a result, there isn’t anywhere near the spam problem you see in 40k. Because everything has a distinct role, taking a lot of one specific unit means your army will be incapable of doing everything necessary to win.

40K will never fix the problem with cheesed out lists until different elements operate sufficiently differently.

clap, clap, clap, clap. I agree.

jfrazell wrote:Lets pull away from the direct Mkerr attacks shall we? Its not productive.

As noted, I don't believe it helps, other than to help insure a further plethora of marine players. The only way to really work it is: let everyone do what they are going to do; or have one single standardized list with no deviation. It takes the list making right out of the game.

OTT but here's a test:
-Are there any non-marine players that support the MKerr proposal?

(I know I'ma couple days late here, but cut a guy some slack...)

I play orks for tourneys, and it sounds...intriguing. I haven't math-hammered it, but it looks like it has potential. It sure would make some of my opponents happy, me not fielding dual shock attack guns and a total of 5 pies... And on the other end of that, my 1750 list is about 40% troops, with 3 different elites choices, so its pretty balanced.

As an additional note, I'm a big fan of running sideboards... the way I'd do it would be a tad different though... 1850 game? you write a 1400 pt "core list" with 2 or 3 different 450 point sideboards, which you can choose arbitrarily depending on who you face. Obviously all typed and checked by a judge before hand (if only to make sure you aren't fudging your sideboards for game 3 when you know EXACTLY what your opponent is using...)

Augustus wrote:OK, so you agree it ought to have less effect. Does the team with the best uniform at the superbowl get extra points at the end of the game?

The teams in the superbowl don't spend months designing and making their own uniforms. I like having painting and sportsmanship scoring high, mainly because those are my highest scoring parts... I think if you remove those you get gladiator every time, I'm sure it's great but I'd like to go to a GT with a really nice army that isn't cheesed out and still have a chance of qualifying for the final (I'm talking UK here). I do think that maybe painting should be an entirely seperate contest, but I don't think people winning by 'unfair' use of painting skills is the problem. Running a tournament for 40k fairly is damn near impossible, because everyone has their own reason for playing. Some are there for the win purely, others to have fun. Removing sportsmanship points just gives people an incentive to be pricks, at least this system puts a slight check on that, it's far from perfect though. The metagame will be interesting now, how do you design for mech armies and hordes?

That's why I think that tournament armies should be assigned: tournaments are tests of generalship, and a good general goes to war with the army that's available, not necessarily the army that they might want.

Having assigned armies also makes sportsmanship and painting easier to score, since sportsmanship can be tailored to the army (it's un-sportsmanlike to play slowly where armies are big and there's a time crunch, for example), and comparing different paint-jobs is more objective when the underlying medium or model is the same.

Nurglitch wrote:That's why I think that tournament armies should be assigned: tournaments are tests of generalship, and a good general goes to war with the army that's available, not necessarily the army that they might want.

Having assigned armies also makes sportsmanship and painting easier to score, since sportsmanship can be tailored to the army (it's un-sportsmanlike to play slowly where armies are big and there's a time crunch, for example), and comparing different paint-jobs is more objective when the underlying medium or model is the same.

Um, don't we already have a problem with too many people playing Marines of one flavor or another and excessively homogenizing the playing experience?

If anything, it would be better to encourge greater diversity among players.

Surely the easiest way of avoiding power-play at tournaments is to put greater emphasis on theme/background and spotsmanship in scoring?

Each player would have to produce, say, 1 page of fluff for their army and be expected to stick to it with their army list. Stealers and Lictors is much easier to justify than Stealers and 'Fexes!

Before each game give the two players a chance to have a look over their opponents fluff and army lists, let them ask questions, then get them to score each other.

After each game the two then score each other on sportsmanship.

I know this is fairly similar to how things are done now, but by making people justify their selections and have a bigger % of your final score riding on it, you make people less likely to cheese.

just a thought...


P.S. I once suggested this to a tournament player who went on a right rant about how he only cared about winning, how dare I force him to justify his choices for any reason other than min/maxing his army etc.
I took it for about 5 mins then walked off before I knocked %$&* out of him. Tool.....

No, the easiest way of avoiding power-play at tournaments is to NOT GO TO THEM. ?

Requiring fluff is absurd. Perhaps some folks want to play a wargame instead of writing stories to justify their selection of army...

The checklist idea is a good one, but the fluff is just silly.

Augustus -

fair enough about the fluff, obviously it doesn't appeal to to everyone. But all i've ever seen at tournaments are 3 tick-boxes for painting, theme, etc.

What I'm suggesting is that you'd give your opponent a mark out of 10 (or whatever) for army design. It gives more scope for rewarding effort beyond just writing a beardy list.

As far as the 'don't go' comment, my question is why?

I've been to a couple of tournaments (with mixed success) and have enjoyed them immensely. I don't see why I should have to give this aspect of my hobby up just to satisfy 'power players'.
After all - we're grown men and women playing with toy soldiers. If winning is really that important you need to get out more!

Whats wrong with a tourney that has best general, best artistry, worst sad sack-ie lowest battle score (with a model of a guardmen tripping and shooting himself with a lasgun-for), and best sportsman?

We done similar. I never understood why there had to be an overarching title.

On sideboards:

Some armies (Marines, Chaos) love sideboards. Some really don't have much use for them (orks, IMO).

A marine army can be set up so that with only 400 points as a sideboard, they swap all their heavy weapons to heavy bolters (in one case) or lascannons, swap their predators for whirlwinds, and so on.

While being able to switch between these options would give the marine army a much better chance against nidzilla, it doesn't actually change the nature of tournaments, all it does is remove the rock-paper-scissors nature of the matchups. What the power armies are will change, but the fact that there are power armies will not. The power army will simply be the one that can reconfigure itself the easiest.

And, that's largely the problem with any set of changes you can propose about tournaments. Make theme worth more, ok, maybe nidzilla isn't so dominant anymore because it loses those vital theme points, but something else will replace it. It's a complex system, and something will always find the best mix between winning the games (completing the missions) and scoring the soft-scores as well.