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Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective. You could have 8 people look at the same army and they could award it 8 different scores.

If you want to include them, the Grading (Scale 1-10, etc.) is the worst way, because some people will give a '5' as default, and some will give a '10' as the default. And, if two people agree that something is good, one might give it an 8 and the other a 10. So, you get scores all over the place.

The checkbox system works, since it generally forces the 'norm' to the same score. But, it also gives less 'bonus points' if something is exceptional (painting, theme, etc.).

I prefer, and it's the least used, the ranking system. At the end of the tourney, rank your opponents by Sportsmanship, Appearance, Comp, etc. The downside, is it makes those 'soft scores' competetive like the game results, but it also forces everyone to give a 1-2-3 etc. result.

What is the most powerful list? People will tell you different things. Did anyone think that Necrons would win the Ard Boyz 2007? It certainly wasn't considered one of the more powerful lists, but at that point level, 3 'liths was brutal. But, if he had played 3 tau players with mass railguns - I doubt it would have worked as well. Nob Bikers are the 'power build' of the week. Until everyone is taking 10 TH/SS terminators for half the points.

In games, there will always be a more powerful list. Doesn't matter if it's a different edition of 40k, WFB, Warmachine, etc. There's always a more powerful model/unit/build for the points.

A comp. score system should be done at the start of the tournament before any games are played. People who get tabled in a game usually don't give their opponent high comp. scores.

dietrich wrote:Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective. You could have 8 people look at the same army and they could award it 8 different scores.

Which is why I find JohnDDs suggestion interesting. Not as a complete system in and of itself, but as an interesting startingpoint.

Im from Denmark and you should see some of the lame-ass army selection systems that people promote around here. Straight up codex tournaments are pretty much the exception here and I frigging hate it. Several armies and army types are impossible to make under the restrictions. Simply impossible. Maybe I should translate some of them to english just so we can have a nice laugh together.

That is most likely the reason why I am "defending" Johns idea. At least I can make any army I want (with corresponding consequences).

Steelmage99 wrote:
Feeling an overwhelming anf completely irresistable desire to always field the strongest armylist at the exclusion (and this is really the more important part) of every other option?
Then I feel that you (generic "you") are the problem, not the game.

Only when going to a competative (50 person+) tournament. Thats kind of the point of the competative environment isn't it? Lets not confuse tournament play (what we are discussing) with clubnight beerhammer.

In the UKGTs there is no comp, yet the variety of lists is pretty big among the top tables. I have no doubt that they all approximate to what the owner of the army thinks is the most competative for their given codex.

Oh, I can play this game too!

Vulkan

tac marines flamer MM rhino
tac marines melta MM rhino
SoB Hflamer melta rhino
SoB Hflamer flamer rhino

Celestines flamer flamer rhino
Th/SS Assault termies

MM Assault bike
Dominions flamerx4 HF immolator

LR Reedemer

looks like a 9/10!

Comp systems inherently favor armies with strong troops costed efficiently since nearly every comp system I've seen is weighted towards benefitting the list with the most "troops". Beyond that they're all just a bad mishmash of trying to limit powerful units (Fewer than 3 Elites/Heavies, only 3 total Elites/Heavies, bonus points for only 1 Elite and Heavy) or forcing you to take various powerful units on the premise that this somehow dilutes their power (1 Obliterator, 1 Dreadnought, 1 Possessed, not 3 Obliterators).

So in the end, all Comp does is say that the most overall powerful codices should be rewarded more than less powerful, or less power-dispersed codices.

Orks for example have a sizable advantage in any "Composition competition" because they have very good, relatively cheap troops and powerful, relatively cheap everything else to boot.

0-1 Ghazghkul
0-1 Big Mek KFF
4-6x Boyz
1-2x Lootaz
0-3x Skorcha Buggies
1x Kommandos
0-3x Battlewagons
0-9x KillaKanz

This list can have various incarnations at 1500-2000 pts and be competitive against virtually anything while achieving full composition. This is simply because Ork units are powerful and cheap across all FOC options. Compare something like Grey Knights, where the base units are very expensive and ineffective against mechanized armies. Now the GK player is penalized for not taking enough troops (Comp) or for not taking enough anti-armor (Gameplay). Clearly the GK player deserves to be dinged, though, because he chose to play a compositionally weaker overall army. Wait, what?

OddJob. wrote:Only when going to a competative (50 person+) tournament. Thats kind of the point of the competative environment isn't it? Lets not confuse tournament play (what we are discussing) with clubnight beerhammer.

In the UKGTs there is no comp, yet the variety of lists is pretty big among the top tables. I have no doubt that they all approximate to what the owner of the army thinks is the most competative for their given codex.

Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

The point here is not to debate the value of Comp, as far as I can tell. Its to discuss Comp scoring. If you don't care for Comp, then you don't have to participate in the discussion, its easy. Just as I don't jump into the discussions about Ard Boyz, Gladiators, or any of the other Tournaments that are out there. Not my cup of tea.

I prefer some type of Comp (having played in GTs from 1998 on), and seen their evolution. Were they perfect? No. Could they be done better? Maybe. Will there be a perfect one? Probably not.

Every change, whether its a comp scoring system, a new codex, or a special character that allows the FOC to be changed, has a tremendous impact on the game and the lists that can be built. Each tweak brings new stuff to the fore. It then becomes a matter of picking the 'lesser' of the evils for YOUR TOURNAMENT as the TO.

I for one perfer playing in smaller size games - i.e. 1500, the "balance point" for the game as per GW. Do the current best builds thrive there? Don't know. Do other builds thrive there, like Nidzilla? Yup.

Oh, and GW took the 0-1, 0-2, whatever off the army lists to SELL MORE MODELS. They're not going to sell lots of Sternguard if they're a 0-1 Elite choice, are they.

I'd like to return to the discussion about COMP SCORING, thanks.

What about Necrons? One troop choice, so thats a point dropped straigh off the bat. Hardly fair considering.

Then further add that in order to get the most out of their rules, they need multiples of units, plus Tomb Spyders, and just to have a functioning force they are dropping points left right and centre.

Cruentus wrote:Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

I think the biggest thing with any tourney is know 'what' the tourney will be like. Scoring and missions should be available beforehand (or at least example scenarios - ie, what we used last year).

Cruentus wrote:Correct. And when I signed up for that Tournament, I would know that it is a "competitive" tournament with no Comp. And I could (and would) choose to not attend. Likewise, for John's Tournament, you would know that it is a "Comp" Tournament, know what the Comp rules were, and could choose not to attend. See how easy that is?

Absolutely agreed. I would, however, attend both tournaments if I could. I see comp meerly as a different set of rules to game a list around. With this criteria in mind I realise that....

Cruentus wrote:I prefer some type of Comp (having played in GTs from 1998 on), and seen their evolution. Were they perfect? No. Could they be done better? Maybe. Will there be a perfect one? Probably not.

Each tweak brings new stuff to the fore. It then becomes a matter of picking the 'lesser' of the evils for YOUR TOURNAMENT as the TO.

...there are no evils, lesser or otherwise, meerly different rules to play with.

Cruentus wrote:I'd like to return to the discussion about COMP SCORING, thanks.

It's the nature of the discussion- if you really believe there is a 'perfect' or 'best' comp system to aim for then you are open to the debate about the validity of comp. Thats why this issue is contentious, it brings out polar opposites that believe their was to play the game is best, and both are wrong. I get annoyed with people who arrogantly get on a high horse *coughjonnywcough* and attempt to vilify those with an opposing opinion.

If you realise that all composition rules (including no comp) are created approximately equal, then the over-riding objective must be to create variety in armies being played (relative to an alternative comp setup, including none), not playing the armies that the TO wants to see.

Although I agree with Bill Kim on this issue, I'm interested in testing out John's Comp scoring in a tournament. From a players standpoint I would be intrigued in trying to fool around with the system and beat it the best I could. I am not at all convinced that the obvious army builds are the optimal builds. In this regards I will take my WAAC army building philosophy and try to bend it around the comp rules of this tournament.

From a tournament organizer's perspective I would enjoy seeing the new army lists that come from this. I'm sure some of the old standby's of 5th edition will be represented, but there shold be many more army types out there competing for the top spots than now. For that matter who knows who will be in the top spots. I mean your comp score can affect your battle points so who's to say where they will fall in this tournament.

The biggest problem I see is advertising the comp rules to players. I find several people do not read more than the date and points levels for a tournament and there will certainly be players who show up having no idea about the strict changes to the comp selection process.

I think it would be cool to give this a try. I find it fun trying to break new systems or at least see how people will try to adapt.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Given people are trying to poke holes at the sample Comp system I cobbled together, I think it's worth spending a moment to discuss what it's trying to do and why it does what it does.

In general, this is trying to encourage a GW-style batrep army. If you look at GW batreps, they rarely have duplicates, except when absolutely necessary due to army list constraints, and even then, those dupes tend to be Troops (GW likes Troops). GW tries to maximize variety, which has the pleasant side effect of showcasing the maximum number of types of models (for sales purposes).

So I start with Troops, which would be non-minimum, and preferably the bulk of things. I award points for having non-max, non-duplicative HQ, Elite, Fast, and Heavy. And then I award bonus points for the full variety, no (non-Troop) max, and no duplicates.

If you are shooting for max 10 points, you must take:
1 HQ
1 Elite
5 Troops (5 different flavors)
1 Fast
1 Heavy

If you want a second Elite, Fast, or Heavy, you will need a 6th flavor of Troops.

In general, I think an 8 or 9 is a good target to shoot for, as not all armies have enough Troops options to allow for 5 or 6 different Troops.

Penalizing for not have different flavors of troops is not reasonable. What do Necrons, Dark Angels, MArines, etc do?

In general, this is trying to encourage a GW-style batrep army. If you look at GW batreps, they rarely have duplicates, except when absolutely necessary due to army list constraints, and even then, those dupes tend to be Troops (GW likes Troops). GW tries to maximize variety, which has the pleasant side effect of showcasing the maximum number of types of models (for sales purposes).

GW-style batrep armies are made to showcase new models and make all the 12 year olds want them by playing them against another non-competitive army. You know this. It is a wholly different goal from a GT circuit army.

Okay so my take away from this is that everyone likes John's idea of comp more than mine .

I like the idea of having both comp and no comp tournaments. Remember this is basically for the local store to run. The idea here is that there are a lot of newer players or people that are interested in the painting and modelling side of the hobby. I don't know if using the word afraid is the right one or not. But you get the same people that will play in the tournaments over and over, and you won't find a lot of the new guys or the painters and modellers. When you talk to them they say it's because they don't want to have to try to tool up their lists to try to take on dual lash, or nob bikers. They either aren't interested in modelling those figs, or they have a certain play style.

Normally you could of course say tough and move on. But the thought is there that there has to be something else you can run for people that play softer kinds of armies.

I hated the comp rules under the old system. And I really disagreed with the title Rogue Trader Tournament. I felt it should have been called a Rogue Trader Event. And maybe that's how a comp tournament should be billed as a Warhammer 40k Event. It just happens to include 3 rounds of games, that figure prominently into scores.

So if you are truly trying to make it more of a hobby event/tournament what have you, how do you award points for composition and theme. This comes down to the fact that theme and comp are so subjective. Do you tell people to bring back story about what their theme is. Set aside time for all the players to walk through and look at everything and vote?

Remember this isn't something big and massive. Probably a maximum of 16 people.

Maybe the idea here would be to have the 3 rounds. But then include 45 minutes or so between round 2 and 3 for people to wander and look at theme and rate the other armies.

I'm starting to ramble here so I'll stop but what do people think?

in a 5 game event.
100 battle points
50 sportsmanship
50 paint.
200 points total

how many points should comp be?
currently it is 10 out of 50 sportsmanship points.

skkipper wrote:in a 5 game event.
100 battle points
50 sportsmanship
50 paint.
200 points total

how many points should comp be?
currently it is 10 out of 50 sportsmanship points.

Zero, but I know that's not popular.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:

Zero, but I know that's not popular.

Actually no, that is the most popular. The vast majority of people don't want to lose points simply for showing up with the army they want to play.

I don't think its a good thing to have this "Comp" be such an obtuse and overly stated affector on a tournament.

The basic K.I.S.S. principle is more then enough to give all players in a tournament a run for thier money.

Bottom line, someone has to win, someone has to lose. It should be the tournament's intention to have as well rounded/ open and even keel as a tourny as they can.

Inposing things such as were given in terms of some of these features posted gives one the impression, that if these rules are played, then the tournaments are only designed for specific, already established builds.

All in all they are craptastic, and if thats how people have to win, I really seriously don't feel that the tournies that instill this gak are worth the time or the waste of oxygen.

!. What are you bringing to the table? Im bringing an army to kick your butt with. I make it as well rounded as I can so it can play well against a structured opponent that is coming for me with both barrels. If I want to bring three Baneblades, and a partridge in a pear tree, then so be it.

The TO should set the tone of the event, and if its Soft or Hard, then that should be information well available, and I can plan My army accordingly.

The GAME portion of the tourny should boil down to- How many points did you get in the game? Who you played within the tournament, and how badly did you kick thier butt?

Other parts can easily have different areas to score, but they should be stuff like Biggest loser, Cheesehead, or Gankmaister( fun, sidebar awards that are all inclusive, and give everyone a good laugh. Other catagoris should go along with Sportsmanship, like if Timmy was an Ass, or Best Painted Army or Units, but these shouldn't have any bearing on the Competition itself.

Look at Johns list, and the one you began the conversation with.

Those lists of all that crap look like my fine print on my Insurance Policy.

Comp is a new age feel good idea, from what I'm seeing here, to justify giving someone who brings whatever they thought was cool, but is pretty weaksauce, just because they "Liked the concept" when they knew in their heart that they should have played with something with a little more Omph to it, brought some more heavy weapons to deal with heavy threats, or something that resembles an army that should be played in a tournament setting.

There is a time and a place for "Spiffy", and then theres a time to kick someones teeth in for chops.

Comp seems to be an addition that is overpowering why you compete in the first place.

Thats like if I give someone a five minute head start in a 440 meter dash. Why would I do that if I want to play to win?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Actually, yeah. It's boring.

Seriously, the point can't be made with 1 Lord, 3 DC Assassins, 3 Penitent Engines and something else simply for variety's sake?

Is the point of comp scoring to promote interesting lists or to prevent power lists?

Comp seems to be an addition that is overpowering why you compete in the first place.

Comp is like government subsidiaries. We already have an overall system of regulation that we play within (the force org chart, game metatheory, codex special rules and expectations of certain armies/units) and a more or less level playing field for any person to take all of the available information and assemble their optimized fighting force to win the tournament with (beat opponents, accumulate points).

And then we have the comp rules, which, at best, amount to little more than a door prize for battle box lists to reward generity, and at worst turn into a ham-fisted attempt to railroad any list better than a battle box list back down to the level of uniform inside-the-box-ness.

As a UK based, non-competitive player I have no dog in this hunt, as Frazzled would say.

I've observed the US Comp scene from afar for several years. I haven't seen a system yet that wasn't either unfair to some armies or capable of being abused, or both. This is not by my judgement, it has been demonstrated by other users making up lists to beat the comp.

All these systems were more or less complicated and time-consuming for judges and players.

Also, any comp system which grants points is capable of being gamed and since the points awarded for comp are guaranteed (you can’t win or lose comp) it opens a new area for clever players to compete in.

These systems were aimed at preventing 'power' lists rather than increasing variety. I've never heard anyone suggest that variety is the purpose of having tournaments, though it seems a reasonable goal.

If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

The assumption, of course, is that the game rules themselves aren't just a ham fisted attempt to sell models.

I don't care either way on comp. I'll play in a tournament with or without it, depending on the comp rules. Comp doesn't (necessarily) dumb down the game...it just changes the rules. That is it. You'll either like the changes, or you won't. But it has nothing to do with government subsidies. Once there is an overall regulation, all you can do is change/add to the regulation. it's still regulated.

I think people are taking too much of JHDDs pretty restrictive comp rules and assuming THAT is what comp has to be...battle box armies, or penalized necrons, or whatever. You can make up all sorts of rules for comp that are less restrictive. You'll probably always end up with a "most powerful" army, the question is more whether the games will still be fun to play/competitive, and what the power differences are between lists, and if people still enjoy their lists. If you can make the lists closer in power with fewer overpowered lists (or just less difference between top and middle...forget lowest power they made their choice) then you might end up with a more fun, competitive tourney with more varied armies being competitve. Emphasis on might. But why not.

I don't think many people would have a problem with a tournament that avoided, say, kill points missions or modified them so IG could compete. More competitive armies = good. But thats still a rules change. Why are some rules changes a-ok but others are anathema to "competitive" gamers? I'd think if you wanted to be "competitive" you'd want balanced lists that were still fun and interesting.

Personally, my tournament wet dream is X players, 4 lists. Everyone plays 5 games, games are just 2 games List A vs List B (switching sides for the game), 2 games list C vs List D, and the last game the top table players choose which of the 4 lists they want in secret. Maybe some other variation of this, but you get the idea - no listbuilding, just playing, lists are made ahead of time by some commitee trying to make balanced, interesting lists. The more games the better. But it is of course functionally impossible, and really kind of avoids uh, the major parts of the hobby (painting/collecting/modeling/etc). But we'd see who's best (with those lists).

Kilkrazy wrote:If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

Except that (according to my games played in the last Baltimore GT), 6 out of the 10 SM armies would be Sternguard armies - all identical except for a razorback here, or an assault squad there. 9 of 10 of the CSM armies would be dual lash with minor variety on the types of ordinance, termie, oblits, and all SOB lists would be all mech. Makes for an incredibly boring Tournament. And my last GT had me facing 3 CSM armies (2 Dual Lash, identical), and 2 SM Armies, both Sternguard heavy. And thats in a Tourny of 100+ people.

Talk about bad draw, and a boring time at an expensive Tourny.

@OddJob: I didn't think that debating the merits of Comp had anything to do with the OP's post. I thought we were talking about hot to make comp work, or debate different versions of Comp to help those TOs that want to use it.

Maybe, as mentioned, you have "Tournaments" and you have "Events". Nor living in the UK myself, I've always been intrigued by the 40k Campaign Weekends that are held by the Tempus Fugitives. Maybe that kind of thing (and thinking) is what needs to cross the pond for those who like the 'hobby and fluff' aspects of the game, and just leave the Tournament scene to the Ard Boyz, Gladiators, and Comp-less tournies.

My experience is that even at a GT, you have two 'tournaments' going on: those at the top 10 tables with the netlist of the month lists, the next 10 tables for those hammered/tabled by a netlist, and the rest of the players happily playing whatever they brought (fluffy, hobby heavy, etc.) stuff. Do they want to be competitive? Sure. Do they want to have fun? Sure. Do they want the headache of uber-competition? I don't think so.

I don't need any drama in my hobby of playing with little plastic dollies. I just don't take it as seriously as some.

*edited for clarity

Regardless of the method of Comp - I think it would add spice and variety to have tournaments with different things like this added in - Not all tournaments - but different "Tweaks" for some.

JohnHwangDD wrote:bland is having 3 kinds of things all doing essentially the same thing.

I disagree. I like armies with lots of duplicates. I like a 6 dread in drop pod army. I like an army of all ork bikers. I like all wraith armies.

I think having an army with no duplicates is ugly, IMHO, especially eldar.

I have a major problem with comp though when you go to a tournement that determines comp without any kind of reasoning other than how people feel.

Example-Last week's Broadside Bash

They have 2 judges give you a score of 0-6. They then add those together and that determines your starting opponent. The problem is that this is completely subjective. There was no list that comp was based on and no guideline. The points are also equal to just short of a win (15pts) so if you managed to bring a decent army (according to faceless judges) then you started a full win ahead of most of the other guys.

The scores were available if you asked what you got and so I asked. I was given a 4/12. A 2 by both judges for having over 40% in troops (6 choices), didn't max my MC's, no section other than troops over 21% and took units generally considered majorly underpowered for tournement events.

This is why I hate comp. It isn't always posted how they work it out ahead of time and to be honest unless it is posted next year or they eliminate comp I won't be attending.

Cruentus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:If the objective is to increase variety a much easier option would be to establish a quota for each type of army. For example, a 100 army tournament could be divided as follows:

10 SM
10 CSM
10 Daemons
10 SoB, Inquisition or other non-IG Imperials
10 IG
10 Tau
10 Orks
10 Eldar
10 Necrons
10 DE

Once your first 10 SM have entered, any more applications are turned down.

Except that (according to my games played in the last Baltimore GT), 6 out of the 10 SM armies would be Sternguard armies - all identical except for a razorback here, or an assault squad there. 9 of 10 of the CSM armies would be dual lash with minor variety on the types of ordinance, termie, oblits, and all SOB lists would be all mech. Makes for an incredibly boring Tournament. And my last GT had me facing 3 CSM armies (2 Dual Lash, identical), and 2 SM Armies, both Sternguard heavy. And thats in a Tourny of 100+ people.

Talk about bad draw, and a boring time at an expensive Tourny.

You could always divide things up differently. My basic point was trying to ensure variety in a tournament is going to take a lot of aggro. If you want every army to be different the way to do it is to write all 100 lists and players who want to enter have to pick a list -- only one example of each list can be taken.

The thing is that the game is entirely designed to allow players to choose a faction then choose a list from that faction. It's only because of bad codex and unit power balance that there are obvious power lists to be 'abused'.

We know that maybe 60% of armies sold are SM. How's that for variety?

I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

lambadomy wrote:I think everyone agrees that Comp with no rules or with unknown rules and judges just making their own decision with no guidelines is bad.

I think the goal is to find a comp structure that minimizes power lists and increases variety in list building.

This may be a pipe dream. At the least it probably needs to be combined with interesting missions to really achieve its goals.

The goal is impossible, because all codexes are not created equal, or even use the same structure. I'm not talking about the HQ/Elite/Troop/FA/HS structure, but rather what those units do and how they perform. An army consisting entirely of Fire Warriors is by no means the equivalent of an army constructed entirely of Boyz.

I'd want a comp list that creates for a wide variety of lists but doesn't discourage powerful list building. I like playing powerful lists.