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Ive played in comp events. I played in an event where your opponent got to pick between two lists to play against. Each player brought 2 lists, and they picked which one of their opponents they wanted to play against. I brought nearly identical space wolf lists. The poor guys though who were new or just not as solid gamers didnt do this, so they had little choice, I on the other hand could really choose what to play against.

I have never seen comp do anything good. Same for whacky missions. I played in an event 2 weeks ago which featured 3 missions, one that required you to take objectives in your opponents deployment zone. The second was night fight the whole game. Thirds objectives were centered around killing stuff in hand to hand combat. This is the equivalent of comping the event by preventing shooty armies from winning.

Nothing good comes from this kind of gaming but angry gamers and lost customers.

Comp generally seems to be used by those unwilling to understand and exploit their local meta-game. Or is used to prevent outsiders from doing something "unexpected" and force them to play by the local rules for army building

Ive never seen it do anything except try to make the weaker players better.. When in reality it just makes the stronger players stronger by letting them further exploit the very ill conceived new rules since there are usually huge oversights

The eurozone seems to hate special characters for some reason but all that does is make some armies better than the other. I don't see how space marines are supposed to win in a competitive (key word) environment without Vulkan or Pedro. Then you have Orks who can get a S10 T6 character for less than 150 points. It accomplishes nothing other than make people feel better about their personal bias

This might sound "unfair" but no matter what you do and no matter what biased rule you implement.. a bad player is a bad player and will generally find ways to lose games

I voted no. I'm a recent convert to the no-comp camp.

What really turned me from composition has been the internet. When I started in 3rd Ed it took sometime to really disect and reveal the main tactics for every army. Now anybody is within a few clicks of solid strategies, builds, and lists that make armies powerful, but boring. In Imaginationland 40k land where everybody brings lists that were based (or plagiarised) from some internet site the guy who came up with an original, well-oiled list may win, because he brings the unexpected. Composition Scoring says the Judge(s) and/or Player(s) knows what is best and that combo XYZ should be docked or limited. Comp is an outdated method of limiting what someone may, or may not, bring. Let the Scenarios and rolls of the dice decides who wins.

The person whom I can really thank for an anti-comp attitude is probably one of the biggest proponents of it. I was listening to an episode of Heelanhammer and one of the ETC-Fanboys/creator of Judging criteria played a game of Fantasy. As he was building a list and/or playing he stated that he caught himself being limited in a way that hurt how he wanted to play his army. When asking a friend of his about the limitation the friend politely reminded him that he himself had created the restriction. To me this showed that most of the proponents of Comp probably have neutered themselves more than once, but because they've taken a stand on the place of Comp in tournaments they won't back down. It's a ham-fisted example, but if you heard the example you know what I mean.

I voted No, as every comp system I've seen has either been a subjective judgment (with all the problems that lack of objectivity implies) or an objective FOC limiting rule-set that rarely helps lists that really need help (one tournament I saw required that no 2 units be identical- this HOSES Necrons, where SM/IG could take a 5-pt piece of wargear and be 'legal' in spite of flouting the spirit of the rule).


Has anyone looked into/participated in/organized games where different codexes are afforded more or less points based on the strength of the army? For example, SM/IG get 1000 points, Necrons get 1100, DH get 1150, etc, etc...?

I can see where varying the points could become problematic, too (do SW get fewer points than C:SM?)... just something that popped up.

I have also voted no to comp. It is too easy to play favorites with comp and many times it hits a good player too hard.

kartofelkopf wrote:I voted No, as every comp system I've seen has either been a subjective judgment (with all the problems that lack of objectivity implies) or an objective FOC limiting rule-set that rarely helps lists that really need help (one tournament I saw required that no 2 units be identical- this HOSES Necrons, where SM/IG could take a 5-pt piece of wargear and be 'legal' in spite of flouting the spirit of the rule).

That just seems like TO fail, to me. There's nothing wrong with enforcing the spirit of a rule. If you're going to go to the trouble of having an arcane tournament structure you could at least keep people from bearding all over it.

Agreed- actually was a tournament posted here on Dakka (by a now-banned user). My group ended up not going because of the comp scoring.

Reecius wrote:If you come to a tournament with a soft list and a lack of tactical skill and lose a game that is by its very meaning a contest to determine a winner, you are not being competitive. You are being the opposite of competitive. If you paint your army well and are talented at and enjoy that aspect of the hobby, then great! We all love admiring a beautiful and creative miniature. It is one of the best parts of the hobby. But that should not have an impact on who wins a tournament, at least not IMO. It should absolutely and obviously impact who wins the best painted award, and kudos to them. That is an award that means more to that person in all likelihood, anyway.

A tournament should be a contest of skill on the table top. A painting competition should be a contest of painting and converting skill. The two things are totally different. They appeal to wildly different types of gamers. One of them really relies on artistic skill and practice, the other on tactical skill and practice. It is right brain vs. left. To mix them together is like having a boxing match combined with water colors. Toss in who's the nicest dude and that is what the traditional tournament consists of.

Have competitive tournaments with painting competitions separate. Let anyone bring what they want to so long as the list is legal. That takes all subjectivity out of the game. Put up guidelines for expected behavior with a clearly defined criteria for what types of things will constitute a penalty and ejection from the tournament.

Give an award to the best player and the best painter, hell, give them equal billing if it makes a difference. But the game is a game and a hobby. Those two things, while combining to create the hobby we love, don't mix that well in a tournament setting, IMO. Recognize both, but keep them separate.

and P.S. your metaphor with the Olympics doesn't work that well. Maybe use the decathlon instead as you win by competing in several events. You can't "win" the entire Olympics as I am sure you know.

Thanks - I'm aware that you can't win the Olympics, but I think that's one of the points on which we agree - painting, playing etc are different events, and the idea that your score for one can influence the other is absurd.

I think it's quite possible to be just as competitive in painting as it is in playing. If you enter Golden Demon, and spent the upcoming months feverishly perfecting the painting on one model, then you are competing against other painters, arguably harder and for a longer time than the players competing against each other for Best General.

Secondly, there's nothing wrong with subjective scoring. Boxing and watercolours is quite an extreme, but even in boxing, at anything other than the highest level, more matches are decided by judges rather than by a KO - what people in this hobby would call a 'soft score'. A better analogy might be Football vs Gymnastics. However, both are still Olympic sports, and scored in a completely valid way. The idea that a score is 'subjective' does not make it any less valid.

My argument is based on semantics, but I think so is yours. Having 'competitive tournaments with painting competitions separate' is what we have already - in any tournament with a score for Best General and a score for Best Painted. Problems arise when we impose the (as above) silly idea of a 'Tournament Winner'. The problem is, the arguments for the removal of everything other than 'playing' seem to smack of people just wanting higher billing.

It seems that, with your semantics, we would have to call most tournaments "40k Tournament (plus Painting Competition, Sportsmanship Competition and Theme Competition)" just so that the people who win 'playing' can stand above everyone else and say 'I'm the TOURNAMENT winner'.

If there are multiple events going on at the same time, it seems silly not to define the whole thing as 'the tournament'. There's nothing wrong with this - we don't take anything away from the Best General. He's still the best player there (as far as that means anything in a game like 40k). We should just drop the silly idea that we can in some way 'combine' all the scores to get an overall in a mutually agreeable way. Nobody will be happy with this. Have a Best General, Best Painted, Best Sportsman, Best Modelled, whatever. Allow people to compete in as many or as few events as they like, and award an equal prize for the winner of each, but the idea of a 'Best Overall' is where every argument on these forums starts.

Anyway, back On-Topic

As above, I don't think the playing award should be for anything other than PLAYING. For this reason comp seems out of place. If we want to determine the best player, we need to play the rules according to the book, with nothing other than missions from the book and units from the codex. Anything else is not playing the game as written. I believe this applies to custom missions too.

Now, there is a tendency for this to result in a lot of the same army though, and since I tend to play in small, friendly tournaments, we go to town with the crazy missions and odd armies. Fine. But if we want to be serious about trying to determine the winner we have to be as restrictive as above. (With the massive disclaimer that 'determining the best at 40k is silly')

No Comp tournaments are for poor players who can't win when there is Comp.

They tend to be TFG.

In my opinion, Comp merely changes the definition of what is a hard list.

Without breaking it down to an army by army, or even better, list by list system you are simply pissing in the wind with it. Sure, I won't see Gateway FTW or Double Hydra, but something else will prove de rigeur, rendering the whole effort moot.

Just let people take what they want, and whinge about it if they need to.

General Hobbs wrote:

No Comp tournaments are for poor players who can't win when there is Comp.

They tend to be TFG.

I lol'd.

General Hobbs wrote:

No Comp tournaments are for poor players who can't win when there is Comp.

They tend to be TFG.

Comp tournaments are for poor players who can't win unless their opponent is handicapped................

They tend to be TFG.

With that out of the way, I've run comp tounreys, I've participated in comp tourneys. Our club runs a comp tourney every year, and we run a Race for the Cure charity event that is comped by way of granting extra points for doing certain things when building your list. But we consider both of these to be outside the norm. As a general rule, I don't like comp tourneys. Why should YOUR opinion of my army affect my score? Oooo, IG Mech Vet spam is too powerful. Check the NOVA Open standings, see how many went undefeated (Hint: none). We have rules that already tell us how to build an army list. I don't need you or your opinion telling me what a legal list is for my army. I've got the codex and rulebook to do that.

Here's your comp.
Is it within the points limit for the tourney?
Is it legally built per the codex(es)?
Done.
If both are yes, it's good.

Mr Mystery wrote:In my opinion, Comp merely changes the definition of what is a hard list.

Without breaking it down to an army by army, or even better, list by list system you are simply pissing in the wind with it. Sure, I won't see Gateway FTW or Double Hydra, but something else will prove de rigeur, rendering the whole effort moot.

Just let people take what they want, and whinge about it if they need to.

Well, this actually may be the only acceptable situation. We agree that all comp does is changes what lists are considered hard, not 'solve' the problem of imbalance. This may, however, be an advantage all of it's own.

I went to a tournament last weekend. Of 20 players, 5 were marines, 6 were orks, 5 were guard and 3 chaos marine. I went as Daemons just so that there were more than three different armies involved. Of the 5 Guard armies, 3 or 4 were Mech. The others were blob. It was a fun tourney, but I go to a tourney to play new players and new armies, not the same three over and over again!

In a friendly tournament, maybe there could be some advantage in introducing a particularly restrictive/crazy comp or mission system, forcing people to play really different armies? I'm not suggesting it for the GW Grand Tournament or anything, but it might be fun....?

General Hobbs wrote:

No Comp tournaments are for poor players who can't win when there is Comp.

They tend to be TFG.

well the first sentence doesn't make sense... since if they are a poor player they couldn't win with or with out it....

and the second is trolling to be honest...

As far as comp goes. I think its pretty clear.... 80% of people who frequent tourny events appear to be against having comp at all...

Comp screws older codices - you might go 'huh?' Because Wolves and Angels are currently tearing things up uncomped, with IG right behind (and nids and vanilla marines sitting around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for a good build). But really, look at the Space Wolves or IG codex sometime. How much in there is actually bad? Not 'narrow' or 'I could do that with something else' but 'why would anyone with brain matter in their head run that?' In the space wolves, really only Skyclaws (even bloodclaws have a few uses). In the IG, sentinels, Ogryns (50 points for no power weapon anywhere in the squad is so fail) and the Deathstrike. Even Eagles are reasonably good.

Now go through a codex like the Tau. They have one usable Fast attack slot (piranahs) out of 5 units (I think 5, right?). Their best build involves Railheads and Broadsides, PERIOD.

I can take the following out of the HS slot in the IG.
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Leman Russ Executioner
Colossus Siege mortar
2x Hydra flak trak

None of those except maybe the Hydra are hyper competitive, but they all do things very goddamn well.

The Tau will be fielding this.
2x Hammerheads, with Railguns
Broadside Battle suit team, with rail rifles.

That's IT. MAYBE at high points you switch them around, and do 1x Hammerhead, 2x Broadsides.

And fast attack? Iit's piranahs. IG could bring Vendettas, gunships, spice things up with some rough riders (a tad silly, but also kinda worth it), or just grab good ol Bane Wolves or hellhounds or something.

So basically, I could grab an IG codex, and unless the rules are specifically designed to REQUIRE me to take crap like Armored Sentinels and Ogryns, you're going to be DEAD if you're playing Tau. Either you bring a good list, at which point I MURDER you on comp, or you bring a terrible list, at which point I just murder you.

Or the tourney designers can realize this and just design comp scores to piss on new codices, which is really fun for EVERYONE, amright?!?

(basically, GW needs to do some balancing in their codices. The problem people are trying to solve is that there's entire codices that are just terrible, and people have a thousand dollars sunk into armies that don't work. We don't need a two year turnaround time for them to fix this, but comp isn't the answer)

In 40k, not so much, though I am reserving final judgement until after I see some results from next weekend. The standard triangle of IG, SW, and BA is getting too prevalent to notice, however. I am firmly against point based comp systems and any system where judge based comp has any direct impact on the scoring, however. I think once a few more books get done in 40k and the FAQs get sorted out, there will not be any need for it.

Fantasy, is a whole other animal and still rife with abusable builds that suck the fun out of the game. Plus the fantasy crowd tends to be less "go for the juggular" than the 40k crowd. I think even in an ideal world it will take Fantasy about 3 years of cycling the books to reach a point where some form of comp is not needed. That is unless you want every tournament to be won by gunline or "power scroll + facerape spell X" lists. In some ways, 8th has actually made the problem more severe, through the introduction of tons of new items.

One thing I plan on doing, starting with NeonCon, however, is require players to give their comp assessment prior to the game being played, to eliminate the butthurt factor.

Is that only for Fantasy Phazael or are you going to re-institute comp for 40k? Just curious

And we'll see if it's just IG/SW/BA this weekend when I brings my Nids!!!!

Jervis Johnson wrote:

Finally, I'd recommend playing with the rules and army lists 'as written', and only start to use army composition restrictions (i.e. additional limits on what units may be used in the tournament) once you have run a few tournaments using the new rules. I think you'll find that army composition is a lot less of an issue because the new rules make the game more balanced, and makes the differences between armies far less pronounced. While talking about balance, it is important to note that the balance between different armies and different builds of army varies slightly from scenario to scenario. So, for example, an army that does well at Battleline may have a tougher time with Blood and Glory, and an army that is ideal for Battle for the Pass could find fighting for The Watchtower challenging, and so on. In addition, certain armies, or rather certain army builds, have moved up and down the scale more than others have, so that some popular builds are now rather less effective, while other rarely seen builds have become more effective.

However, it's important not to overstate the impact these things have, especially when compared to your skill and experience. As with every edition of Warhammer so far, and no matter what some pundits might say, how good a player you are is always more important than what army you use.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat440002a&categoryId=500004§ion=&pIndex=2&aId=12400020a&start=3

@ArbitorIan

Your response to my comments was right on the money. I agree with everything you said.

@Rising Phoenix

I still see Vanilla Marines winning tournaments or placing well frequently. And not just with Vulkan or Pedro (although Vulkan lists seem to do the best). Khan lists perform well as do some true vanilla lists. I have seen Nids winning events as well, just not as frequently. I think a lot of that has to do with Nids being underrepresented as well.

@General Hobbs

You are officially this thread's troll. Thanks for coming out from under your bridge and blowing a fart in everyone's general direction!



I actually have heard of tournaments were you play the other guy's army. So long as you don't mind someone else touching your models, this can be a blast as each guy makes the crappiest army they can. Like screw your buddy.

I would love to play in a tournament like this as it would just be a good laugh and a change of pace.

In general though, book comp is good enough in 40K. My opinion on Fantasy is worthless right now as I have not played 8th ed yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Jervis Johnson

Here here! That almost makes up for the Dark Angels codex!

Reecius wrote:
Here here! That almost makes up for the Dark Angels codex!

Whoa there ! Let's not get carried away here !


.. I kid, I kid, several players, especially sexy DCMs for example, have done very well with the codex still.

Reecius wrote:@nkelsh
The thing is though, that the competitive gamers are the guys going to the tournaments. They are the ones who come out, shell out money and actually attend most of the events. The casual gamers are the guys who may go to the local RTT's and an occasional local GT and they get, as you put it, run over by the serious tournament gamers. But as the regular attendees are the guys who take tournaments seriously, why should tournaments not appeal to them? It only makes sense to do so as they are the ones who financially make tournaments possible.

I just had to point out that this is the exact reverse of reality. The Competitive gamers ore the ones who spend the money to fly places and attend a lot of events (that is why you see a lot of the same faces at many events) but for every one of them that comes to an event there are like 5-10 casual players (all of the guys that you don't recognize at a glance) who look at the event as a way to get in a bunch of games in a day and to meet other gamers. So really it is the casual gamers that make the event financially viable.

I am not for or against comp as in the last 15 years of organizing and running tournaments for various game systems I have used both systems.

@reds8n
I jest! Ozzmandias uses them well, and I have seen doublewing lists kick butt. It's just that in general, they are the worst MEQ's.

@vhwolf
Perhaps that is the case in your neck of the woods, but here in SoCal the guys gong to the RTT's and GT's are predominantly the same crew and predominantly share a very similar gaming philosophy.

I'm not trying to say you are wrong by any means, or that I know all, because I clearly don't. Just that in LA to SD, the majority of the guys attending the events, especially the bigger events, are competitive gamers.

Not always, sometimes at RTT's we see a lot of the casual guys just out for a laugh which is totally cool and which I encourage.

But typically, the majority of the field, at least here, are guys who play regularly in tournaments and competitive leagues.

Reecius wrote:

I actually have heard of tournaments were you play the other guy's army. So long as you don't mind someone else touching your models, this can be a blast as each guy makes the crappiest army they can. Like screw your buddy.

I would love to play in a tournament like this as it would just be a good laugh and a change of pace.

I've run one of those. A few years back all the members of our club (12 or so, IIRC) that were attending that year's Baltimore GT had a army-swap tourney. Basically, it was to help each other learn how to face toher armies, by using those other armies. You played three games, each game with someone else's army. One of the requirements was to include a 'game plan' along with the army list. My IG list did rather poorly in other player's hands, while I took it to Baltimore and took 2nd Best General with it.

Reecius wrote:@reds8n
I jest! Ozzmandias uses them well, and I have seen doublewing lists kick butt. It's just that in general, they are the worst MEQ's.

@vhwolf
Perhaps that is the case in your neck of the woods, but here in SoCal the guys gong to the RTT's and GT's are predominantly the same crew and predominantly share a very similar gaming philosophy.

I'm not trying to say you are wrong by any means, or that I know all, because I clearly don't. Just that in LA to SD, the majority of the guys attending the events, especially the bigger events, are competitive gamers.

Not always, sometimes at RTT's we see a lot of the casual guys just out for a laugh which is totally cool and which I encourage.

But typically, the majority of the field, at least here, are guys who play regularly in tournaments and competitive leagues.

I agree in the Socal Area you tend to see a lot of the same people because they are local but how many of them went to ECT or NOVA or Wargamescon?? I know it seems like the Socal crew might all be the competitive group but a lot of them might be great players however they might be more of a casual player as they tend to attend stuff that is close to them because it is a good way to kill a day playing games with friends.

Most locals tend to play in the leagues and competitions because it is convienient and they can get in a few games.

I agree with vhwolf. The majority of the players in attendance at most events are there just to get some games in and see cool armies.

I think Composition can be a useful tool when used to handicap armies for straight potency. It is very difficult to do, however. A council of veteran players who each play at least 3-4 armies to do the scoring is necessary so they know the strengths and weaknesses and good combos. This can enable a wider variety of armies to show up at events, increasing everyone's fun.

Yes, hardcore players can tweak and adjust their list to try to make "stealth cheese" armies, but stealth cheese armies usually are not steamrollers. Even if they still win consistently, they usually don't crush lesser lists/players AS badly, thus making the experience of the game less one-sided and more fun.

Overall, however, I find Comp to be much less necessary and important in 5th than it was in 3rd and 4th editions. I am much more comfortable with it being minimized (and occasionally eliminated) in events than I once was. Heck, in 5th I've even enjoyed 'Ard Boyz.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. At the tournaments I run/organize, we have comp. It's a score that we calculate based on the sheets that have questions like "Did you opponent's army have a unifying theme" and "Would you like to face a list like this again" and other craps.

See, what we do then is award prizes for different things.
- There's a prize for winning the tournament.
- There's a prize for having the best painted army.
- There's a prize for being the best sportsman.
- There's a prize for having the best comp.
- There's a prize we call the "Most likely to get beat up in the alley after the event" which usually goes to the person who was a...less than ideal opponent perhaps.

You see, 40K has multiple facets as a hobby: it is a competitive game with an artistic element and a social component all rolled into one game. By taking (and rewarding) excellence in these different facets you avoid stupid scenarios like giving a guy a low comp score to push up your rankings in a given match.

Want to bring that 'cheese list' you read about online and try and dominate the game part? Go ahead, don't be suprised if you don't win the comp score though, but see that's okay because that's not the part of 40K you were building that list to 'compete' in...paint 'em up real nice and maybe you'll get the painting prize too!

ADD'N: I think that the typical 'Ard Boyz list/scenario/whatevers are just about the worst way to build and plan your list. The format that it is usually played in is not really one that is designed with the books and rules in mind and it really throws off the spread.

Mannahnin wrote:
I think Composition can be a useful tool when used to handicap armies for straight potency. It is very difficult to do, however. A council of veteran players who each play at least 3-4 armies to do the scoring is necessary so they know the strengths and weaknesses and good combos. This can enable a wider variety of armies to show up at events, increasing everyone's fun.

The problem with this is the local players are going to know what these veteran players think is over the top. In fact I hardly ever see veteran players actually agree on what it too good. Because there really isn't any norm for what is great.

Meaning Comp, even like this is very subjective. And anyone traveling to a tournament or new players who don't really know any better are at a huge disadvantage to the local vets.


(not @ Mannahnin just in general) Besides if even Jervis can see that 5th ed doesn't need comp, why can't the rest of you?

I don't think it can be stressed enough that 5th Edition sort of "comps" itself. You have to bring enough troops to capture objectives or you'll have a hard time winning.

@vhwolf
You make a good point. Most of the local guys, while traveling around Southern Cali to play, don't fly to other locations.

We do get a lot of guys going to big tournaments though such as Adepticon and such, but that is also largely due to the fact that we have a big population and proportionally a larger representation of traveling gamers.

At NOVA we had at least Hulk, at Adepticon we had I think a solid 5 teams (20 guys) and I couldn't say as for Wargames con. But again, a lot of that is because there are just lots of gamers in our area.

@RXGhost
Your system actually seems decent. It lets each type of player do what they like without penalizing them for it.

I think AribtorIan said it best. It really comes down to our ego. It bums most of us out to think that someone is crowned "the best" when they might play the game or focus on an aspect of the hobby we don't much care for.

My idea to run separate events, one hobby and one competitive is pretty dumb on second thought. It's hard enough to draw a crowd for tournaments now. Splitting the field would only exacerbate that issue.

I think giving an award with equal importance to each type of winner is a good idea and encourages all types of players to come and incentivizes them to do what they like doing.

If you want to win more loot and more awards, it behooves you to play well, paint well, and be nice with a themed army.

That to me seems like a nice middle ground. Take away the "best overall" category and simply award to each category and encourage people to try and win as many of those as they can.

I like that.

I like comp scores. I didnt used to because i didnt see any problem with fielding a LIST that allowed me to win tournis despite bad luck and sometimes a lack of skill. One list i took on a regular basis worked great. It was hard to loose with. my freinds saw me play it a few times, told me it wasnt fun to play with and talked me into playing different lists. Just my humble opinion.