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So an interesting thought occured to me, I now have enough data to make a handicap system for 40k ITC events (spreadhseet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QMLDIaN6EW45bZwERoW4QsxstzQA1Ej1k-Pu1aWxp8I/edit?usp=sharing). For those unfamiliar, a handicap system is a way to even the playing field between competitors of a different quality. With faction combinations of widely diverging quality, the current 40k meta seems to need a handicap of some sorts to even the playing field. If it works, you could bring the army you want to bring without having to to be punished for not obeying the meta. So you could take a necron list to a big tournament and assuming equal skill have a near 50/50 chance of beating the latest meta darling Ynnari army. This would also allow you to bring top table style lists to FLGS events without being TFG, because your handicap and your opponents handicap would even the playing field. Since handicaps are generated in a formulaic manner based on past performance there is no bias in the system, no judgement calls, and handicaps would shift with the meta automatically each time results are loaded to BCP.

After browsing the various handicap systems, Golf actually met the criteria of 40k best, while being simple enough to explain over a cup of coffee. You can find the rules for calculating golf handicap are on this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(golf) . I knew I'd have to modify it a bit, golf is basically a social single player game, where opponents can't affect your score with their performance. ITC events are similar in that you want to have the better score at the end of the game, but you can actively interfere with your opponent scoring. So any handicap system would have to take into account both the faction combinations victory points, and the victory points the faction combinations opponents scored. Also lacking a course rating we'll be using the average VP score for all factions which will serve the same purpose. After doing some research I found there was a flaw in the selection of scores to rate in golf (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn321-unfair-advantage/) so I knew I wanted to adjust how games were selected to be averaged. So without further ado, here is what I came up with:

(Faction combination score - Average Score) + -1 * (Faction combination opponents score - average score) = Faction Combination Handicap

So what we do here is we figure how your faction combination scores compared to the average VP for all faction combinations. If you are above average you end up with a positive score, and if you are below it you end up with a negative score. The Same calculation is run for your factions combinations opponents, but is inverted, if your opponents scored above average against your faction, the result will be a negative value, and if they scored below average then it will be a positive value. The final handicap is simply those scores added together, with positive scores reflecting a faction combination that performs above average, and negative scores reflecting a faction combination that performs below average.

To determine the match handicap, the player with the lower handicap subtracts their handicap from the handicap of their opponent. So a 0 fighting a +4 would get Four bonus VPs, and a -2 fighting a +1 would get three bonus VPs. How it would work in tournaments is you would show up, they would lookup the handicap for your faction combination while checking your list and you would just note it on your army list. Simple, easy, and fair.

The math for determining faction combination score and you faction combination opponents score would be calculated as follows:

Faction Combination score (same selection rules apply for opponents score)
Total Events Formula
16-20+ Average of up to last twenty events dropping highest two scores and lowest two scores
10-15_ Average of up to last fifteen events dropping highest score and lowest score
5-9___ Average of up to last 9 games
0-4___ Use overall average score which will give a handicap of zero.

What do you guys think? As I said I already have the data I need for this, I'm just doing a sanity check before writing the code necessary (which is likely to be annoying). I Look forward to your thoughts.

*edit* after reviewing the data it became clear that a lot of the faction combinations with 4 or less events didn't have very good data, so I altered the factions combination score formula to account for this.

It's an interesting idea but how are you going to handle soup lists?

Much of the data for the performance of mixed lists in the BCP app seems corrupted (Tau taking 3 detachments of Tau is listed separately from Tau taking 2 detachments. Orks taking a fortification is not listed as the same as Orks taking none etc).

Tau x Tau is a different list than Tau x Tau x Tau, the double will have less command points, less access to multiple septs, and less requirements on the units selected. If they end up performing identically then they will get the same handicap, but the point being that they could perform differently and thus should be handicapped separately. Same with Orks and fortifications, Fortifications are expected to affect the performance of a pure ork list, that's why people take them.

You can copy Epic and assign strategy ratings - they determine who deploys first, order of laying objectives, who goes first etc.

The problem with doing it faction by faction is that the power balance between factions fluxtuates so wildly as new threats are released and new counter meta solutions are discovered. It would be difficult to calibrate a handicap every time a new faction is released. This also doesn't account for player skill, as knowing what detachments are "good" is a lot different from actually building and using those detachments. For example 1Ksons and Deathguard togeather may be handicapped as very competitive, but it doesn't accurately measure a list primarily using Rubrics, Plague Marines and Terminators as opposed to the meta threats from those codexii.

That said, it would work pretty well as a balancing mechanism between players who are looking to have close games. Lets take a simple example, 2 friends who play regularly. One friend is better than the other, so they decide to implement a handicap system- each time a player wins their handicap becomes -50 and the next game they play they must play 50 points down. Vice versa, so each time a player loses their handicap increases +50 points. For our example this creates a 100 point shift each time they play a game. However players could elect for a smaller shift for a more precise metric.

Game one. A2000 v B2000. Player A wins -50, Player B loses, +50.

Game two: A1950 v B2050. Player A wins -50, player B loses +50

Game three: A1900 v B2100. Player A wins -50, Player B loses +50

Game four: A1850 v B2150. Player A loses +50, Player B wins -50

Game five: A1900 v B2100, ad infintum

In a larger community, if enforced and played a handicap system like this would balance the players, and the armies by default. Strong players who frequently win, will have a negative handicap which puts them at an increasing disadvantage, but they also have an incentive to "improve" their handicap for bragging rights. This system also effectively measures player growth, as a new player who starts out losing can work on improving his handicap as he learns how to play his army and needs less and less of a points advantage to win.

The math is pretty simple on this, so if you want a more precise system you can tweak it in many ways. For example if you could have a separate handicap for each player you play against. You could also have a separate handicap for each of your armies. For instance if a player has a silly Ork list he plays for fun, he is not punished by the handicap on his Knights + Guard Army and he can freely switch between them and still have somewhat fun and balanced games.

The biggest problem with a system like this is it requires a lot of list tweaking as the points you play with are constantly readjusting after every game you play. But if you don't mind that it has a lot of potential for everybody to measure player growth and get more even games at a club night.

Tournament Prep obviously is totally different.