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Why don't tournaments include a comp score for army list construction? 8th edition WHFB had lots of issues, and in its time there were no annual points updates like we are currently getting - tournament organizers used a comp score system to heavily disincentivize lists skewed into "overpowered" units.

From their recent actions, it seems clear that GW has no ability, or at least no intention, of balancing the armies in their game. With the growing popularity of competitive 40k, I think it makes a lot of sense for the community to take some of these issues into their own hands. Using a comp system prevents griping about "official" points costs, while providing a way to push people away from only taking the most points efficient choices in every slot all the time.

I believe the secondary objectives were supposed to be the mechanism to discourage skew lists, and were an interesting way of doing so - but the specifics were written with very poor consideration for various non-Marinelike armies that have to deal with said system.

Phenatix wrote:
Why don't tournaments include a comp score for army list construction? 8th edition WHFB had lots of issues, and in its time there were no annual points updates like we are currently getting - tournament organizers used a comp score system to heavily disincentivize lists skewed into "overpowered" units.

From their recent actions, it seems clear that GW has no ability, or at least no intention, of balancing the armies in their game. With the growing popularity of competitive 40k, I think it makes a lot of sense for the community to take some of these issues into their own hands. Using a comp system prevents griping about "official" points costs, while providing a way to push people away from only taking the most points efficient choices in every slot all the time.

Comp scores never really worked, they were tried for many editions in various different forms, and never produced results that were particularly satisfactory for a number of different reasons, but did produce lots of drama. Same thing with Sportsmanship scores (which is why most events now just do a "favorite opponent" thing or the like).

Phenatix wrote:
Why don't tournaments include a comp score for army list construction? 8th edition WHFB had lots of issues, and in its time there were no annual points updates like we are currently getting - tournament organizers used a comp score system to heavily disincentivize lists skewed into "overpowered" units.

From their recent actions, it seems clear that GW has no ability, or at least no intention, of balancing the armies in their game. With the growing popularity of competitive 40k, I think it makes a lot of sense for the community to take some of these issues into their own hands. Using a comp system prevents griping about "official" points costs, while providing a way to push people away from only taking the most points efficient choices in every slot all the time.

Comp scores were either extremely arbitrary or just based on a TO's personal interpretation of the fluff.

One person's skew is the next person's theme.

Phenatix wrote:
Why don't tournaments include a comp score for army list construction? 8th edition WHFB had lots of issues, and in its time there were no annual points updates like we are currently getting - tournament organizers used a comp score system to heavily disincentivize lists skewed into "overpowered" units.

Because comp scores are underhanded means for TOs to get the results they want. Or to punish factions they hate.
There isn't any objective criteria, just a strong declaration of 'No one should have BadWrongFun!' Which is... whatever they feel is bad at the time.

I stopped playing 40k because of comp scores back in the day. They encourage catty, toxic behavior. No thanks.

So you want people to game the system but just in some other way?

Because that's exactly what always happened.
There's an optimal list using pts/force charts & there's a different but still optimal mix if aiming to abuse comp.

I think comp worked out fine in WHFB, playing against Warmachine spam was not fun and some item builds would be auto-includes if not for comp and a good comp made you choose between which OP options to bring and which to leave at home in favour of slightly less powerful options.

The reason why 40k should not adopt that model is that 40k stats are being tracked and GW are working to make pts more balanced. If people play their own missions, their own fancomps etc. then stats could become useless or even detrimental if inappropriate data was not ignored. WHFB never got balance updates so the community had to step in, the 40k development team is more active than any GW development team has ever been.

GW designers are not good at their jobs and GW has historically had a very poor view of anyone that wasn't able to forge a narrative despite poor balance, but at least they're being influenced by people that do care and they do put out an amazing amount of updates in terms of FAQs, Errata, Codexes and supplements compared to previously.