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.

Centurian99 wrote:

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 agree with Bill 100% here. In order to create a fair comp system you would have to have a comp scorecard for every codex available. As some people said before, that comp system bones Necrons, tau, and eldar who rely on their non-troops to win their games.

Also, is there a list out there that proves the restrictions and rules set forth by the devs arent fair enough for tournie play?

Is there a list/codex out there that wins even 75% of tournament games it takes part in?

The only one I can think of that I can imagine people answering with are Nob Bikers (and I still would disagree) but still, how many times has that list REALLY been played competitively? Do you see several in every event?

I dont think we even need comp.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Funny how you instantly equate "power builds" to "power gaming" John. More amusing how you're not responding to what Doc Thunder actually said, but simply strawmanning him out of existance.

Still folks he continues to reframe things, redefine things, and vilify anyone who disagrees with him so they become bad and he becomes the one on the moral high ground, arguing from a point of self righteous bulls**t.

I'm sorry, I can't be the only one to see it - he does it in every f***ing thread?

(Just like I follow him around to point it out).

BYE

Your not the only one HBMC. His ideas of 40k should be played might as well be called checkers.

I believe there are really two types of "tournaments," inasmuch as that word can be used. There's the type of tournament that focuses only on battle results. Here, there's no artificial comp restrictions, you bring whatever you want to bring from your codex. There's no sportsmanship score, you assume that people are going to be at least somewhat reasonable. There's either no paint score, or it has limited effect (perhaps just a secondary award, no effect on final result). What do you know - this is like ArdBoyz! The Gladiator-style tournament, where winning with armies is everything.

The other type of tournament is the one that GW, I feel, was originally trying to aim for with their RTTs. This could probably be more accurately be called a "hobby tournament." In a hobby tournament, paint, sportsmanship, "theme," and comp scores, however defined, are just as important as battle points if not more so. Comp here may be enforced with one of Warmaster's formulas or something like John's, but the point is that ideally people will get rewarded for bringing a "balanced" army, which typically will not spam non-troop units. Consider, for example, a Fabius Bile-based army, with possessed and spawn, or perhaps a player trying to recreate the Ultramarines 3rd company. Yes, there is a best general award, but the overall will factor in all the categories because it's meant to go to the person in the tournament who best exemplifies the hobby as a whole.

For the first style of tournament, comp is a 4-letter word. It has a place in the second. I'm personally in favor of comp rules that benefit players rather then penalize them - you can play a "hardcore" list and hope to make up points in your overall through battle - no one's saying you can't use x, y, or z, but you get bonus points for not. Will it be perfect? No, probably not, nothing is. People will always try to game their way around restrictions. But people should be rewarded for playing lists that are balanced, fun, and welcoming to all players in the hobby.

thehod wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

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 agree with Bill 100% here. In order to create a fair comp system you would have to have a comp scorecard for every codex available. As some people said before, that comp system bones Necrons, tau, and eldar who rely on their non-troops to win their games.

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar. This discussion wasn't supposed to be limited to one persons comp rules. It's meant to be several peoples idea and suggestions. Coming in to a melting pot.

I don't know if I like John's wholesale. But I find the concept of using them to modify the battle points interesting, and have been tinkering with it a bit to see if it would work with the ones I put above.

I didn't start the topic to discuss if comp is good or bad. I knew going into it that people are on both sides of the issue. I get the fact that you and Cent don't agree with it, that's fine don't show up to a comp tournament. But you both definitely have a lot of experience and could help to come up with some ideas, instead of just deriding everything else saying mmmmkay, comp is bad!

Give out some ideas. Maybe instead of comp you run a themed tournament, assign people as defender or attackers have specific force org slots for if you signed up as an attacker or defender. Maybe you make the comp not worth any points, you just use it to do initial round pairings.

What kind of event/tournament whatever can you have that can include the modeler's and general hobbyists that want to play three games in a weekend.

Warmaster wrote:
Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar. This discussion wasn't supposed to be limited to one persons comp rules. It's meant to be several peoples idea and suggestions. Coming in to a melting pot.

I don't know if I like John's wholesale. But I find the concept of using them to modify the battle points interesting, and have been tinkering with it a bit to see if it would work with the ones I put above.

I didn't start the topic to discuss if comp is good or bad. I knew going into it that people are on both sides of the issue. I get the fact that you and Cent don't agree with it, that's fine don't show up to a comp tournament. But you both definitely have a lot of experience and could help to come up with some ideas, instead of just deriding everything else saying mmmmkay, comp is bad!

Give out some ideas. Maybe instead of comp you run a themed tournament, assign people as defender or attackers have specific force org slots for if you signed up as an attacker or defender. Maybe you make the comp not worth any points, you just use it to do initial round pairings.

What kind of event/tournament whatever can you have that can include the modeler's and general hobbyists that want to play three games in a weekend.

Well, assuming that this part is what you were talking about (I honestly didn't see it, since the vast majority of that post was devoted to the old, thankfully gone RTT comp structure:

This was my suggestion for a comp friendly tournament for them to think about since I didn't really like any of those above scoring criteria.
Everyone starts with their obligatory HQ and 2 troops. You can then add up to 1 troop, 1 fast attack, 1 elite or 1 heavy support. You cannot add a 2nd of any of those or another hq until you add 1 of all of those slots. Once you have filled in one from each force org type you can add a second. You cannot have 2 of the same HQ type.

So for example this would be legal:
1 HQ
3 Troops
1 Elite
1 Heavy Support
1 Fast Attack

but this is not:
1 HQ
6 Troops

So what does changing the game like this do. First it ruins the "theme" of some people's armies. Deathwing can't field termies, dreads, and land raiders. A Sam haim windrider host can't do all troops and fast attack. I'm sure there is a multitude of other theme's that are not unfair or beardy at all that would get hit by this. It's also drastically altering the basic rules of the game. So for the people that dislike the INAT faq they should probably dislike this as well.

The question is does this solve the main reason of comp. To exclude beardy lists from competition and encourage a more balanced list. At a quick glance it removes a lot of the top abusers and you would definitely see very different structed themes but I'm sure there are still abusable combo's out there. So if people want to hammer it by all means do so.

As you said...it doesn't really exclude beardy lists from competition, and all it does is restrict thematic options. No Deathwing, Specific Chaos Legions are next to impossible, anything besides a standard SM battle company structure is useless.

On the beardy side:
4 troops, 2 scorcha wartrakks, 2 kannnons/battleagons, 2 HQs, 2 squads of 15 lootas...
Godzilla nids - 4 min-sized troops, 2 raveners or spore mine clusters, 3 Elite carnifexes, 3 HS carnifexes, 2 HQs

On the thematic side:
No 10th company sm, no White Scars biker horde, no Ulthwe Eldar, Ork Clan based armies, etc.

You want to restrict power armies? Than have the moral courage to go through and re-write each codex, listing disallowed combos, unit configurations, adding restrictions to the number of units that can be taken, etc. You'll probably end up with a document that's at least half the length of the INAT.

Or...run a tournament where 50% of the games are played with your opponent's army.

And remember, that cheese is in the eye of the beholder.

We had a player at our Halloween tourney give a BA player the "This is a horribly abusive army" checkbox for comp. Because at 1500 points, the guy had like 8 Death Company and the other player thought they were way OTT. The rest of the list was some jump marines and tac marines, 1 Baal predator - nothing OMG broken. But, the one player just couldn't stomach the Death Company.

I think if I were to do an objective comp system, it would just be sort of a small checklist:

Over 5 biker nobs: -1 point
Over 10 biker nobs: -2 points
Over 15 biker nobs: -3 points
3 vehicles with holofields: -1 point
Over 3 monstrous creatures: -1 point
Over 5 monstrous creatures: -2 point
Over 3 land raiders: -2 points
Over 30 lootas: -2 point
Over 100 boys: -1 point
More than 1 model with Lash: -2 points
Over 6 obliterators: -2 points
3 exorcists: -1
etc, etc, for all the most extreme combos.

(Just a rough sketch.)

I don't like Comp to begin with but if your going to have comp a predefined comp system is preferable to people wondering hey why did I get such a low comp score for having too many kill point Imperial Guard.

How quickly the call for comp turned into a call for quotas much like the American system of affirmative action with race in higher education.

I beleive Mauleed came up with a comp based points system he based off of every unit in every codex. He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Another idea would be to run a specialty tournament where you can only bring the army box of that army to play with. The points might not work out the same so some tweeking will have to be done.

I'm all for these specialty tournaments. It's a great way to get the creative WAAC juices flowiing again. We've had a tournament in the Chicagoland area called the enemy of my enemy tournament. In this tourney you can bring any army and then up to 250pts of that army can be a unit from any other codex. No independent characters allowed. So I've seen a Tau army with a Defiler or an Ork army with a Carnifex. The best part was you were also credited for converting the unit to fit your own army. I just brought a unit of Genestealers and shoved them into my Chaos Marine army (where they would ride around in a Land Raider to assault things). Redbeard brought a fully converted Carnifex which had grot handlers for his Ork army and got top points for it. I like tourneys like this that mix things up every once in a while.

DarthDiggler wrote:

He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Isn't that...what we have?

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game. Something to be admired and sought-after.
...
If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Well, that went out the window the day the internet showed up. Seriously... There might be a skill in creating a good list, there isn't a great deal of skill involved in reading forums and taking someone else's ideas though. Not to mention, some of what passes for 'good list building' is pretty obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of strategy games. Oh, a power that lets you move your opponent's pieces, yes please, I'll take two. I don't see that as being all that skillful either.

If GW would make more balanced codexes, I might believe that list building were a skill. As things stand now, spam what's good, and it's not hard to figure out the good from the bad.

Warmaster wrote:

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar.

Tau have the most crappy troops.

Tau troops can't have any heavy weapons.

The 40% rule therefore forces the Tau to be more vulnerable to H2H, and worse at shooting.

Tau fast attack choices are fairly crappy. It's not the slightest bit unusual for a Tau army to include no fast attack at all, which has never been considered abusive. In fact I don't think I've ever read a description of a Tau army as being abusive. Because of the way that Pathfinders' usefulness scales, it's very unusual to include them in smaller armies. That's 25% of points that get pushed out into something else. OTOH if you include them, you also have to take a Devilfish, which is expensive and has minimal combat value, unless you pimp it out with upgrades, which racks up your armoury/wargear score.

Depending on the points total and % breaks, it might not be possible to make a Tau Elites choice that wasn't above 25% without it being a lot below 25%, because of the high individual cost of Crisis suits.

I haven't done the sums, so the above is open to argument. It's just a quick appraisal.

Can't comment on Necrons and Eldar as I don't have their codexes.

The game has already got two built-in Comp controls: all units have point values based on their relative power, and all armies are constrained by the Force Org chart.

I've never seen Comp as anything but a boon to "poor" lists and a handicap to "power" lists. If you're not looking to limit the power game or benefit battlebox armies, then what's the point of Comp? How much you like the army? Isn't that what the Painting score is for?

Given there are only about a dozen codexes in use, it shouldn't be too much work to make a comp-approved selection for each one. Whether they can all be balanced is another matter.

GMMStudios wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:

He rated each unit in each codex on it's power and gave it a point value, then lists couldn't go above those points. I think he did something like that and even though it was time consuming, it worked. If I ever had the time I would like to sit down with every codex and make a points system like that. It might work better as a living document which we all put together on the net.

Isn't that...what we have?

No it would be something like your total army couldn't be above 15pts

Ork Boyz = 2pts
Warboss = 2pts (+4 on bike)
Nobz = 2pts (+4 on bikes)
Grots = 1pt
Lootas = 3pts
Flash gits = 1pt
Battwagon from anywhere = 2pts

etc... or....

Ork Boyz = 1pt for 1-2 2pts for 3-4 3pts for 5-6

So 1-2 Ork boyz units are 2 pts the 3rd and 4th selection is 2pts each and the 5th and 6th selection is 3pts each. 6 squads of Boyz would be 12pts right there. Points don't matter as much as the selection, but take to many and the cost in army points goes up. A more diverse list would allow more units. None of this should be taken literally, it's just off the top of my head. I would have to sit down with a codex and work through all the selections for an effective points system. It would be time consuming and complicated, but it might be the only way comp can work as comp people want it to work. Don't get me wrong, I'm in Bill's camp here for the most part. I am curious to see if it can be done though and I suspect it can.

I like the idea of just rating units on a points scale with armies not able to go over a certain amount of points.

Some problems would be:

Some units are only good in combination with other specific units.

Some units are better or worse at certain squad sizes (two squads of 30 boyz is probably better than 3 squads of 20, for example).

Some codexes better units are troops, so you'd be penalizing some codexes for taking...troops. I dont see this as a problem but lots of people still view good comp=lotsa troops

Centurian99 wrote:
On the beardy side:
4 troops, 2 scorcha wartrakks, 2 kannnons/battleagons, 2 HQs, 2 squads of 15 lootas...
Godzilla nids - 4 min-sized troops, 2 raveners or spore mine clusters, 3 Elite carnifexes, 3 HS carnifexes, 2 HQs

On the thematic side:
No 10th company sm, no White Scars biker horde, no Ulthwe Eldar, Ork Clan based armies, etc.

You want to restrict power armies? Than have the moral courage to go through and re-write each codex, listing disallowed combos, unit configurations, adding restrictions to the number of units that can be taken, etc. You'll probably end up with a document that's at least half the length of the INAT.

Or...run a tournament where 50% of the games are played with your opponent's army.

I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Warmaster wrote:

Show me how the comp that I posted hoses Tau, Necrons, and eldar.

Tau have the most crappy troops.

Tau troops can't have any heavy weapons.

The 40% rule therefore forces the Tau to be more vulnerable to H2H, and worse at shooting.

Tau fast attack choices are fairly crappy. It's not the slightest bit unusual for a Tau army to include no fast attack at all, which has never been considered abusive. In fact I don't think I've ever read a description of a Tau army as being abusive. Because of the way that Pathfinders' usefulness scales, it's very unusual to include them in smaller armies. That's 25% of points that get pushed out into something else. OTOH if you include them, you also have to take a Devilfish, which is expensive and has minimal combat value, unless you pimp it out with upgrades, which racks up your armoury/wargear score.

Depending on the points total and % breaks, it might not be possible to make a Tau Elites choice that wasn't above 25% without it being a lot below 25%, because of the high individual cost of Crisis suits.

I haven't done the sums, so the above is open to argument. It's just a quick appraisal.

Can't comment on Necrons and Eldar as I don't have their codexes.

Hey Killkrazy, I wasn't advocating the Rogue Trader comp rules. I had my own version posted towards the bottom of my first post.

Sorry, I will go and read the other bit.

Warmaster wrote:
I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

I call it moral courage because you would have to essentially openly re-write the army lists, thus opening yourself to criticism, as opposed to trying to run under the cover of "playing the game the way its supposed to be played" or whatever nonsense JH was trying to advocate.

I've heard of tourneys run where you always play your opponent's army.

Okay, I read the other idea.

This is less bad for Tau because the point limits are removed, allowing a Tau player to (for example) choose a minimum FW squad and two minimum Kroot squads, and a minimum Gundrone squadron, then spend a ton of points on some suits and a Hammerhead, which is what Tau players mostly want and need.

The system has the advantage of simplicity.

I'm not sure it will actually create a balanced Tau army in terms of overall themeiness and fluffiness.

The thing is since the codexes are not equal no comp system that isn't tailored to each codex is really going to remove the problems. Neither does the European system (no comp) but it is the simplest to operate.

If you look at the thread concerning GT results, it is becoming increasingly apparent that as every suspected, Daemon and Ork codexes are fundamentally stronger -- and this is all despite whatever comp system may have been used for each tournament.

Wow, this thing really took off... I'm only going to scattershot a few things here.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you need to call stuff "crap" to feel superior? Are you really that small- and petty-minded?

No, I simply make a practice of heaping scorn on inexcusably silly ideas.

In that case... *holds up a mirror for you*

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Why else do units of a given army have varying points-effectiveness? GW does a far better job of balancing than you might think, and GW clearly includes certain options that are deliberately weak to make a point.

Or they simply make up stuff that sounds cool, do some rudimentary playtesting, ignore comments that contradict what they think, and move on, because they're Not Interested in getting everything perfect, as long as it sells models.

That is starting from the false premise that every option should have the same in-game points utility, when reality states otherwise. If you were correct, then GW would have to limit the Codices solely by what they include and excluded, which is a fairly blunt instrument. As it is, by deliberately under- ("good") and over- ("bad") costing units, GW can have a more nuanced picture of what any given army is supposed to be like.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And while GW has Codices, they also expect players to exercise some restraint in listbuilding, hence TMIR.

TMIR?

"TMIR" is The Most Important Rule - to ensure that *both* players have fun.

Based on your responses, I'm not at all surprised that you've ignored it, despite it being prominently stated in the Rulebook.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: A standard SM Codex army for 40k should be a demi company:

That's a joke, right? If that's how GW wanted the game to be played, they could have very easily made Tactical Squads 3+, Assault Squads 1+, and Dev squads 1+.

GW is a lot smarter than that. They *allow* more variety than that, but what is allowed isn't the same as what is desired.

Centurian99 wrote:Any universal comp system is Epic Fail, because it can't do that, or else its not Universal. You could probably come up with separate comp lists for each codex in the game...but then you're essentially re-writing the codex.

That is a fool's argument. It's like arguing you can't have a core rulebook for 40k, or general rules for a Tournament.

Centurian99 wrote:Because the armies without those solid, resilient, multi-purpose troops can rely on other force org slots to pick up the slack. Under your proposed system, they're penalized for doing so.

40k5 is already Troops-oriented. And under my proposed system, those armies with good Troops are penalized by not being able spend all of the points on Troops. So it goes both ways.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except, if you look into that SM Codex and the notional OOB, along with the sorts of varied armies that GW actually fields by example, then these kinds of varied armies actually *are* more "correct".

Or maybe they construct armies for the codex and OOB (whatever that acronym stands for) and WD because they want to show off a variety of models so that they'll sell more models.

OOB is "Order of Battle", and is used to define the men and materiel available to a particular force for a battle. For example, the OOB for Germany in Early War 1939 includes NO King Tiger Tanks, because those weren't fielded until the 1940s Late War. In wargaming, OOB is a Historical/Fluff-based restriction that is applied to an army to disallow un-historical composition. GW splits the difference by specifying an OOB in the SM Codex as recommended guidance.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:And the fact of the matter is, if you're focused on trying to field the most effective way to outfit or construct army lists, then by definition, you're powergaming.

Never denied the fact that I'm a competive gamer.

Non-competitive gamers who really aren't playing to win, don't care if they win. So-called friendly-gamers who decry people who play power lists are really saying, "I want to win, I just don't want to have to deviate from my own limited vision of how the game is supposed to be played in order to win."

No, friendly gamers are saying, "I paid $XXX to actually *play* my army, not to spend a day being TFG's punching bag to goldfish against." There's a huge difference that you just don't get.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having played competitively for many years, I know for a fact that a piloting strong list does not require as much generalship as a sub-optimal list. After all, if you have a strong list, and you win then you're not proving anything except the strength of the list.

I note that you didn't respond to the actual point. It is a fact that a strong list requires less skill as a general to achieve the same results.

Centurian99 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Ultimately, I don't think we really have anything else to say to each other. You want to powergame with no-comp WAAC lists. I get it. I think that's passe and boring, and that comp opens the door to more interesting gameplay. We disagree. End of discussion.

In other words, because you can't defend your points, besides making accusations about things that you honestly know nothing about, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and hum.

No, at this point, we're just repeating ourselves. There's nothing more to say. The difference is that I at least understand what you're saying and disagree. You're the dork who's got his fingers in his ears and not even listening.
____

OddJob. wrote:I have absolutely no issues with comp, as long as you accept it for what it is- changing the goalposts.

If GW do such a good job of balance how can there be WAAC lists?

It's really apparant that you aren't a competative gamer Jonny. That is of course your perogative, but if you don't play with/against the big boys how do you know it is boring?

Exactly. Comp *is* completely about changing the goalposts from "anything goes" to a sort of "gentleman's agreement".

When I talk about "balance" in a GW game, I thought I was clear, but apparently not. I apologize for the confusion, because we are using the word differently. A lot of gamers (i.e. you and Cent) seem to think (or want) "balance" means "X points of stuff always has the same effectivenss regardless of the Codex and unit and the mix of units", so if you dartboard an army list, every list will be equally effective in any given situation. I see it differently, and believe that GW is driving a certain level of differentiation so that armies have distinct strengths and weaknesses and therefore "balance" exists at the Codex level only - this is what GW has stated many, many times. So that means that, from GW's POV, "balance" within a Codex means that points and options for various units are balanced (really *biased*) against one another to encourage certain particular styles of play, while still allowing for a variety of other styles of play. And for GW, "balance" across Codices means that armies of those preferred play styles will give an interesting game. GW "balance" doesn't include testing of corner cases, so that is where WAAC armies come from. That is why C: SM Tacticals perform much better than C: BA or C: DA Tacticals, while C: BA Assault are far better than C: SM options.

I don't know who "Jonny" is, but if you want to refer to me via shorthand, I'd suggest "John" or "JHDD". As I noted above, I'm not a competitive gamer anymore, but I used to be. And was successful enough at it to win a bunch of local events. So, yeah, I know how to play (and win) "against the big boys". I'm past that phase of my gaming, so I currently see it as boring. Who knows, maybe I'll get back into it later, after I'm done with Apoc...

OddJob. wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:BYE

Emphasis mine. I see it too. I just quoted everything so he could see it.

Centurian99 wrote:

Warmaster wrote:
I don't know if I would call it having the morale courage, I would think it would be partially time and effort and honestly who would want to do that .

Believe me I would find it amusing as all get out to have everyone bring an army and then put all the names in a hat and random draw which one you play for the round. Not that it could ever happen but it sounds like fun.

I call it moral courage because you would have to essentially openly re-write the army lists, thus opening yourself to criticism, as opposed to trying to run under the cover of "playing the game the way its supposed to be played" or whatever nonsense JH was trying to advocate.

I've heard of tourneys run where you always play your opponent's army.

I'm not advocating any right way to play. What we have noticed on the local scene is that a lot of newer players or more hobby oriented players don't want to play in the tournaments. Which is fine. The thing is to figure out some way to have a tournament that they can also play in or come up with some alternative type of event that takes over the day. So the majority of this was to see if there was a way to come up with composition or theme scoring that would affect the overall battle scores but also give another category to rate armies in.
.

What I'm really leaning towards now is trying to set something up that by nature is more hobby oriented. Not by restricting army types but maybe by setting up a background for it. Maybe try to do a good vs. evil thing or something. Back to the drawing boards.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

If someone's models are not painted as well, they will not score as highly.

If someone's tactics are not very good, they will not score as highly.

If someone is not skilled enough to make a powerful list, they will not score as highly.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

I recall the categories to be Generalship, Sportsmanship, Painting, and Composition.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Jhon, you're trying to deflect the issue with buzz-words rather than discuss the points being made, and you know it.

Tournaments are a contest in excellence.

Excellence in painting, excellence in sportsmanship, excellence in fielding a list, and excellence in list design.

If we're not going to reward excellence, then what do we reward, John?

Words like "Powergaming" don't really mean anything. They're just a noise people make when they want to try and complain about someone or something that is an obstacle to their own victory.

But, John, that is not the proper response to an obstacle. The proper response is to improve your own list and your own skills. Rise to the challenge rather than demand that the bar be lowered.

In my experience, winners on the top tables really don't complain about powergaming and cheese. Why? BEcause they have developed their skills and lists so that they can handle just about anything out there.


I think it would be a mistake for a tournament organizer to make rules that encourage people to feel entitled to win regardless of their skills and army. Rather, I think a TO should make rules that encourage people to improve their skills by rewarding those who have them.

The balance idea is absolutely right though IMO it should come about from the player's ability to choose a sensible list from the available options.

In broad terms, an army of a particular type would have a range of units which complement and support each other, but taking half those units and putting them units of a different type of army won't work so well. By army type, I mean a shooty army, or a fast army, or a tough army or whatever.

dietrich wrote:Here's my problem with Comp and Theme scoring, and soft scores in general. They're subjective.

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.).

Theme is subjective. Comp doesn't have to be.

I like a Comp checkbox that can simply be done by the Judge at the start of the event. Then, Judges and Players give bonus points for Sports, Painting, and Theme to reward exceptional opponents.
____

olympia wrote:A comp. score system should be done at the start of the tournament before any games are played.

Totally agreed.
____

Steelmage99 wrote:That is most likely the reason why I am "defending" Johns idea. At least I can make any army I want (with corresponding consequences).

Yeah, this is why I don't get why people see my system as "restrictive". Like a GW Codex, I allow anything, but encourage / discourage certain things more than others.
____

sourclams wrote: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".

Compare something like Grey Knights, where the base units are very expensive and ineffective against mechanized armies.

You know, there's nothing wrong with shifting the focus from "best HS" to "best Troops" - it's just different.

Do you mean theme-limited to Grey Knights only, or Codex: Daemonhunters (with optional WH allies) in general? There's a very big difference in those two points. It'd be as if I complained that my Eldar Storm Guardian / Wraithguard army wasn't very effective because I chose not to take any of the other options in my army.
____

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:What about Necrons? One troop choice,

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

I removed the duplicate penalty for Troops, to address SM / Necron / DE / other concerns.

You know, nearly every other army has the same issue in terms of "getting the most out" vs comp. And Comp specifically acts as a brake on how much you can get (that's the point). Like DH / WH, Necrons being an older, non-updated Codex will have more issues than others. But that's not necessarily a reason to invalidate the entire concept or system.
____

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

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.

Yep.

Um, where am I vilifying anyone? I have never said that WAAC is "bad", nor that any person is "bad" for taking such an army. It's not what I'd prefer to see, nor what I'd recommend, but that's not nearly the same as vilifying someone. As far as I know, stating an opinion, disagreeing and expressing a preference isn't vilification. Perhaps you can give an example where I "vilified" someone so I can understand what you're talking about and address it?

Given that the TO chooses a particular comp system, to some extent, players are playing (or encouraged to play) the armies that the TO wants to see. But to say that no-comp is different is odd, as a TO deciding on no-comp indirectly chooses particular armies as well.
____

DarthDiggler wrote:Although I agree with Bill Kim on this issue, I'm interested in testing out John's Comp scoring in a tournament.

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.

It's interesting for discussion and variety, but I have no idea if it'd actually work. But it'd be different, and maybe someone can come up with a better alternative.

I think the most enjoyable "tournament" I played recently was a "no-MEQ" event down here in SoCal a few years ago. I didn't win, but I and everybody else got to have a lot of fun playing games with minis that they normally don't bring or face. That was pretty cool precisely because it was a change of pace from the norm.
____

Aldonis wrote:Penalizing for not have different flavors of troops is not reasonable.

Agreed. As edited above, I've removed this penalty, but I forgot to update that post. Sorry for my oversight.
____

stonefox wrote: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.

Yes.
____

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

But the thought is there that there has to be something else you can run for people that play softer kinds of armies.

how do you award points for composition and theme. 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?

I wouldn't say that they *like* mine more - they're just talking about it more.

There is, and we call it "Comp". Seriously, I'll take the notion of a "soft" event up under Proposed Rules, later.

As above, Theme is always subjective, while Comp can be objective. In some tournaments, there actually is a walkaround at lunch time to vote for best painted, best theme, etc. I always like that, as you get to see what everybody else did, maybe even chat a bit.
____

Grot 6 wrote: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?

That presumes that the objective is to "win" as opposed to enjoying the competition.
____

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

This is an interesting idea, the problem is that you basically give the green light to the first 10 or 20 people who can take the "good" lists (i.e. Orks & Chaos). If someone only has Orks, and there are no Ork slots left, then they don't get to play at all. If there aren't even 10 DE players, then your tournament is going to be short players. If you plan on 100 players, and only get 10 Orks against 10 Chaos players, that's not a good result, either.

IMO, your concept works best if you're providing all of the stuff and then players can bid on specific armies.
___

lambadomy wrote:I think people are taking too much of JHDDs pretty restrictive comp rules and assuming THAT is what comp has to be...

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.

You know, I'm not making any rules, placing any restrictions, or setting any requirements in my comp system. Any player can take whatever they like, and will be scored accordingly. You can still field whatever "broken" army you'd like. How are you getting it as restrictive?

FWIW, that's kind of how a Contract Bridge Touranment works, where the focus is on pure gameplay. It's a lot of fun, and I'd suggest that people give it a try. It's very intense.

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.

Yup, but when someone figures it out, please share. The rest of the world would like to see it.

Doctor Thunder wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:You know, I remember a time when the ability to make a powerful list was one of the skills of the game.

Huh? I don't recall powergaming / powerbuilding to be a desired category.

Nowhere is a strong list implied by any of those categories.

Tournaments are a contest in excellence.

Words like "Powergaming" don't really mean anything.

WRT deflecting issues, there are issues that I want to discuss, others that I don't care about.

You said "the ability to make a powerful list", which is simply powergaming / powerbuilding. In most cases, making a powerful list is merely a question of finding out which units are the most powerful for their points cost and spamming the hell out of them because you can. It has nothing to do with gameplay (Generalship) or coolness (Theme).
So I don't think you're using the word "Excellence" properly.

So in context, "Excellence" doesn't really mean anything either, as making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

As for "raising one's game", again, I think we differ in objectives in terms of what sort of game we each want to play.

If you want Comp (structure) to mean Theme (concept), then I can understand that. In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I don't see the need for Comp scores. All they lead to is a different set of Power Builds

Exactly. Sometimes, it's nice to spread the winnings around a bit.

--------------------

If thats what you want to do, why not just change any of the rules? Make flamers S3 or guardsmen T5 or whatever. Thats pretty much as absurd as scrapping the codexes GW already made by selfimposed limits.
And doing it in the name of "coolness" brought a smile to my lips, is it cool to play gimped? I dunno, but I dont think so.

Honestly, you been preaching battlbox armies all the years Ive been here at dakka. From saying that they are competative or that GW actually wanted you to play the game that way, they just didnt write it in their books.

At least Warmaster is honest about the fact that he wants to make it for the new players in his area who would be beaten to a bloody pulp against competative players (wich they ofcourse wouldnt fell to happy about and the ones not able to handle beeing noobs would quit) and thats reasonable and even applaudable. I dunno, but maybe hold a special event for the new people is a better idea then change the rules of the game totally? The point is probably that these people someday will be trying to play for real and if they have been fooled to think playing the battleforce crap is real 40k they will be in for a rude awakening.

To say that it is "powergaming" to build powerful lists and that the people that are doing it is TFG is just absurd. Ive played against lots of crappy lists with powergamers playing them and ripping apart the games while most of the times the pepole who knows how to play good with good lists usually are alot more fun to play with.(there are ofcourse exceptions)

Like someone said before, why would you wanna give someone a head start in a race? If you wanna play it at tournament levels you should bring your A game and your new nike boots, if you dont have the ability there is always the special olympics.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
making a powerful list isn't difficult in the internet age. Netdecking, netlisting has pretty much destroyed that requirement. Hell, you can even ask Ste- Beetlejuice to make your list, and he'll be happy to do it.

You keep talking about it like it is a bad thing, but you have yet to argue why it is a bad thing.

The internet is a resource, and there is nothing wrong with people using it. Is it also wrong for someone to learn a painting technique online and use it to make their models look better?

If people are not supposed to take powerful lists to a tournament, then what are they supposed to take?

It has nothing to do with gameplay

Sure it does. A smart player does not bring an underpowered list to a contest of lists and skills. The tools you have to work with in your list determine the options you have on the table. When two players have equal skill, their lists (and luck) will generally break the tie.

So I don't think you're using the word "Excellence" properly.

Sure I am. An excellent tournament army will score very high battle points when fielded by a skilled player. That is the measure we have always used and will always use.

Besides, John, you still haven't answered my question. If we're not going to reward excellence, then what do we reward?

In your case, Comp is the difference between spamming 3 units of TH/SS Termies and Theming them with boobs.

Nice jab, but I am generally unimpressed at attempts to start a flame war. Prove your case or concede, but don't waste our time with trolling.