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 OverwatchCNC wrote:
But comp shouldn't be there to remove every "hard" list. Comp should, if done correctly, either remove or penalize the insane lists we have seen popping up.

I think you're looking at this wrong. Comp scores should give bonuses to players who don't decide to take "the best" list without removing the option for a player to do so. Removing options is IMO a bad idea, two of each transport? How is that fair to armies that only have one transport? Restricting Daemon players to "one" hq model, period, is tantamount to saying they HAVE to play FMC spam. Just leave it alone, give a bonus amount to the "never picked" choices in the codex. Rewarding players for taking Penitent Engines, Whirlwinds, and Tomb Blades will go over a lot better than telling them they can't take three dreadnoughts in an Iron Hands army.

Make up a list of all the units nobody ever takes, a list that most people don't usually take. If a unit is not on that list, then they give no points for comp, the less "useful" they are, in InternetMeta context, the more points a player would get for them in their comp score. Restrictions = Bad, Reward for not being a turd to play against = Good.

 dracpanzer wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
But comp shouldn't be there to remove every "hard" list. Comp should, if done correctly, either remove or penalize the insane lists we have seen popping up.

I think you're looking at this wrong. Comp scores should give bonuses to players who don't decide to take "the best" list without removing the option for a player to do so. Removing options is IMO a bad idea, two of each transport? How is that fair to armies that only have one transport? Restricting Daemon players to "one" hq model, period, is tantamount to saying they HAVE to play FMC spam. Just leave it alone, give a bonus amount to the "never picked" choices in the codex. Rewarding players for taking Penitent Engines, Whirlwinds, and Tomb Blades will go over a lot better than telling them they can't take three dreadnoughts in an Iron Hands army.

Make up a list of all the units nobody ever takes, a list that most people don't usually take. If a unit is not on that list, then they give no points for comp, the less "useful" they are, in InternetMeta context, the more points a player would get for them in their comp score. Restrictions = Bad, Reward for not being a turd to play against = Good.

This would actually do nothing.

The point is some of the most competitive players in the country are expressing disappointment in the tournament scene due to unfun "god builds" that create unbeatable units/armies.

Without hard restrictions, people will still bring the 2+ rerollable units even with points penalties. People bringing the less competitive units will lose their games, and battle points lost wont outweigh comp score bonuses.

I've seen it happen. The guys with super hard lists go 3-0 and don't place due to soft scores. The guys who followed the comp rubric and played the power gamers don't place because they lost too many games.

In the end you didn't accomplish anything because the unfun lists still showed up, still ruined someone's day, and the people who put effort into a compy list are still victims.

 hyv3mynd wrote:

 dracpanzer wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
But comp shouldn't be there to remove every "hard" list. Comp should, if done correctly, either remove or penalize the insane lists we have seen popping up.

I think you're looking at this wrong. Comp scores should give bonuses to players who don't decide to take "the best" list without removing the option for a player to do so. Removing options is IMO a bad idea, two of each transport? How is that fair to armies that only have one transport? Restricting Daemon players to "one" hq model, period, is tantamount to saying they HAVE to play FMC spam. Just leave it alone, give a bonus amount to the "never picked" choices in the codex. Rewarding players for taking Penitent Engines, Whirlwinds, and Tomb Blades will go over a lot better than telling them they can't take three dreadnoughts in an Iron Hands army.

Make up a list of all the units nobody ever takes, a list that most people don't usually take. If a unit is not on that list, then they give no points for comp, the less "useful" they are, in InternetMeta context, the more points a player would get for them in their comp score. Restrictions = Bad, Reward for not being a turd to play against = Good.

This would actually do nothing.

The point is some of the most competitive players in the country are expressing disappointment in the tournament scene due to unfun "god builds" that create unbeatable units/armies.

Without hard restrictions, people will still bring the 2+ rerollable units even with points penalties. People bringing the less competitive units will lose their games, and battle points lost wont outweigh comp score bonuses.

I've seen it happen. The guys with super hard lists go 3-0 and don't place due to soft scores. The guys who followed the comp rubric and played the power gamers don't place because they lost too many games.

In the end you didn't accomplish anything because the unfun lists still showed up, still ruined someone's day, and the people who put effort into a compy list are still victims.

I agree here.

I think the only real issue lies with the couple of armies that are, as has been said, unfun to play against. They also aren't really "unfun armies," as much as unfun builds or single units. You could solve almost every problem through a couple of simple tweaks or removals ... rather than a complex comp system that's just asking for players to break it instead, while the more casual players have an entirely new "meta" to learn before a single one off event using it.

2+ fortuneseer councils
Screamerstars
Fatey FMC builds that spend half their time re-rolling grounding tests and flying on/off the board
360 LOS Baledrakes (just b/c of the # of fun and characterful marine builds that are afraid to even exist for fear of the drakes)
Tau Trick Commanders

The game is OTHERWISE actually quite balanced; even Wave Serpents are more along the lines of old GK or IG (powerful, but traditional ... it's an optimized unit that shoots well, but moves/dies/etc. "normally" ... as opposed to the above). But dealing with the above is never "traditional," in that it doesn't feel like you are playing the game of 40k, so much as weird mini games to try and minimize units that cannot be directly confronted in any capacity. This can be fun and challenging the FIRST time, but when they become increasingly popular and you move forward in a tournament to facing your peers ... even the "good" players start to feel fatigued by expending all their energy on esoteric movement and rule manipulations to get around units that are otherwise unassailable.

Applying a comp system as a community would a) probably not solve all of those major problem children without totally borking the game for everyone else ... i.e., comp that fails to do anything about jetcouncil and screamerstar b/c neither really spams anything ... and b) simply move the bar for where players were breaking / bringing "optimal" lists.

The problems here are not broad ones ... and they are not systemic. They call for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

Issues with things like firepower superiority that Tau and Eldar bring to bear are less systemic of the game, and more systemic of the overall tournament scene not adjusting to a very basic thing about 6th - Blockage is the new Cover. Being in cover is no longer of any value, REGARDLESS of Ignores Cover weapons, because cover saves as a general rule took a slight hit with 6th Edition, and newer 6th Ed armies put out a much higher volume of wounds per point expended, meaning they generally are able to torrent through cover saves. MOST TO's are aware of this now, and are working to add substantially more LOS blocking terrain to the game as compensation. The remaining issues as this evolves will be the list above, not the broader popularity of super-dakka codices as at present.

Also, I think both Seer Councils and Screamerstars get shut down pretty hard by certain counters. In particular, the new Sisters can take combi-weapons that inflicts Perils on everyone in a unit hit, which pretty much negates Seer Councils completely and can do a number on the Screamerstar as well.

I believe it's completely possible to take an all-comers army that can deal with any of these units while still being balanced in general matchups-- the problem, as with Forge World units, is that the mid-level players who might not even be aware that these things exist can get completely blown out and have games where they more or less can't interact with the enemy, which is very undesirable.

I see Tau and serpents as much less fun to play against than MVB for me the existence of the mass ignores cover shooting from these armies pushed me into using screamer star in the first place because daemons as an army don not otherwise (except playing FMC spam maybe) have any way to counter that level of shooting. So I would fix that as well but essentially right now there are several unfun builds to play against in the top dexes that make the game very bad especially for players not prepared to deal with them.

Breng77 wrote:
I see Tau and serpents as much less fun to play against than MVB for me the existence of the mass ignores cover shooting from these armies pushed me into using screamer star in the first place because daemons as an army don not otherwise (except playing FMC spam maybe) have any way to counter that level of shooting. So I would fix that as well but essentially right now there are several unfun builds to play against in the top dexes that make the game very bad especially for players not prepared to deal with them.

I'm going to ref the terrain component; as James highlighted at BFS, when LOS blocking terrain catches up to 6th Edition in the tournament scene, you won't find Tau and Serpent firepower quite as dreadful, b/c you will be able to more effectively force it to play creatively instead of just lining up, shuffling about, and blowing your models away.

More true for serpents than Tau, and even then at some point as daemons I'm going to need to expose myself to some shooting, so while you can do it you remove lots of models just trying to get there. Unless you are saying BFS and nova are still behind on this you really cannot say very many armies are catching up as tau and eldar dominated the top 2 brackets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Essentially what I am saying is when there are 2 super shooty armies that ignore cover and have reasonable good answers to the assault, you end up with other armies finding ways to close the gap and that is why screamer star is so popular. Prior to tau dog rush was far more popular as a build.

Breng77 wrote:
More true for serpents than Tau, and even then at some point as daemons I'm going to need to expose myself to some shooting, so while you can do it you remove lots of models just trying to get there. Unless you are saying BFS and nova are still behind on this you really cannot say very many armies are catching up as tau and eldar dominated the top 2 brackets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Essentially what I am saying is when there are 2 super shooty armies that ignore cover and have reasonable good answers to the assault, you end up with other armies finding ways to close the gap and that is why screamer star is so popular. Prior to tau dog rush was far more popular as a build.

I'm saying BFS, NOVA, and every other GT out there are still behind on this.

I'd agree with that

No comp, the game has always had crazy, unfun, broken stuff. This is just the newest version of it.

Sisters will put a stop to Screamer/Seerstars, IMO.

Only if you rule that each shot causes perils to every psyker in a unit...which is unclear.

I agree it is a terribly written rule.

I believe that the correct interpretation is that a unit hit suffers a perils on one psyker/brotherhood of psykers. The only part that remains unclear to me is how to determine that. I think randomly assigning it is the most fair solution if there are multiple psykers in the unit.

 Reecius wrote:
I agree it is a terribly written rule.

I believe that the correct interpretation is that a unit hit suffers a perils on one psyker/brotherhood of psykers. The only part that remains unclear to me is how to determine that. I think randomly assigning it is the most fair solution if there are multiple psykers in the unit.

I'd agree that this is the RAI version, and if we ever get another FAQ (seriously, its been like 6 months since a real one) thats how it'll go. Even so, it only takes a few to ruin the Heralds in a screamerstar. If every Sarge-equivalent takes one, then that's 4 perils on the unit, or 2 dead heralds. Good to hit rolls or even more of them makes it worse.

Damnit! Real ife sucks. I wanted to jump right back into this but the job took many hours, then the kid wants to go shooting ...


But now, ya know, really knowledgable guys like MVBrandt and that Reece-tool are making good points ... well MVB, anyway. Overwatch posted, right?


Seriously, though, I think the points made and direction of the discussion has been great.

A couple counters
1. OverWCnC - troops are supposed to be spammed. That's you can have 6 of 'em.
2. One guy mentioned bypassing the 2 E/FA/HS unit/model limit with his Ally of the same army.
Breng77:

Oh I want 3 Elites and 3 Heavies...I'll ally with Farsight...look now I can take my Buff Commander, my etherial, 3 Riptides and 3 Broadside teams (or whatever)...oh and transport thing I don't care.
Same with the space marine book, I'll just ally with myself and look really very little on restrictions I get

Nope, I specifically addressed that in the limitations. Breng77, it's the big paragraph in orange.

3. The major counter - YES, the books are *NOT* balanced. Some have better heavies, or troops or fliers or all worthless FA ... So, unless you go codex specific with restrictions which MVBrandt brought up, which then invites prejudicial rulings that are going to be taken 'personally' by players, ... you have to use a blanket restriction. I don't see any harmonious acceptance in "Your Seer council is out" ... "FMCs, sorry OverwatchCnC. Just add another Nurgle crew" ... Naw, naw. Codex specific is a very bad road to start down, IMHO.

*Rules* specific restrictions? Interesting, Mr. Brandt.

I think, otherwise, the only way to curb spam is by tightening the FoC, with the caveat in the Original Post.


Oh, one guy mentioned that if I wanted to "fix the meta" to blah blah something. I don't want to fix the meta. It can't be fixed. I equate the "Meta" of 40k to be like Mother Nature. You don't fix an intangible, ever changing force (at least until the last codex comes out and then it'll be 7th ed!); you adapt to it. And when tornados, earthquakes, floods happen, we adapt or keep getting beaten by Grey Knight earthquakes.

I have never really played a comp game. Not in 9 years. Yes, for many months there was a simple 'Thumbs Up or Down" on your opponent's army at the RTTS. I think it was 3 measly points on a 60 point scale. I could be wrong.

I believe in Team No Comp's approach. The GW designers designed ... and we play 'em as they are. Despite several posters saying that the codexes aren't balanced, I say they damn well are! Reasonably. If we all had the same army, exactly, model for model, wargear for wargear, psy-power & Warlord Traits, then it's the good players that will win.

- - - - - --
The purpose of my proposed Comp thread was to see if a one-off, reasonably workable Comp System could be devised. No more no less. (and yeah, this was inspired by GoatBoy's Monday rant, so he gets credit for promoting discussion, and Sgt. PJBarker for bringing our attention to it here on dakka.)

Anyway, discuss on!

----------
Oh, and if anyone wants to stick up for Reece being a 'tool', I like the guy. I'm just keeping him humble. Once he bought me off with a beer, offered unbidden, he got a devoted supporter in me ever since ...

... I think it was a Pabst. Doesn't say much about me, now does it?

 jifel wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
I agree it is a terribly written rule.

I believe that the correct interpretation is that a unit hit suffers a perils on one psyker/brotherhood of psykers. The only part that remains unclear to me is how to determine that. I think randomly assigning it is the most fair solution if there are multiple psykers in the unit.

I'd agree that this is the RAI version, and if we ever get another FAQ (seriously, its been like 6 months since a real one) thats how it'll go. Even so, it only takes a few to ruin the Heralds in a screamerstar. If every Sarge-equivalent takes one, then that's 4 perils on the unit, or 2 dead heralds. Good to hit rolls or even more of them makes it worse.

The older and more of TO as opposed to tournament gamer I become, the more I lean that way as RAI is the way most player play the rules and usually the most intuitive and sensible way. Not always of course, but when it is questionable and open to going one way or the other, I always lean to what I think is most fair for the game as a whole.

Saying it hits EVERY Psyker in a unit with Perils is just way too much, IMO, and honestly, I don't think the wording of the rules clearly indicates that. I think you can read it either way. I know how I am going to vote on this one, personally.

Brothererekose wrote:
Each book has *one* decent choice per FA, E and HS.

So, if the number of good choices is limited to start with, and you further limit how much a player can take from a particular force org section, don't you just increase the chances of having any two players using the same codex showing up with a near-identical list?

 Reecius wrote:
Saying it hits EVERY Psyker in a unit with Perils is just way too much, IMO, and honestly, I don't think the wording of the rules clearly indicates that. I think you can read it either way. I know how I am going to vote on this one, personally.

Unfortunately, I feel like you have to just plain make up rules to make it not hit every Psyker in the unit, since there's no real way to determine who should be hit if only one Perils result is inflicted.

 hyv3mynd wrote:

 dracpanzer wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
But comp shouldn't be there to remove every "hard" list. Comp should, if done correctly, either remove or penalize the insane lists we have seen popping up.

I think you're looking at this wrong. Comp scores should give bonuses to players who don't decide to take "the best" list without removing the option for a player to do so. Removing options is IMO a bad idea, two of each transport? How is that fair to armies that only have one transport? Restricting Daemon players to "one" hq model, period, is tantamount to saying they HAVE to play FMC spam. Just leave it alone, give a bonus amount to the "never picked" choices in the codex. Rewarding players for taking Penitent Engines, Whirlwinds, and Tomb Blades will go over a lot better than telling them they can't take three dreadnoughts in an Iron Hands army.

Make up a list of all the units nobody ever takes, a list that most people don't usually take. If a unit is not on that list, then they give no points for comp, the less "useful" they are, in InternetMeta context, the more points a player would get for them in their comp score. Restrictions = Bad, Reward for not being a turd to play against = Good.

This would actually do nothing.

The point is some of the most competitive players in the country are expressing disappointment in the tournament scene due to unfun "god builds" that create unbeatable units/armies.

Without hard restrictions, people will still bring the 2+ rerollable units even with points penalties. People bringing the less competitive units will lose their games, and battle points lost wont outweigh comp score bonuses.

I've seen it happen. The guys with super hard lists go 3-0 and don't place due to soft scores. The guys who followed the comp rubric and played the power gamers don't place because they lost too many games.

In the end you didn't accomplish anything because the unfun lists still showed up, still ruined someone's day, and the people who put effort into a compy list are still victims.

Obviously you're weighting games over comp, sports, paint. We divide our tournament points equally. Games counts for 25%, Comp counts for 25%, Painting counts for 25%, Sportsmanship counts for 25%. Unfun "god builds" will ruin everyones day so long as tournaments are built around a system that weights games at 75% or higher. We give awards for best overall, 2nd best, 3rd best, then best in each individual category. The unfun "god builds" made up of unpainted models played by butthats disappear pretty fast.

All of the so called "soft scores" are routinely discounted, because TO's allow them to not matter. Let the "god build" player take a shot at Best General, those lists aren't unbeatable, perhaps he will get it perhaps he wont. But they don't have a chance at Best Overall if they bomb out the rest of the categories. Our local meta has a lot of old timers who've all had 10+ years of "competitive" play that eventually puts a sour taste in your mouth.

You can still "game" the soft scores, we codify them so everone knows whats necessary to get max points. But if you move the bar far enough, just like changing from 2k, 1850 or so in points to 1500. It will force the player to make choices on how to win, all of them make the atmosphere a great deal more fun. Without forcing a player to leave models at home. Skewing the points towards games over everything else is what will give you that bad taste in your mouth.

I have yet to see a list in 40k that is unbeatable. I think, at least in the UK meta some people need to learn the difference between playing the opponent and playing the mission.

Over here in the UK we have had a few big tournies lately, with screamer councils being in high attendance for a few of them (taking these as a example as they have been mentioned a few times). Not one has won a event, admittily there were 3 out of the top 5 in one event but considering 2 of the councils were played by 2 very good players (and then me ) it wasnt that suprising.

But of the other 3 screamercouncils they were all placed mid to bottom table, At another event the same weekend, not one council did well. This is probably more due to net listing which I feel doesnt work well for screamer councils its def not a pick up and play list.

Plus the 2+ re rollable mechanic has been in 40k for quite some time.

I do not believe in Comp for 40k at the moment. I have played fantasy and do believe in comp for that as the way to win is totally different, they can afford and benefit putting 50%-70% of pts into one unit, 40k you cannot usually (which is what screamer councils is).

Why at the moment?, we had daemon prince spam walking all over armies then Tau came out, princes now had a counter, Tau really did run riot for right up until Eldar came out, then we had WK's and WS's a plently but now grav guns make a mockery of them. What does this show to me?, that when all codexs are out for 6th ed we will see a internal balance, there will be no one dex to rule them all as although daemons may not have a good counter to Wraithknights marines and other dex's do. This is why I feel 40k should not be comped.

MarkyMark wrote:
that when all codexs are out for 6th ed we will see a internal balance.

Excellent. So everything will be balanced halfway through 7th edition...

I think some people miss the point. The point of (at least for me) this discussion is not that X or Y list is unbeatable. They simply are not. It is that there are a bunch of lists that make for terribly boring games. Screamer council certainly is not unbeatable. But if that player goes first, plays smart and does not run into any hard counters, his opponent ends up shooting at the council doing very little and win or lose it is not a very fun game.

OR that player does not get the powers and runs into a tough matchup and again not a very fun game.

I also disagree with the notion that

well x counters y which is countered by z so the game is balanced. That is rock paper scissors not balance. It ends up with a game where if I run into my good matchups I win and if I run into my bad matchups I lose if player skill is equal.

As for Daemons having answers to wraith knights they have slaanesh Daemons, 20 seekers will kill a wraithknight pretty easy. The problem is 5 wave serpents will kill those seekers first.

And that is where the balance comes from, list building, WK's are darn hard to kill being t8 and immune to most small arms fire, so we saw a influx of them, now grav guns are about they probably wont be as spammed as they were, we saw massed tau sit and shoot gun lines, which were not fun to play against, screamer councils curbed them a little. We saw daemon prince spam, Tau gunlines stopped them a little.

So instead of seeing certain thing spammed they comes a counter which at the list building stage it makes you think, shall I bring three Wraith knights or shall I build a more balanced army that doesnt rely on three t8 MC's to swallow up a large chunk of points which will die easy to grav guns?/ If the sisters of battle weapon gets FAQ'd or Grey knights get a hard counter to Screamers (more so then they have now) are we going to see as many screamer councils? would you really take a list which has a hard counter and the possibilty of facing and losing to that hard counter to a tourny? some people will, most people wont. Until all the dex's are out we cannot say what the balance is like IMO.

And what I am saying is GW has never provided evidence that the balance overall. You really think Dark Angels or CSM will be getting better as new books release? Did that happen last edition? Where is that evidence. I have not seen grav guns curbing people taking Wraithknights or Riptides. Sure maybe you won't see 3 but I already don't I see 2 in lists with Seer councils or Wave Serpents (or Dark Eldar). I have seen the opposite effect you are talking about more unfun lists to play against in due to the neccessity to keep up with other unfun lists. It comes down to not being able to compete unless you take x broken combo. Also how does waiting for what another year help anything now. Why not make tweaks now and if they are sufficiently addressed later tweak again? It is better to say well maybe it will eventually get fixed by GW? Really?

As for taking lists with hard counters people will, they will just find ones that have the least common hard counter, or a hard counter that is hard countered by the Meta.

For example orks hard counter Grav gun spam, but are uncommon so spamming grav guns only has downside against Daemons more or less...

Further some armies only have say 1 answer to certain things and so that is what you see...

Brothererekose wrote:
Each book has *one* decent choice per FA, E and HS.

 insaniak wrote:
So, if the number of good choices is limited to start with, and you further limit how much a player can take from a particular force org section,

Ah. I had intended for the words 'at least' to be in there. " ... each book has at least *one* good choice per FA/E/HS .... " So, no insaniak, my statement does not mean that choices are limited to start with, rather as OverWatch cited, most books offer many good FA/E/HS choices. Sorry, without those two words, I wrote a goofy assertion. My bad.

 insaniak wrote:
don't you just increase the chances of having any two players using the same codex showing up with a near-identical list?

That does follow, huh? Although you would think there ought would still be a lot of diversity in lists out of 12 to players.

Anecdotal evidence - This last June RTT had no less (IIRC) than 6 tau armies, 5 of which had Riptides (plural per player) ... without any limitations on FoC. I was the only tau player without a Riptide.

MVBrandt wrote:

 hyv3mynd wrote:
Despite the comp hate, here is some interesting info: DaBoyz GT 2012 had no comp and brought in about 88 players. DaBoyz GT 2013 has comp (0-2 max, 4 flyers max, unique chars in primary or allied only, not both) and has more players already registered than last year with 4 weeks still to go. Andrew Gonyo, Tony Kopach, Justin Cook, and a slew of other GT finalists are already signed up. If that's not a shining endorsement of comp I don't know what is.

I would only say this is primarily a shining endorsement of DaBoyz, and the people it draws. Last year attendance was down for all the GT's a few months out, b/c of the arrival of 6th Edition. DaBoyz more or less runs an awesome show and they're awesome people (and I know you know this, I follow your blog's GT prep and post for DaBoyz each year to stare at your pretty models).

I'll reiterate also that all of those players will be bringing utterly broken, hyper competitive lists. I can tell you for sure, as I know several of them very personally. Breaking a different FOC is the same as breaking the standard FOC. If you want to see the game get a little more fun for *everyone*, adjust some of the rules and possibilities that unit combos and other things can accomplish, rather than simply giving elite players another way to break a system (Something they've proven quite good at). At DaBoyz each year they have comp, the winning list is always a hyper competitive and utterly broken list within the framework of the tournament itself, piloted by an elite player ... just like at every other tournament anywhere. So it accomplishes different LOOKING lists, but doesn't upturn the ability of top players to smash less-than-top players.

I DO think there's a broad sense of the game having some pretty difficult components to it right now to deal with, and the recent codices ARE ultra powerful, but unless you weaken the impact of rules like Ignores Cover, the ability of Screamers/Jetbike Seer Councils to get re-rollable 2+ saves (which most comp systems don't even touch), etc., you aren't going to actually see the game get any more fun for anyone but those playing Tau/Eldar/Daemons and running the strongest lists they can within the points/FOC allotments of the events they're attending.

PS - to build an admittedly strawman analogy, let's say the new Tyranid codex has a bunch of undercosted Warrior-level beasties with Eternal Warrior all across the board; if you're going to change the game of 40k one way or another, sometimes you may want to look at ... "let's modify how Eternal Warrior works for Nids" ... instead of "Only 3 Troops!" So I'm generally backing up the investigation of ways to help the game's present balance, but standing in fairly firm opposition to doing so with FOC modifications and overly general "Comp."

I'm admittedly a bit late to this party but:

1) I won't be bringing a hypercompetitive broken list. I'll be bringing something a bit whacky, but still "as good as it can be for what it is" by choice.
2) Our (and my) attendance at Da Boyz isn't a ringing endorsement of comp.

I attended last year, and realized Jay and the Da Boyz guys put on an AMAZING event - regardless of comp. Its well run, the terrain is beautiful, and they're a great group of guys. Beyond that, this is an event that most of Team America attends because its something central for all of us, so that's part of it. Comp this year at da boyz is very manageable, and it doesn't bother me, but my attendance has nothing to do with it, so don't jump to crazy conclusions on it.

I personally dislike comp, and feel it's not needed, however Da Boyz have it as part of their tradition, and this year's is as good as comp gets imo. It makes minor changes to what can be brought, and is completely disconnected from your event score - I can deal with that. Comp rarely fixes anything, because as has been said multiple times here by better spoken folks than I, all it does is move the bar, and change the game - competitive players were good at figuring out how to win in uncomped 40k, and they'll be just as good at figuring out how to win in comped 40k.

I feel that the core problem is the attitude of "competative players." Many of these "elite," players do not seem at all interested in bringing a balanced, fair, or challanging list. Their entire goal is to crush people as hard a possible and do not care if the game is one sided. It DOES NOT BOTHER THEM to line up and play a normal list that has little to no chance of damaging much less beating their list. How is that enjoyable?

Example: Screamerstar vs. a standard Marine list (any flavor) => assuming the Screamer player gets his powers off (no skill, only luck involved) the Screamer player has a HUGE advantage in this game. I would dare speculate that the advantage is so great that a LESS SKILLED PLAYER with the screamerstar can easily beat a skilled MEQ player. We can therefore conclude that the game has stopped being about PLAYER SKILL and has become about list building and what armies you play. This means that unless you are taking the top armies and running the top builds, you are in for an uphill fight, knowing that you are probably going to get beaten alot becasue of the list you play, not the player you play.

I can only speak for myself but I have no desire to go to GT's any more because it does not feel like I am competing on even footing. Why would I pay to go to a GT only to play against waves of armies that are better then mine based simply on the codex they are crafted from, regardless of the player who is commanding it?

"Competing" implies a certain equal oppertunity between all participants. Right now, unless you are running one of the top armies you are not on even footing, you start at a disadvantege. Who would sign up for that? That is like a football (American) team playing with 10 players... Even if the full strength team wins it proves nothing becasue the game was not fair.

I suggest we exchange the term "Competative Player" and "High-level Player," with the term "Willing to Buy into the GW Arms Race Player,"

Tournament 40k will return to being fun when players come to the table to test theirselves against one another with the intent of winning based on their tactics and luck, not who spent the most money on the new army.

Comp is a bandage being used to cover up an issue based in the mindset of "competative" 40k players.

That being said, some of GW's rules are obviously broken and points costs for units and special rules are arbitrary at best. We as a community can roll over and accept this, or we can take some steps to curtail the most obsine of these offenses.

Some Suggestions:
1. you can never reroll a save that is better then 3+
2. Serpant Shields are just that... shields, nothing more,
3. Grav Guns do not ignore cover on vehicles (why would they, they don;t ignore cover vs. everything else, if they were intended to ignore cover on vehicles the rules would clearly state that)
4. Snap-firing weapons loose special rules based around 6 to hit, (No weapon should be as good/if not better snap-firing then they are when fired normally, looking at you Tessla)

I give you a 6/10.

 IK Viper wrote:
I feel that the core problem is the attitude of "competative players." Many of these "elite," players do not seem at all interested in bringing a balanced, fair, or challanging list. Their entire goal is to crush people as hard a possible and do not care if the game is one sided. It DOES NOT BOTHER THEM to line up and play a normal list that has little to no chance of damaging much less beating their list. How is that enjoyable?

Yeah.

On a related note, I entered a tennis tournament on the weekend. Despite the fact that I'm clearly quite unfit, and was using a squash raquet, my opponents just kept trying to win, and wouldn't slow their serves down to give me a chance to hit them, and kept hitting the ball back to the opposite side of my side of the court despite the fact that I clearly wasn't having fun running all over the place like that.

These sorts of competitive players entering competitive events are just destroying the game.

http://www.torrentoffire.com/1640/our-hobby-is-classless-the-folly-of-trying-to-put-gamers-in-a-bucket

This is topical to the last two posts, so I'm linking it.

And yeah ... expert reply by insaniak. I also get super pissed at people who go and answer every question they know the answer to in Trivial Pursuit. I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN AND NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH COMPETITIVE TRIVIAL PURSUITERS!!!11

Being a bad PERSON is not the same as playing a game within the rules. Cheaty WAAC players who bend and break the rules, or flat-out asshats who are obnoxious to play against no matter what their level of competitiveness, are all annoying and unpleasant. People who bring legal, powerful armies and play well while being pleasant human beings ... are simply not meeting the expectations of certain others. Guess what ... when you walk up to a stranger at an "everyone is welcome" tournament, and they have an army you weren't expecting that's better than yours, and you treat THEM like they're somehow bad people because of it ... you're actually the bad person.

Why is 40k one of the only worlds where people can broadly get away with "I EXPECTED you to be a certain way, and you turned out not to be, SO IT'S YOUR FAULT."

 IK Viper wrote:
I would dare speculate that the advantage is so great that a LESS SKILLED PLAYER with the screamerstar can easily beat a skilled MEQ player.

No chance, a skilled MEQ player will know to play the mission rather then the opponent.

Funnily enoug Brant, I had that recently. A opponent commented on my army and said if I was playing against your army and a douche I would rage quit. I am a nice person to play I think and will happily help out my opponents as I was doing against that particular opponent. I advised my first opponent on what he did wrong, what he could have done and how to beat my army, he then played a simular army next game and won. WAAC and TFG will always be that sort of person, no matter what army list they are playing with.