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Personally I would) :

cut down the bloat first by allowing only codex units, disallowing fortifications, escalation and allies.

Use a uniform terrain set up for every table.

Make the victory conditions objective based and do away with the ridiculous kill point rule.

I would require more thinking and less mindless pew pew for players to win,

It would be turning back the clock, but I'm totally in favor of that. This game has hurtled forward way too fast and only TO's and individual players imposing house rules can reel it back into a serious game again.

For the record, I do not believe in comp play. It is the To's responsibility to balance his/her event. Too many To's cop out and run the simple easy rulebook missions and do not take the time to create good, even-handed senarios. Limited something that you understand or don't like is a poor way to run an event.

 Inquisitor Lord Cuthbert wrote:
For the record, I do not believe in comp play. It is the To's responsibility to balance his/her event. Too many To's cop out and run the simple easy rulebook missions and do not take the time to create good, even-handed senarios. Limited something that you understand or don't like is a poor way to run an event.

So based on that, it's the T.O.s responsibility to balance Escalation, Stronghold Assault, and Codex builds via missions alone? And you must also be good with having Escalation and Stronghold Assault present in tournaments?

 Inquisitor Lord Cuthbert wrote:
For the record, I do not believe in comp play. It is the To's responsibility to balance his/her event. Too many To's cop out and run the simple easy rulebook missions and do not take the time to create good, even-handed senarios. Limited something that you understand or don't like is a poor way to run an event.

I'm sure that many TOs would love to see your answer to the question of what to do about all of the dataslates, stronghold and, escalation problems. How would you "balance" the scenerios? Why don't you make up a scenario and share it with the rest of the world. Please remember that your scenario must be able to handle everything fairly for all sides so you have to take into consideration D weapons, Titans and, AV 15 fortifications as well as horde and MEQ armies.

I'll wait.

First let me say that I do realize that it is not easy to balance your tournament with the imbalance of Codices that GW gives us. In fact it often takes me several weeks to work out just one scenario.

I think that the first step is look at the FAQs and just throw them completely out. GW does not write FAQs anyways, they are one interpretation to what a group of players thinks about the governing rules. Erratas on the other hand need to be considered since they are corrections to things like misprints and moving from one base rule set to a newer one.

Next, look at what you intend your victory conditions for each game to be. How easy are they to accomplish for each army, does deployment have an impact, what about random game length? These are just initial questions they may be, and often is, more to consider. But if at anytime you can't answer that each objective is able to be equally obtained then that objective is unbalanced. Example, is Hammer & Anvil deployment balanced? If a Grey Knight player drew a Tau player is that an even matchup?

Don't be afraid to think outside of the box. Just because the basic rulebook has mission types, deployments, and objectives does not mean that they are great fits for competitive play. GW designs this game to be played casually and their rules confirm this. Maybe an balanced objective for your tournament would be keeping the most units of troops above 50% caualties.

If you are running open scenarios for your tournament maybe allow certain Universal Special Rules to be purchased by units or characters for a set ammount of points.

These are some of the things that I consider when running a tournament. It is usually a combination of of many ideas that overall come together to make it as balanced as possible. That being said your tournamnet may not end up being perfectly balanced, but limiting what people can bring is the lazy way out in my opinion. Some people onlyhave the models that they have and it is not fair either to say they cannot use them.

 Inquisitor Lord Cuthbert wrote:
I think that the first step is look at the FAQs and just throw them completely out. GW does not write FAQs anyways, they are one interpretation to what a group of players thinks about the governing rules.

Sorry I didn't read your entire post, but I have to address this...

Really? Really? The exact same people that wrote them write the errata.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Cuthbert wrote:
For the record, I do not believe in comp play. It is the To's responsibility to balance his/her event. Too many To's cop out and run the simple easy rulebook missions and do not take the time to create good, even-handed senarios. Limited something that you understand or don't like is a poor way to run an event.

I'm sure that many TOs would love to see your answer to the question of what to do about all of the dataslates, stronghold and, escalation problems. How would you "balance" the scenerios? Why don't you make up a scenario and share it with the rest of the world. Please remember that your scenario must be able to handle everything fairly for all sides so you have to take into consideration D weapons, Titans and, AV 15 fortifications as well as horde and MEQ armies.

I'll wait.

I have not looking into the data-slates in any detail as of yet but I have checked out Stronghold and to some extent Escalation.

As far as Stronghold is concerned I am totally fine with it. But I also believe that limiting the fortifications to selesct armies is garbage. I do not see why Tyranids for example, cannot utilize an emplaced weapon on a Defense Line. I am all for the bug player to build his own DL (within the proper footprint) complete with a sutiable bio weapon for the weapon. The weapon stats will default to the standard "lascannon" but isn't a alien DL with a twin-linked venom cannon cool sounding? Being competitive is great but I think that it is important to understand that this game has it roots in collectibility of the armies, this should be a complete hobby. I'm not aware of any outright Stronghold problems except for how to grant saves on the skyshield.

Concerning Escalation, I'm still considering what to do about that and I am not ready to incorporate it for at least another month or so. I don't mind the data-slates so much yet but I would like to see more variety and that may be coming along.

[link]http://convic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Swedish-Comp-System-v1.8.2.pdf[/link]

I think the problem with a system like yours is it only takes a few small steps and half measures. If you are going to comp to make an even playing field over poor rules writing, you have to put the time and go all in like the SC guys did.

this comp system screws over my orks far more then it would screw over my other armies...

although it does royally screw over my GK' list as well, my guard list I can literally leave unchanged

in general, it seems to screw over the already screwed more so then the top teir lists

I voted maybe.

If the comp is a hard score no way.

If it's a soft score and/or determines who you play sure thing.

It also needs some specific adjustments. Wave serpent spam with a tau buff commander, farseer, and a unit of broadsides or dark reapers is a perfect comp list.

I would rather play in a system that simply stated "No duplicates in X slot (elite, heavy, fast, or all of them) rather than this.

Your simply allowing people the choice to balance according to comp or say hell with your comp and make the hardcore list to win. And that person will have an advantage vs those that build to your comp score.

I don't know how you score your events, but I would rather make a list to be undefeated at the end of the day.

 Sidstyler wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:
You clearly did not read the request for well constructed criticism. Eldar Waveserpents count towards the minimum troop options and there is no penatly for repeating a troop choice, so jetbikes and avengers in serpents are unaffected. Double wraithknights is only a -1 to comp. Tau can still do double missile side and double riptide while taking only a minor penalty (-2 total, -1 each for over 370 in HS/Elite). How does it really cripple Xenos again? I'm pretty sure you can build a competitive Tau list that still scores a 15+ in comp.

So I was right then? You failed to address a popular build that's widely considered to be annoying/too good because repeating troops choices isn't penalized? Or are you saying that dedicated transports take up one of your 6 troop "slots", which is a hilariously heavy-handed way of trying to fix them and potentially presents even more issues? If I've still got something wrong then I think that only serves to illustrate how overly complicated your system really is in the end because it's not 100% clear to me how this is supposed to work. According to the list as I see it all you need to do is spend a minimum of 610 points on troops to avoid a comp hit (better and easier for Imperial armies than xenos), and there's no limit for transports unless they're also flyers.

And in my opinion taking any comp hit can be crippling, especially if it's "undeserved", because by your own admission those few comp points can mean the difference between winning overall and coming in second, third, or worse, and the way I understand it would be easier to build a competitive Marine list (or any army capable of spamming MSU) with this system and get a good comp score than it would be to build a competitive xeno list and do the same, especially when your options for dealing with that vehicle spam are going to be limited since they're all outside Troops: it's one of the reasons why Marine armies dominated in 5th and xenos were either just plain bad or had one good build available to them that had to be played perfectly to stand a chance. And like I pointed out before you get equally punished for spamming bad units and good units alike, do you have any way of addressing that at all or will you continue to work under the assumption that three full units of vespid have the same impact on the game that three riptides do? Even the unit in your example, the terminators with land raider transport, isn't really considered a "competitive" choice anymore but nonetheless still nets a player a comp hit because of how many points it eats up...the assumption being made is "lots of points = too powerful" and that isn't always true, in fact most of the time the really broken units are often under-priced. I didn't even notice that you took comp hits for spending too many points in those slots, which is another hit for xenos in my opinion since more often than not those competitive (and in most cases necessary, "must-take") units are often pricey to boot, so not only are you spending lots of points on those options, but you're getting hit twice for them on comp, and you still risk running a list that isn't optimized enough to deal with others you might potentially go up against from better-designed books, unless you just ignore the damn comp and take all the hits. But if you know you have no chance of winning the event at the list-writing stage then I don't even see the point in going. Also, needless to say I really don't like the idea that a player can win all of their games and still lose out to someone with one or even multiple losses based on comp scores, it really feels wrong for something like that to happen in what's being presented as a competitive event.

Sorry if I'm not being "constructive" enough, I am admittedly biased because I've never liked comp and still hate the idea of it to this day (even when GW is doing everything it can to run the game into the ground), but I don't like the system and wouldn't play in an event using it. Maybe calling it "trash" was a bit harsh, so I apologize for that, but as others have pointed out I feel your system doesn't really address all the issues 6th currently has and merely shifts the balance of power to a few other armies/builds instead.

And also, there's no mention of what the point limit for the event is, whether "Lords of War" or fortifications are allowed (I just assume they aren't by default, but still), etc.

This is a perfect example of a WAAC guy. This guy could care less about fluff or fun, he wants all the baby seals to line up so he can gun them down with his .50 cal Machinegun. No list restrictions for this guy, he wants all the bells and whistles that make 40K a crap game with the worst ruleset for competitive play. He is the reason people are leaving this game system. Good job sir, you are the king on an ever shrinking island of people who put up with your crap.

He's really not.
His criticism is 100% valid.

No, his criticism's are from the point of view of the consummate power gamer - I like all my toys and I could give a crap about fun, fluff or anything other than smashing his opponent. No event should EVER interfere with his ability to annihilate the opponent with as little thought or effort as possible. If he could have an "I win" button he would employ it in a heartbeat. Ebb and flow, twists and turns and any other event in a game that 90% of us enjoy are not welcome in his game. He wants a win on turn one so he can thump his chest and exclaim how good he is at throwing dice and pushing little plastic men around a table. As stated he is the king of a sinking island, enjoy your reign my friend may it be short and painful.

Bigyounk, I'm guessing you've been killed by a few to many internet lists.

Who the hell are you to decide you know everything about him based on his opinion of a gakky comp idea?

People like you are even worse. What makes you qualified to decide his fun is badwrongfun? Maybe he likes his army the way its written in the book and likes to play within the confines of the rulebook without people whining about what he brings? Maybe he felt the comp was bad and fixed nothing?

You play Warriors of Chaos. They are OP in fantasy. You much be a powergaming gakhole right?

 bigyounk wrote:
No, his criticism's are from the point of view of the consummate power gamer - I like all my toys and I could give a crap about fun, fluff or anything other than smashing his opponent. No event should EVER interfere with his ability to annihilate the opponent with as little thought or effort as possible. If he could have an "I win" button he would employ it in a heartbeat. Ebb and flow, twists and turns and any other event in a game that 90% of us enjoy are not welcome in his game. He wants a win on turn one so he can thump his chest and exclaim how good he is at throwing dice and pushing little plastic men around a table. As stated he is the king of a sinking island, enjoy your reign my friend may it be short and painful.

I guess you missed the part where the proposed comp system punishes "bad" lists along with the "WAAC" ones?

 bigyounk wrote:
No, his criticism's are from the point of view of the consummate power gamer - I like all my toys and I could give a crap about fun, fluff or anything other than smashing his opponent. No event should EVER interfere with his ability to annihilate the opponent with as little thought or effort as possible. If he could have an "I win" button he would employ it in a heartbeat. Ebb and flow, twists and turns and any other event in a game that 90% of us enjoy are not welcome in his game. He wants a win on turn one so he can thump his chest and exclaim how good he is at throwing dice and pushing little plastic men around a table. As stated he is the king of a sinking island, enjoy your reign my friend may it be short and painful.

I'm going to guess you didn't bother to actually read his post. Because he didn't say any of that.

I wouldn't play in that tournament, the list building is far too complicated and doesn't seem very good.

 bigyounk wrote:
No, his criticism's are from the point of view of the consummate power gamer - I like all my toys and I could give a crap about fun, fluff or anything other than smashing his opponent. No event should EVER interfere with his ability to annihilate the opponent with as little thought or effort as possible. If he could have an "I win" button he would employ it in a heartbeat. Ebb and flow, twists and turns and any other event in a game that 90% of us enjoy are not welcome in his game. He wants a win on turn one so he can thump his chest and exclaim how good he is at throwing dice and pushing little plastic men around a table. As stated he is the king of a sinking island, enjoy your reign my friend may it be short and painful.

I really don't feel like you're worth acknowledging at all. But I feel like I have to say something so I'll leave you with this.

I'm a Tau player, they're my "main" army and I've played them almost exclusively from the end of 4th and all through 5th, when they were considered to be one of the worst armies and sorely in need of an update. I always tried to run the most "efficient" Tau list I could with the models I had, but never cared so much about winning that I was willing to shell out for the 9 broadsides I needed to win games in 5th and still ran with two hammerheads in every game because they always have, and always will be, my favorite models. Tau in 6th are currently one of the most "overpowered" armies in the game, so much so that they might as well be the "I win" button you described, and not only am I not playing them but I've pretty much quit playing 40k at all for the time being because 6th is an abortion of a rule set, even though the environment now has never been more perfect for me to "annihilate my opponents with as little thought or effort as possible"...according to what I've heard I don't even have to move my units anymore (in fact GW didn't really leave me a choice, some of my more mobile units from the last book can't move and shoot anymore). If literally all I cared about was winning then I'd be having the time of my life now, taking full advantage of and abusing 40k's broken-ass rules to get easy wins, but I'm not.

Hell, as far as "I like all my toys" goes, GW even released a formation which feels like it was specifically made for me, allowing me to finally run my hammerhead models and still take the much more competitive broadsides, and gave them Tank Hunters and threw a riptide in there to boot. I was excited for all of five seconds before I realized "Holy gak, this breaks 40k." Still haven't played the game, with the formation or without.

Not that I feel the need to defend myself or anything, just putting that out there.

 bigyounk wrote:
He is the reason people are leaving this game system.

No, that would be ludicrous prices and the incompetent design team. They're leaving because it's not only hilariously expensive to get into, but the game fething sucks, so much so that players are looking to TO's and practically anyone notable in the community that they can think of and begging them to fix this gak in desperation because they don't want to see the game die and watch all that time and money spent go spiraling down the drain. Threads like this are a direct result of their piss-poor product, and believe me, I know 40k is fethed up (it's why I stopped playing) and needs fixing in order to be playable again, but not every proposed comp system is a good idea. My main criticism of this one is that it screws over bad armies just as much as the few good ones, if not more. Clearly the OP had a problem with certain units being spammable and came up with a blanket solution to the problem that punishes all armies for spamming units no matter how good they are, and guess what? That even hurts your precious "fluff" armies, believe it or not. Unless you're one of those people who, for whatever reason, are under the belief that true "fluffy" armies only take one of every unit in every FOC slot, which actually isn't an idea that's supported by the fluff at all from what I can see. I don't remember reading anywhere in any of my Tau codexes, not once, that a hunter cadre has only one hammerhead and will only ever have one hammerhead, and if that were the case then I'd question why the feth it's possible to take up to three of them at all, but I imagine you'd snap back with some gak about GW catering to "consummate power gamers" like myself even though GW have come out and said numerous times that they couldn't care less about competitive play and don't design the game that way.

In fact it seems as if people like you are the reason why no one wants to touch 40k with a 40 foot pole, because I can tell you right now all this crazy, unbalanced gak they've added to the game with 6th sure as hell wasn't made for me.

Preach On Brother Sid!!!!

I agree with all of that...every bit of it.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Clearly the OP had a problem with certain units being spammable and came up with a blanket solution to the problem that punishes all armies for spamming units no matter how good they are, and guess what?

Would you please stop putting words in my mouth? I've stated numerous times in here I adapted the Astroni-con comp system because I thought it did a good job providing variety in list building. I don't have a problem with spamming units. My goal is to try and promote a unique event that has challenging, yet fair restrictions on list building. I am not trying to rebalance the game. I've acknlowedged other constructive feedback and I'm working on a new version to try and even out some of the flaws.

The issue everyone else is having is that the only thing that the original comp system does is combat spam. If you don't want to deter that then how exactly does this "promote a unique event that has challenging, yet fair restrictions on list building"?

PanzerLeader wrote:
My goal is to try and promote a unique event that has challenging, yet fair restrictions on list building. I am not trying to rebalance the game.

The point is that you shouldn't have restrictions for the sake of restrictions at all. The only legitimate reason to restrict list-building choices is to rebalance the game. If you're doing it for any other reason then you need to get out of the way and let people play their armies the way they want.

Why restrict stuff if not to rebalance the game giving all armies an equal chance of succeeding. If you are restricting stuff without at least attempting balance the game you are just creating another set of needless restrictions and further complicated an already over complicated game.

I would end up with 17pts because of my 4 HQ's. worth 455pts, in a 2500pts list. The rest of my Infantry Guard list are troops.

A comp system that doesn't differentiate between taking three Riptides and taking three units of Vespid is bad. Period. Target the stuff that is an issue and leave the rest alone.

My Uber-competitive army, a farsight bomb, would get ~15 comp with this system. Please and thankyou.

So hopefully with this feedback the TOs can go back to the drawing board and come up with a simpler, less punishing "comp" guidelines for the event.

I live in the area the proposed event would take place and while I'm not a big fan of comp, I would happily go to a 2 day event within an hour if it where more reasonable.

 gardeth wrote:
So hopefully with this feedback the TOs can go back to the drawing board and come up with a simpler, less punishing "comp" guidelines for the event.

I live in the area the proposed event would take place and while I'm not a big fan of comp, I would happily go to a 2 day event within an hour if it where more reasonable.

Thats the goal.