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.

Trasvi wrote:
Comp points are just another points system - an Imperial Knight costing 375pts is just as much a penalty or social pressure as it costing 5CC.

Except it isn't, because editing the point cost to 375 removes any ambiguity about it. There's no "you used too many comp points" factor, which is what comp tends to encourage. Nor is it just another point system. Imagine this scenario: a player says " your stupid balance rules, I'm going to win all my games and call you an idiot for telling me that I didn't win the tournament" and shows up with the nastiest possible (legal) list. Under a proper balance system the knight costs 375 points, representing its actual power, and there's nothing to exploit. The knight-spam guy's list is balanced and everyone has a fun game. Under a comp system the knight player is free to spend 20/20 comp points on taking overpowered knights, and show up with a list that is clearly more powerful than the 10-point lists most people brought. Sure, they take a score penalty at the end and probably don't get the trophy, but the people who played against them still suffer the miserable experience of playing against a 20/20 list.

I think you're bringing a preconceived notion of how you think the points system is supposed to work. An average army gets an average comp score. Is that so hard to accept?

An average army should get a score of zero because an average army should not suffer a comp penalty. "This is more powerful than the worst possible lists" should not have any penalty in the final scoring.

Strangely enough, the people in our area are vehemently opposed to using ITC restrictions but happily use community comp. People interpret the additional cost system very differently to attempts to change the printed Word of God.

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. A comp system is an attempt to change the printed Word of God, just like ITC, new point costs, etc. Maybe people in your area truly are in denial about the fact that they're changing the rules of the game, but that doesn't mean it's a reasonable belief to hold.

Or your Windrider jetbikes in PeregrineHammer might be more than the RAW cost of 35pts, so if you go try to play RAWHammer then you have less models than you're supposed to and need to go paint more. Your adjustments work both ways; a community comp army might not be super powerful (though you might be surprised) but it is at least transferable.

Yes, in that case I do have to buy more models. But I'm not throwing whole units in the trash can because they're not viable anymore. Under your comp system that's exactly what happens, I have to take tons of weak "filler" units because I've run out of comp points and could easily end up with half my army being garbage in RAW 40k. That's not at all the same as having to buy another unit of jetbikes because I can spam a few more at 35 points each.

And no, it isn't transferable. With all of the ridiculous penalties you assign to things that aren't overpowered at all a ~10 point comp army is going to look nothing like a normal 40k army. It might be legal, but it isn't going to be effective.

I tend to see 'casual' as 'both players have competitive fun'. We're both trying to win, but to journey of playing the game is more important than the outcome. My experience is that the closer two armies are on comp score, the more likely you are to have a long, close-fought game where both players rack up points and there's still models hanging around at the end. The further disparity you get between army power levels, the more likely it is that one player gets tabled by turn 2 or 3, and in my experience that isn't really fun.
The community comp system allows you to fairly well determine the objective power level of your army, make sure your opponent is expecting the same kind of game as you are, and both players can have an enjoyable experience.

"Casual" and "fun" are not synonyms. What "casual" means is that you make a relatively low investment of effort in the game (or any other activity). You build and paint some models, you spend a few minutes writing a list, and you play the game. Adding a complex comp system makes the game less casual because now you're spending more time carefully arranging balanced lists instead of just throwing some models on the table and rolling dice. And you openly admit this when you talk about optimizing how many comp points you're willing to spend and whether a unit is worth the extra comp penalty it imposes. That's exactly the kind of careful list building that serious tournament players invest tons of effort on!

If you wipe away the spittle from Peregrine's posting, I think there's a point in there somewhere, which is that when we talk about "playing casual" we really mean playing in a way that allows low investment players to compete. At some point, it requires more skilled or more savvy players to either self restrict, or for the group to push the guy out.

Either you have a group of guys that can read a room, and bring lists that everybody else is comfortable with, or you don't. If you have a guy that only wants to win, no set of restrictions will really stand in his way.

The question becomes: do you have the stones to stop playing with a guy that doesn't play the way the group likes?

I think that's impossible with the current state of 40K and human mindset in general. Our group was pretty causal, but then we brought a couple of new guys, one with Tau and 2 x Riptides and the other with a crazy Fist of Medusa combo and everyone lost their head. Now it's WAAC or bust, as everyone is bringing the strongest possible build, because "he's playing an OP force and my army can't be weaker" and other such crap...

TL;DR The Community Comp is a garbage system because it encourages gakky one-of-everything armies and things like Devastators with all different weapons. And if you don't you aren't a good person.

Man. You guys must play with a bunch of dicks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
TL;DR The Community Comp is a garbage system because it encourages gakky one-of-everything armies and things like Devastators with all different weapons. And if you don't you aren't a good person.

Hey, I've run a dev squad with a Heavy Bolter, Lascannon, and combi-melta on the Sgt.

Shut up!

 kronk wrote:
Man. You guys must play with a bunch of dicks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
TL;DR The Community Comp is a garbage system because it encourages gakky one-of-everything armies and things like Devastators with all different weapons. And if you don't you aren't a good person.

Hey, I've run a dev squad with a Heavy Bolter, Lascannon, and combi-melta on the Sgt.

Shut up!

My heart weeps reading that loadout.

 Polonius wrote:
which is that when we talk about "playing casual" we really mean playing in a way that allows low investment players to compete.

No we don't or at least I don't. The amount of money I invest in a list has noting to do with the casualness of it.
My lack of knights or deathstars in my lists isn't a result of me not having the money to field them nor with my lack of knowledge of "the good stuff".
It is that I don't like them.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
I think that's impossible with the current state of 40K and human mindset in general. Our group was pretty causal, but then we brought a couple of new guys, one with Tau and 2 x Riptides and the other with a crazy Fist of Medusa combo and everyone lost their head. Now it's WAAC or bust, as everyone is bringing the strongest possible build, because "he's playing an OP force and my army can't be weaker" and other such crap...

Now I don't suppose you asked that *gasp* they tone down their lists, speaking to them in private? If they really affected your community in such a way, why haven't you pointed this out to them?

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
which is that when we talk about "playing casual" we really mean playing in a way that allows low investment players to compete.

No we don't or at least I don't. The amount of money I invest in a list has noting to do with the casualness of it.
My lack of knights or deathstars in my lists isn't a result of me not having the money to field them nor with my lack of knowledge of "the good stuff".
It is that I don't like them.

Investment also includes time, and energy. I can buy whatever I want, but I dn't have the time or energy to figure out what the best armies are.

What really takes every last bit of meaning out of this "casual play" discussion is changing the rules on what someone can play.

I spend a lot of time making my models characterful.
I base them nice and add lots of detail to make them each something.

Then I paint the gosh-darn things, grit my teeth through the block painting and enjoy the detailing a whole lot more.

So then going to a game all happy I have something good to look at, someone will determine it may or may not be OP and I may have to come back with something else?

To quote Kharn "Burn! Maim! Kill!" all internal voice but still, it would be a gakky thing to pee all over that effort.

Warning ahead of time and having posted house rules are the only way to go, because otherwise, I go by the BRB and the Codex(s) and if you impose things on me after the fact... I would feel good reason to get upset.

Especially when the "casual player" with the half assembled models that are dumped into a bin between games easily demonstrates how casual the game is to them.

Excuse me if I am a bit more intense about the whole thing.

Peregrine's points are very good from a "discerning" perspective that I agree to: clear rules that make sense make for a better game. If the game allows for army lists that upset you, the problem is either with the game rules or with you.
If you play 40k you are agreeing to it's rules.

If you ignore/change the rules, you are playing something else that needs to be agreed to by your opponent or they walk away. Your sense of what you think is right does not allow you to label people as TFG if they run contrary to your opinion but within the RAW game.

The biggest issue here is that 40k NEEDS stuff like this to keep people from wrecking the game, since GW wants to include things that don't belong in the game. So you have to piss SOMEONE off, either the people who aren't taking OP gak or trying to game the system, or the people who are.

I'm sort of leaning against a comp system too. Less because I find players might feel punished, but more because it adds a thick layer of complexity when it comes to list writing. I would probably be more ok with it if the process was automated through an app or something, but it's a lot to go through manually. I have been working on repointing some armies, though, but as a lot of people have pointed out, the issue isn't so much in the individual unit/wargear as much as the potential for them to be combined into a crushing combo.

 NInjatactiks wrote:
I'm sort of leaning against a comp system too. Less because I find players might feel punished, but more because it adds a thick layer of complexity when it comes to list writing. I would probably be more ok with it if the process was automated through an app or something, but it's a lot to go through manually. I have been working on repointing some armies, though, but as a lot of people have pointed out, the issue isn't so much in the individual unit/wargear as much as the potential for them to be combined into a crushing combo.

This is the crux of why I find 40k 6th/7th a bit difficult to have any hope of balance.
With the large allies list, any disadvantages can be mitigated by their allies.
The combinations are too vast to control.
Allowing for only abilities and powers to only work within the detachment, formation or codex may be the only way to go.

 Talizvar wrote:

 NInjatactiks wrote:
I'm sort of leaning against a comp system too. Less because I find players might feel punished, but more because it adds a thick layer of complexity when it comes to list writing. I would probably be more ok with it if the process was automated through an app or something, but it's a lot to go through manually. I have been working on repointing some armies, though, but as a lot of people have pointed out, the issue isn't so much in the individual unit/wargear as much as the potential for them to be combined into a crushing combo.

This is the crux of why I find 40k 6th/7th a bit difficult to have any hope of balance.
With the large allies list, any disadvantages can be mitigated by their allies.
The combinations are too vast to control.
Allowing for only abilities and powers to only work within the detachment, formation or codex may be the only way to go.

The combinations are certainly much better if everything is appropriately costed to begin with.

Well on that note, I'll be posting up a series of excel spreadsheets on another thread that recosts everything, even unit upgrades. It'll be community driven so everyone can leave their two cents in. Although I doubt it, it'd be awesome to see it as big as ITC.

 NInjatactiks wrote:
Well on that note, I'll be posting up a series of excel spreadsheets on another thread that recosts everything, even unit upgrades. It'll be community driven so everyone can leave their two cents in. Although I doubt it, it'd be awesome to see it as big as ITC.

I don't mean to be rude but... that leads you to the multitude of fan-dexes that you can find in "Proposed Rules". You could glance through there and pick up a half dozen re-pointed codexes for every faction in the game.

The one thing 40k has going for it as a game system is the number of people who play it. As you start introducing re-written rules, you remove that one good point.
The reason fan-dexes and rules-rewrites don't catch on (despite the vast number of ones that are decent) is that they require the permission of both players to propagate.

By the time you've re-written core rules and re-costed every unit in every codex, you're not playing 40k anymore. You may as well just pick up Warpath or Future Combat or anything else... and we can see from reality the lack of support those have in the wider community.

Make sure you ban anyone and anything you don't like. That's a surefire way to get new players involved and keep things casual.

Trasvi wrote:
I don't mean to be rude but... that leads you to the multitude of fan-dexes that you can find in "Proposed Rules". You could glance through there and pick up a half dozen re-pointed codexes for every faction in the game.

The one thing 40k has going for it as a game system is the number of people who play it. As you start introducing re-written rules, you remove that one good point.
The reason fan-dexes and rules-rewrites don't catch on (despite the vast number of ones that are decent) is that they require the permission of both players to propagate.

By the time you've re-written core rules and re-costed every unit in every codex, you're not playing 40k anymore. You may as well just pick up Warpath or Future Combat or anything else... and we can see from reality the lack of support those have in the wider community.

All of this applies just as well to the comp system you advocate.

Anyway, the real problem with having open feedback is that you're going to get a ton of garbage that should be filtered out. Some of it will be from people trolling you and/or trying to make their army more powerful so they can win more, some of it will be from people who just don't understand the game very well and have bad ideas about balance. You're better off working with a closed group of people who you trust to have good ideas and taking any public polling with extreme skepticism.

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
I don't mean to be rude but... that leads you to the multitude of fan-dexes that you can find in "Proposed Rules". You could glance through there and pick up a half dozen re-pointed codexes for every faction in the game.

The one thing 40k has going for it as a game system is the number of people who play it. As you start introducing re-written rules, you remove that one good point.
The reason fan-dexes and rules-rewrites don't catch on (despite the vast number of ones that are decent) is that they require the permission of both players to propagate.

By the time you've re-written core rules and re-costed every unit in every codex, you're not playing 40k anymore. You may as well just pick up Warpath or Future Combat or anything else... and we can see from reality the lack of support those have in the wider community.

All of this applies just as well to the comp system you advocate.

Anyway, the real problem with having open feedback is that you're going to get a ton of garbage that should be filtered out. Some of it will be from people trolling you and/or trying to make their army more powerful so they can win more, some of it will be from people who just don't understand the game very well and have bad ideas about balance. You're better off working with a closed group of people who you trust to have good ideas and taking any public polling with extreme skepticism.

No it doesn't. Because as I've said: I can play a comped list against your 'normal' list, with the core 40k rules, and you'd never know. I can't play a fan-codex and fan-rules against your normal rules.

And before you say again how 'terrible' my list must be: I've been using an Infernal Tetrad list that is almost identical to the one that placed 10th at BAO; and a Daemonkin list that also places highly in non-comped events. The lists that can't make it in under 20 CC are the kind of cancer lists that you would term as 'serious balance issues'.

 Gamgee wrote:
Make sure you ban anyone and anything you don't like. That's a surefire way to get new players involved and keep things casual.

This is actually a very good point.

OP: if you want to keep things casual, you have to ban Imperial Knights, Eldar and the Tau up front.

It's a harsh measure, but it will pay off in the end.

 Traditio wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Make sure you ban anyone and anything you don't like. That's a surefire way to get new players involved and keep things casual.

This is actually a very good point.

OP: if you want to keep things casual, you have to ban Imperial Knights, Eldar and the Tau up front.

It's a harsh measure, but it will pay off in the end.

Gamgee was being sarcastic, you know?

Trasvi wrote:
No it doesn't. Because as I've said: I can play a comped list against your 'normal' list, with the core 40k rules, and you'd never know. I can't play a fan-codex and fan-rules against your normal rules.

This is not true at all. I can play my "fan rules" list against a RAW list just fine, we may be playing at a non-standard point level but there's no rule in RAW 40k that you must play 1850 point games. You don't know what point value my list would have under the "fan rules" of point adjustments, just like I don't know what comp score your list would have under the "fan rules" of community comp.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:
OP: if you want to keep things casual, you have to ban Imperial Knights, Eldar and the Tau up front.

Yes, because nothing says "casual" like being told that you aren't welcome in a group because you play the wrong faction.

 Peregrine wrote:
"Casual" and "fun" are not synonyms. What "casual" means is that you make a relatively low investment of effort in the game (or any other activity). You build and paint some models, you spend a few minutes writing a list, and you play the game. Adding a complex comp system makes the game less casual because now you're spending more time carefully arranging balanced lists instead of just throwing some models on the table and rolling dice. And you openly admit this when you talk about optimizing how many comp points you're willing to spend and whether a unit is worth the extra comp penalty it imposes. That's exactly the kind of careful list building that serious tournament players invest tons of effort on!

The crux of the OP, of your replies, and from other people, is that a games' "casualness" is inversely related to the power level of armies.

If you want to just build and paint models and put them on the table, then 40k already lets you do that. Job done! Close thread, let's go home. I'll show up to my next casual game with 50 scatter bikes and 2 wraithknights because that's the models I've built and painted, and we'll see how "casual" you consider the game to be.

If "casualness" is related to list power (as everyone who talks about this seems to think it is) then "just play whatever you want" doesn't automatically make it casual.

Yes, the ideal solution is that GW goes and republishes all of their books and makes them decently balanced such that all armies are much closer to equal. This is not going to happen. Nor are any significant number of people going to start playing PeregrineHammer with your fan-dexes and re-writes.
In my experience trying to take your advice in your first post - to come up with a set of balance/rules erratas that unambiguously define what is and isn't casual - a comp system on top of the actual rules is the closest you're going to get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
No it doesn't. Because as I've said: I can play a comped list against your 'normal' list, with the core 40k rules, and you'd never know. I can't play a fan-codex and fan-rules against your normal rules.

This is not true at all. I can play my "fan rules" list against a RAW list just fine, we may be playing at a non-standard point level but there's no rule in RAW 40k that you must play 1850 point games. You don't know what point value my list would have under the "fan rules" of point adjustments, just like I don't know what comp score your list would have under the "fan rules" of community comp.

If you and I agree to an 2000pt game of 40k, and I bring along my community comp list, and you bring along your PeregrineHammer guard list where Leman Russ cost 30pts less, then one of us is cheating.
Yes, technically you don't have to agree to a points level... but technically we can re-write all the rules in the book on a roll of a 4+. so its pretty asinine.

 Traditio wrote:
OP: if you want to keep things casual, you have to ban Imperial Knights, Eldar and the Tau up front.

Yes, because nothing says "casual" like being told that you aren't welcome in a group because you play the wrong faction.

That is effectively the other solution that people are offering. "Discuss armies with people and tell them what you are and aren't comfortable playing; tell people you don't want to play them / don't like their play style / don't want to play their army" is the other solution being offered. Which is effectively "shaming people" in to not bringing certain models or factions, it's just outright explicit about it.

I joined a gaming group about a year back that has 2 of these WAAC players out of about 6-7. It varies as people come and go. When I joined everyone was playing the hardest combos they could find to try to stand a chance vs 3 riptides, scatterbike spam, etc. Riptides and bikes were actually 1 guy.

So a year later....and the group is still going fine, however, the WAAC players are met with silence when asking for games on their free time.

One of the WAACs recently came around after participating in a group Apoc game. To keep it short, I basically DMed the setup by asking each player their preference in units, then giving them the appropriate pre-chosen formations. I was called a dictator and worse because I provided guidelines. The WAAC player fought me every step of the way and I eventually gave in. He was GK and knew Daemons were an opponent, brought every possible daemon killing weapon imaginable, encouraged his team to stretch the boundaries of the guidelines, and still rolled psychics and others off table and out of sight. The Daemon player got bent out of shape, rightfully so, and at the end of the game we talked about it for 30 minutes. What we liked, didn't, highlights, low points. The WAAC player actually straight out said I think you guys would have had more fun without me. Hasn't been so bad since, just have to talk to him about expectations.

Now what i would recommend:
1. Keep it simple.
2. Have a community chat.
3. Play your early games with like-minded players and share the results/highlights. This helps build the expectation, also be prepared for a few losses to help tone the worse culprits down.
4. Don't emphasize winning so no prizes or overall score.
5. Share opponents factions and formations beforehand, actual loadouts don't matter so much.
6. Have game days that are non-40k related. It helps to keep moral up, laugh, and have a good time with people you can't fing STAND TO BE ACROSS THE 40K TABLE FROM DANNY!

You know keep it chill.

Trasvi wrote:
The crux of the OP, of your replies, and from other people, is that a games' "casualness" is inversely related to the power level of armies.

And that is not what "casual" means. Consider a person who buys the box set of knights because they think giant walkers are cool, never bothers painting them because painting takes a lot of work, and only occasionally plays because what kind of loser shows up every weekend at a game store instead of doing more interesting things. This is clearly a casual player, but their list is fairly powerful. Now consider a person who plays under your comp system, spends countless hours optimizing lists for the perfect balance between list power and comp penalty, paints every model to the highest standard to ensure they get a good painting score, etc. This is clearly not a casual player, even though their list probably isn't all that powerful.

Nor are any significant number of people going to start playing PeregrineHammer with your fan-dexes and re-writes.

Nor will any significant number of people start playing TrasviHammer with your fan-dexes and re-writes. Calling them "comp" does not change the fact that you're proposing rules changes on the same level as any other balance proposal.

If you and I agree to an 2000pt game of 40k, and I bring along my community comp list, and you bring along your PeregrineHammer guard list where Leman Russ cost 30pts less, then one of us is cheating.
Yes, technically you don't have to agree to a points level... but technically we can re-write all the rules in the book on a roll of a 4+. so its pretty asinine.

So what? This is like arguing that you aren't playing the same army anymore because you agree to play a 1750 point game even though you normally play 1850 point games and built your list for that level. You're either playing with house rules or you aren't playing with them. Any army that is used with "PeregrineHammer" can be used under RAW 40k with the same adjustments that people make all the time when playing at different point levels.

That is effectively the other solution that people are offering. "Discuss armies with people and tell them what you are and aren't comfortable playing; tell people you don't want to play them / don't like their play style / don't want to play their army" is the other solution being offered. Which is effectively "shaming people" in to not bringing certain models or factions, it's just outright explicit about it.

Why are we wasting time considering a ridiculous false dilemma between "ban Tau and Eldar" and "shame people into not bringing those models/factions"? There's an obvious third option: change the game rules (for example, by increasing the point cost of Wraithknights and limiting jetbikes to one weapon upgrade per three models) so that there are no more balance issues and people can play Tau and Eldar without any problems.

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
The crux of the OP, of your replies, and from other people, is that a games' "casualness" is inversely related to the power level of armies.

And that is not what "casual" means. Consider a person who buys the box set of knights because they think giant walkers are cool, never bothers painting them because painting takes a lot of work, and only occasionally plays because what kind of loser shows up every weekend at a game store instead of doing more interesting things. This is clearly a casual player, but their list is fairly powerful. Now consider a person who plays under your comp system, spends countless hours optimizing lists for the perfect balance between list power and comp penalty, paints every model to the highest standard to ensure they get a good painting score, etc. This is clearly not a casual player, even though their list probably isn't all that powerful.

People in this thread, starting with the OP and continuing with the first reply by yourself, interpret "casual" games to mean "not overly competitive" or at least "well balanced".

The OP didn't say "What mindset did my opponent have in mind when they put their army together?": it was about competitiveness of the force. If we're trying to encourage "keeping it casual", according to your logic perhaps we should ban painted armies because obviously that person is putting too much effort in to be considered a casual player?

One meaning of casual certainly could be "amount of time & effort invested". But in this situation, and pretty much every situation talking about 40k, when people are talking about "keeping it casual" they mean keeping the screamerstars and riptide wings and whatever out of the game. It may be that a 'casual' player 'accidentally' creates a knight spam army; but I seriously doubt that is a usable excuse to a group that wants to keep things casual.

If you and I agree to an 2000pt game of 40k, and I bring along my community comp list, and you bring along your PeregrineHammer guard list where Leman Russ cost 30pts less, then one of us is cheating.
Yes, technically you don't have to agree to a points level... but technically we can re-write all the rules in the book on a roll of a 4+. so its pretty asinine.

So what? This is like arguing that you aren't playing the same army anymore because you agree to play a 1750 point game even though you normally play 1850 point games and built your list for that level. You're either playing with house rules or you aren't playing with them. Any army that is used with "PeregrineHammer" can be used under RAW 40k with the same adjustments that people make all the time when playing at different point levels.

My argument is that I can pick up a 1850pt list built under community comp rules and legally transplant it without any changes in to any other game of 40k. The same cannot be said regarding a list created with actually changed point values.
Further, the skills and knowledge of the rules I have from comped 40k again can be transplanted to any other 40k game without any change; but considering that you keep saying that core rules need to be changed for true balance, that could mean re-writing entire phases and playing those in very different ways (At least, I imagine that if you were doing a balance re-write the psychic phase would be severely changed)

Why are we wasting time considering a ridiculous false dilemma between "ban Tau and Eldar" and "shame people into not bringing those models/factions"? There's an obvious third option: change the game rules (for example, by increasing the point cost of Wraithknights and limiting jetbikes to one weapon upgrade per three models) so that there are no more balance issues and people can play Tau and Eldar without any problems.

In my experience actually trying those things, changing the rules as you suggest is a much less palatable option to people than using a comp system. You might not see the difference between the two, but people actually using the system do.

Trasvi wrote:
People in this thread, starting with the OP and continuing with the first reply by yourself, interpret "casual" games to mean "not overly competitive" or at least "well balanced".

"Balanced" and "not overly competitive" are not the same as "all lists at a low power level".

One meaning of casual certainly could be "amount of time & effort invested". But in this situation, and pretty much every situation talking about 40k, when people are talking about "keeping it casual" they mean keeping the screamerstars and riptide wings and whatever out of the game. It may be that a 'casual' player 'accidentally' creates a knight spam army; but I seriously doubt that is a usable excuse to a group that wants to keep things casual.

And this is a terrible definition of "casual" that has nothing to do with the conventional meaning of the word. A casual game is one where people invest a relatively low amount of time and effort and don't care all that much about it.What you are describing is a serious game where players put a lot of effort into carefully negotiating power levels and maintaining balance, and happen to play armies with a low power level. That is a valid thing to want to do, but "casual" is an inappropriate description that seeks to add a moral high ground of "we're not those WAAC TFGs" to a choice that has nothing to do with casual vs. dedicated players.

My argument is that I can pick up a 1850pt list built under community comp rules and legally transplant it without any changes in to any other game of 40k. The same cannot be said regarding a list created with actually changed point values.

So what? Why does this matter? People make new lists for games all the time, being able to keep the exact same list is a marginal benefit at most. If you're playing a normal game of 40k there's no need to care about what would be legal under your comp system or use the comp rules in constructing your list, just like there's no need to care about what would be legal under "PeregrineHammer" rules.

Further, the skills and knowledge of the rules I have from comped 40k again can be transplanted to any other 40k game without any change; but considering that you keep saying that core rules need to be changed for true balance, that could mean re-writing entire phases and playing those in very different ways (At least, I imagine that if you were doing a balance re-write the psychic phase would be severely changed)

You're assuming way more changes than I ever mentioned, please don't do that. Balance could be greatly improved without making any significant changes to the core rules. And your comp system also requires learning a whole new set of rules, knowledge which can't be transplanted to a normal 40k game.

Peregrine:

I understand most of the points that you are making, I think, but I don't fully understand this point:

What do you have against comp scoring per se?

If I'm understanding you, you're saying that it's just an excuse to shame people who bring armies that have too high of a comp score.

But I think that Trasvi's point is that, just like a points limit, you can agree to a comp points limit score.

So in effect, a comps points limit would just be an additional agreed upon points limit.

So 1850 points
10 comp points

I am failing to grasp why you think that this is a bad idea.

I agree with you that if a tournament says that they're going to use comp scoring, and the more points people use, the less chance they have of winning, that at least sounds like an excuse to shame people.

But what if the tournament just imposes a comps points limit? "You must have an army of no more than 1850 points and 15 comp points. Any more and you may not enter."

 Traditio wrote:
What do you have against comp scoring per se?

The fact that, rather than fixing a broken rule so that it is no longer a problem, comp allows you to play with the broken thing, hurt your opponent's enjoyment of the game, and then penalizes you after the damage is already done. If you're able to identify a problem clearly enough to create a comp system to punish it then you can change the rule so that the problem never happens in the first place.

The secondary problem I have with it is that the execution of comp systems is almost always awful. Things that are not balance problems are often penalized because they aren't "playing the game the right way" or because the author of the comp system doesn't understand the game very well. And things that are too powerful often slip through, reducing comp to changing what the best tournament list is (and possibly forcing you to buy some new models to exploit it) rather than improving game balance in any meaningful way. In theory a comp system could avoid these problems, but it's something that pretty consistently happens.

But what if the tournament just imposes a comps points limit? "You must have an army of no more than 1850 points and 15 comp points. Any more and you may not enter."

You can do this, but in practice what comp often means is "casual at all costs" players getting upset if you go anywhere near the maximum comp score. Perhaps this does not happen in Trasvi's area, but I've certainly seen enough of that attitude from comp advocates online. And then you go right back to the problem of comp being the wrong approach: if you can make a comp system that works well for a tournament like this you can fix the rules directly.

Peregrine wrote:The fact that, rather than fixing a broken rule so that it is no longer a problem, comp allows you to play with the broken thing, hurt your opponent's enjoyment of the game, and then penalizes you after the damage is already done.

http://www.communitycomp.org/files/CommunityComp.pdf

If you actually examine the community comp document, it's not just about "fixing" OP things. It also takes into account things that are not necessarily strong individually, but become "strong" when taken in large numbers (e.g., fliers and landraiders). It also takes into account the relative strength of things that aren't broken, but are still good for their points.

If anyone's interested, I ran the CAD version of my crimson fists list through the comp standards and got a 5. I think.

6 rhinos = 2 points
2 Imp. Fist dev squads = 2 points
Orbital strike on Pedro Kantor = 1 point

I don't know. I guess this is my inclination: if you want to use a comp system as the exclusive way of fixing in-game imbalances, then I agree with you that it's not enough by a long shot. Saying "Ok, your wraithknight is worth 5 of my imp fist devastator squads" still allows the wraithknight to be taken, and it allows it to be taken at its by-the-book points cost and ruleset.

But what if the goal is simply to ensure that the persons have armies of roughly equivalent power levels, even if all of the points costs are fair?

For example:

"No superheavies allowed. No tau allowed. No eldar allowed. No formations allowed. Limit of 1850 points and 10 comp points."

If you're able to identify a problem clearly enough to create a comp system to punish it then you can change the rule so that the problem never happens in the first place.

I think that the comp system is just right about this. Is 1 drop pod as problematic as 10 of them?

The secondary problem I have with it is that the execution of comp systems is almost always awful. Things that are not balance problems are often penalized because they aren't "playing the game the right way" or because the author of the comp system doesn't understand the game very well.

That's not the impression I got from what I saw of the pdf I linked above.

You can do this, but in practice what comp often means is "casual at all costs" players getting upset if you go anywhere near the maximum comp score.

Yeah, that's just crazy. At that point, they should just have set a lower comp score.