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The previous thread asked about a better way, and while that thread contained some interesting discussion, it did not answer the question. 

I've just made an effort at creating a "better way". 

I ran a tournament for the first time yesterday.  17 people played, everyone seemed to have a great time, and we used both a new sportsmanship and new composition scoring system.  A few members of the Lost Legion Warhammer club and I came up with the sportsmanship system idea on our trip to the Colonial Indy GT this year, and I devised the comp system purely as an encouragement to army lists with variety.  The principles behind the systems were objectivity and transparency.  They seemed to work pretty well, though I did find that some (expensive unit/model) armies have trouble getting the maximum variety in 1500 points. 

You can find the tournament rules here:

 http://dakkadakka.com/Default.aspx?tabid=93&forumid=13&postid=98554&view=topic

What do you think?

I'm not fan of comp and sports scores, but these are the best I've ever seen.

 

I'm not understanding this comp system at all. It's worded poorly and takes away points for a choice then just gives them right back for another.

1. Does the army have no more than one of any given HQ unit?
- So Space Wolf players immediately lose 2 points since they have to have 2HQs at 1500 and you are going to punish them for 2 wolf lords?
2. Does the army have more than two Troops units?
- Okay
3. Does the army have no more than three of the SAME Troops unit?
- Wait..I get points for having more than 2 troops, but if 4 are the same I lose? Some armies (Space Marines) only have 2 Troop choices. If I remember correctly, Templars only troop choice are Crusader Sqauds. Everyone agrees that there are some useless Troop choices, why force people to take them if they don't want to buy the models?
4. Does the army have no more than two Troops units with the same unit upgrades?
- Hmmm...
5. Does the army have no more than two of the same unit with the same upgrades in any other category?
- What?
6. Does the army have no Elite units?
- Yes = +2 points. You are giving points for not having Elites.
7. Does the army have at least two Elite units but no more than two of the same Elite unit?
- Yes = +2 points...wait...what? You just gave me 2 points for not having elites. But I get 2 points if I have two of the same elite unit or more than 2 as long as they are different? So...if I have 0 Elite I get 2 points, if I have 1 Elite I get 0 points, if I have 3 Elites I get 2 points. Why punish the player with 1 Elite?
8. Does the army have at least one Elite unit and no duplicate Elite units?
- Okay, this clears up the issue with #7. But you have 3 questions and they only address one issue - does the player have 3 of a single Elite choice? You could dump 6 and 7 (since having 0, 1 or 2 Elites all get you 2 points) and just have a y/n question; Does the player have more than 2 of a single Elite choice? Same result.
9. Does the army have no Fast Attack units?
10. Does the army have at least two Fast Attack units but no more than two of the same 11. Fast Attack unit?
- Looks like a typo here, but I get two points for having 2 or more Fast Attack as long as only 2 are the same.
12. Does the army have at least one Fast Attack unit and no duplicate Fast Attack units?
- Now you are taking away the 2 points you just gave me in the previous question. In one, you give me 2 points as long as there are only "two of the same", now I'm going to lose those points for a duplicate unit. Why?
13. Does the army have no Heavy Support units?
14. Does the army have at least two Heavy Support units but no more than two of the same Heavy Support unit?
15. Does the army have at least one Heavy Support unit and no duplicate Heavy Support units?
- Same issues here as the fast attack choices. You give me points in one question and then not in the next for the exact same choices.
- 13-15 - Same issue as Elite/Fast choices - you can narrow 9 questions down to 3 and get the same results.
16. Judge?s discretion (2-4pts)- Is this army particularly well themed and interesting in a way that doesn?t already earn it the maximum 22 points?

Overall it's a good start. The questions are more about diversity and not just trying to bust up hard armies. Since many of the hard lists have some variety, they are not going to be punished by these questions.

Ed-

Thanks. They're obviously a work in progress, but they seemed to work pretty well.

2112-

Thanks for taking a look.

You?ve got a good point that the wording is awkward for the questions about the FA, HS, and Elite choices. I could have just written them as ?Does the army have 0 or 1 Fast Attack choices, or 2 of the same Fast Attack choice? 2 points.? And ?Does the army have 2 or more Fast Attack choices, none of them duplicates? If so, 4 points?. That's clearer, and would save some space and time.

And yes I had a typo there in Fast Attack and wound up with only 20 possible points instead of 22.

Obviously you can still make a solid list while getting a good comp score, but this gives a bit of a bonus to the folks who don?t have an army made up of the same unit or two repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

The HQ question rewards you for not taking multiples of the same HQ choice. Space Wolves are not hurt by this.

The troops question might need tweaking at higher points levels. As it stands, if you only have one option in your codex, you can just take three of them for max comp points. The Dark Angel player got a perfect or near-perfect score with five troops. He used some Scouts. Are Tac Marines better than Scouts? Sure. Is it more interesting to play against and look at an army with two different Troops units instead of five all the same? I think so. I think it?s worth a 2 point bonus in a 149 point maximum score tournament (actually 141 at this tournament because I left out a comp question and forgot to have people vote for favorite army). As it was, Battle was worth a possible 75 and soft scores were worth up to 66. The overall winner had 20 comp, 22 painting, 71 in battles, and I think a 17 or 19 in sports.

As I have said in many post about comp. I think the strong armies should be allowed and get points for being strong. This comp system is ok, but if the goal is to break up hard armies you have not done a great job outside of some SM configs. It is still real easy to make a nasty Eldar, strong Zilla Nids, and completely broken CSM list that will get close to full points; while hurting the few playable versions of armies like Tau and Necrons. I do have to say it is one of the better rubrics I have seen but I still am not a fan. For me the armies that should take hits in comp are one trick pony armies. (i.e. daemon bomb) and armies that are built with no real coherency to why the person has certain things in there list. (i.e. Marine players taking a crusader and putting nothing in it, or eldar players trying to walk banshees or other aspects across a battlefield rather then putting them in a waveserpent)

Mannahnin - As I've said before, I'm not a fan of the comp scores, but I think you are on to something here. What you have done is crafted a list of questions that reward diversity in army selection, but doesn't punish most 'hard armies'. If there is a configuration out there that will lose points, maybe they can make them up in Sportsmanship, Painting, and Play.

The more I think about your list, the more I like it. For starters, an opponent can't tank your list just because they lost and are trying to get revenge. There are enough points that losing some from Comp doesn't mean you can't win overall. And there is definite criteria about how to judge the Comp. The list of questions avoids the biggest Comp problem - people scoring a '0' just because they lost, feel the other army is too hard and are too lazy to figure out how to beat it, or it doesn't conform to their idea of what should be in the army.

To make things simple and quick, I would try to limit the list to 10 questions. The shorter the list, the more likely people will answer honestly. If you change the questions, post them as I'd like to see what you end up with.

Note that comp is scored by the judges. You have to submit a copy of your army list, and we go down the checklist and give you your score. Just like with painting. The only points coming from your opponents are the ?favorite army? votes. At the end of the day each player is required to vote for their favorite opponent of the day, the best painted army they faced, and the most compy army they played against. Each vote is worth an extra two points, so any given player can earn up to 6 extra points for appearance, comp, and sports. On Saturday I forgot to ask people to vote for best comp (whoops). Only one player got the votes from all three of their opponents for the maximum six points (and he got it in both sports and painting) though a few people got two votes each in one of the categories or the other.

I'm sort of bleh on the whole comp thing.

You want variety right? What about armies whose theme is no variety.

Take your average cult chaos list. Please. I wouldn't call any of the cult lists overpowering, but most "themey" cult lists would score poorly because of a dearth of options.

Plus, any composition list can be broken. All any composition list does is give a gamer with a greater model selection an advantage in the "soft" scores, and it turns the soft scores hard.

I recently went to a tournament that attempted to make a comp list to "tone down" power armies. Penalties for power weapons, monstrous creatures, AP2 weapons and the like. Oddly enough, I had the max number of AP2 weapons, max number of Power Weapons, cheap enough characters etc. to avoid any penalties. List made to avoid beatstick armies.. encouraged a certain level of beatstickedness. (I think I just made up a word. Yay me!)

Again and again, the problem with comp is that it can be broken; either by the opponent giving a zero, or by a player manipulating the judge's list. Of all ways to judge comp/theme, I prefer the 1/2/3 rating at the end of a tournament. At least that way everyong gives the same number of points and you get a forced separation. Maxing sports or theme is hard that way, and anyone who does it certainly deserves it.

Just my .02.

I recently went to a tournament that attempted to make a comp list to "tone down" power armies. Penalties for power weapons, monstrous creatures, AP2 weapons and the like. Oddly enough, I had the max number of AP2 weapons, max number of Power Weapons, cheap enough characters etc. to avoid any penalties. List made to avoid beatstick armies.. encouraged a certain level of beatstickedness. (I think I just made up a word. Yay me!)

That wouldn't happen to have been a tourney at Great Escape Games?

Anyway, there are some armies that will have a hard time getting a perfect comp score (Kroot Mercenaries have only one Troop selection). This problem is compounded in larger games (more points available than org slots). I think the point I'm trying to make is that the comp guidelines should be written so that every Codex/type of army is capable of scoring a perfect comp score and scaled appropriately for the size of game.

one of the biggest gripe i hear from peple is about the soft scores. most people i know think painting, sportsmanship and comp don't have anything to do with overall vistory and should be a totally seperate catagory from who wins the RTT/GT.

victory 1st , 2nd and 3rd based soly on wins.

hell war machine doesn't even have a painting score. they just want you to play painted or not but they do encourage painted armies(although i personally don't like the game system)

I also think painting and sportsmanship should not count to crowi=ning the overall winner. I know of a Rtt fantasy tourny that one guy just trashed his opp. just to keep him from winning overall. From the rumors we have heard this guy does that alot.

Comp is a different animal altogether. I am really tired of hearing people complaine about the so called "cheese" armies. IW's shoot and have alot of heavy support. BA's have death co and like to get into HtoH.

i know that feeling. i have gotten bad com because i play deathwing. i get the "OMG the entire army is terminators"

even though termis and dreads are about all i can take

Posted By mughi3 on 09/04/2006 7:39 PM

most people i know think painting, sportsmanship and comp don't have anything to do with overall vistory and should be a totally seperate catagory from who wins the RTT/GT.

victory 1st , 2nd and 3rd based soly on wins.

Well, most tournaments already have that category.  It's called best tactician.  IMO, if you've won that, you've accomplished something notable and challenging -- but you have not mastered every aspect or dimension of 40K.  My two bits.

I like the general thrust of the comp criteria here a lot.  Rather than trying to anticipate every version of and variation on a "broken army," it encourages players to build and play diverse lists.

(Wish I could have got up to Empire for the tourney, btw, R.  I'm going encourage folks down here at Danger Planet to give this comp scheme at try.) 

Overall I think should mean you have the best qualites of all the aspects of the Hobby: the painting/modeling, the generalmanship, sportsmanship. Each of these is very much important and I highly value sportsmanship. Comp is a very very subjective catagory but that catagory I think should be more about theme in a list rather than composition. I belive that whatever the game designers put into the codex they intended for those units to be used.

Soft scores I see help more than they hurt although there are advantages to having soft scores and advantages of not having soft scores. Our store does several different types of tournaments and some include soft scores as per standard type of RTT while we have the premeir league which is 100% battle and nothing else.

Above all sportsmanship is probably the most important aspect of the game. Win/Lose it doesnt matter as much as long as both players can have a good game.