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Idea taken from this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/282431.page

by chaplaingrabthar.


What is your preferred method of tournament scoring and why?

I prefer Battle, Sports, and painting in roughly a 60/20/20 scoring.

In a perfect world sports would not be needed, but sadly it is. I use a simple method of ranking your opponents from first to last.

I feel paint is needed because without it, the game loses everything.

www.Astronomi-con.com has one of the best systems around.

They have a fairly good structure for comp and you send your list ahead of time for judging.

Painting they have a complete breakdown of what gets you points.

Sportsmanship is really the only one that kind of burns me, basically its 0 - 5pts per round depending if your opponent liked you and 0 -5pts per round if they liked your comp.

I stand by the tournaments should take as many points away from people to avoid purposeful nuking, or friends maxing out each others scores. Checklist style tournaments ensure fair and unbias points where you should have minimal "was your opponents army made for fair play?" questions because those are stupid. Its a legal codex using the options in the book, you are using the proper rules, and finally its a tournament if you arent bringing your A game then why the hell are you there? Just go to GW for the weekend and stomp some kids.

Battle Points and Painting.

Battle Points alone is awesome, but ignores a HUGE part of the theme of the game.

Seeing a bunch of half painted, not painted at all, or terribly painted miniatures on a battlefield is nowhere near as cool as seeing the amazing, or AT LEAST best people can do, painted minis.

Comp and Battle points have no place in the same tournament really. One awards you for constructing an army based on lore (assuming it isn't exploited by players) and the other awards you for constructing an army based on winning, you will always have to give one way or the other, and some codex allow you to do it easier than others, giving an unfair advantage.

Sportsmanship scores are not required in most places as gamer's themselves have a pretty good handle on it.

Battle Points, Painting, and Sportsmanship

Battle points are necessary so no argument there. **Should make up a minimum of 50-65% of final standing scores.

Painting: I am somebody that prides myself on having a painted army. I really work hard to meet deadlines and to have everything finished at least a day or two before the tournament. I understand that painting is not every player's cup of tea. That doesn't mean you should show up with a naked army. Even primed white is better than bear-naked plastic to me. If two players have equal Battle Points the player with a fully painted army should win. To me he/she put in the time and deserves that extra nudge to the top. Bonus points at end of tournament to your favorite painted army.
**No more than 20% of overall.

Sportsmanship: Necessary, but should be very minimalistic. Maybe each player scores his opponent on a 0-2 scale. 0=terrible opponent and a bad memorable game, 1=average/forgettable game, and 2=Great opponent and a good memorable game. Bonus points at end of tourney to your favorite opponent.
**No more than 20% of overall.

I'm now in the camp that believes Comp is bad for scoring in tournaments. Comp judging is wayyyy too subjective and I imagine is the greatest source of headaches for TOs/Tourney players. If you want to use comp, use it to pair first round opponents. Don't let it creep into the judging of overall standings.

As an aside every tournament should have a "Dice Don't Like Me Award" or "Murphy's Law" award. Sometimes a brick of dice or a random miniature can make someone's day a bit brighter.

Solving for Sportsmanship is a False Dilemma (fallacy). I challenge people to give me examples of where poor sportsmanship is a legitimate issue in the tournament environment. My point has always been that a poor sportsman has no problems giving me a poor sportsmanship score, even if I do everything in my power to not be a poor sportsman. It enables poor sportsmen to "game" the system. Is Sportsmanship an issue at Ard Boyz? Good judges and TOs can solve this issue, for the times it does become an issue.

Comp is way too subjective. If someone cannot identify clear objective metrics for comp, then it should not be scored.

I also think painting is also subjective and maybe should have its own rewards, since this is actually a fun and fruitful aspect of the hobby.

It's painful to see that I am in the minority here. I still can't comprehend how "opponent scoring" is rationalized.

I don't agree on sportsmanship because it is just how you are as a person, for some it comes natural, others not.

I fully support Sportsmanship being included as a factor when determining the overall score, I have seen some truly unbelievably bad sportsmanship at tournaments, luckily I’ve never had to face those people, and oddly enough they never seem to do well either in any of the fields (Composition, Battle points etc). I agree that painting is an important part of the hobby but also that it is subjective (we can’t all by Picasso), Composition is important particularly in Historical game systems but also in GW games, why else would GW produce Codex that limit particular types of troops unless it was to try and balance the game, battle points should of course hold the highest rating.

All of it. that means your playing painted armies, and the presure to play a balanced army is parimount. we play a minus system in Stiermark. it consisted of a hard set of restrictions where every minus lost you a point so a minus 2 would have only scored you 18 points were you to score a 20. most of the good players that try and win the tournament cant hope to loose 10 points just like that, so play more balanced lists. the painting is also right as a great looking army would get you a few extra points in the tournament, where as a army unbased and unpainted would score you no extra points. thats ok if your just there to play, but for compitition its murder. every player that wants to win brings a painted army, and the scoring is fair, very few people score a 20, with most being around 15. (i scored a 19.5 with my skaven so im bias in this department, but i always score high with my armies, as i spend alot of time on them. that said, it balances cause i dont play as much being stuck at my painting station) we use a 20 point system for points. a draw being a 10/10 and a total win being a 20/0. the system works well for scoring, the top players that should win always do. however sportmanship is treated as a last place thing, and only losses you points based on if your opponent likes you or not. but is usefull in slamming someone thats being an arse. if you mark an opponent low, a judge quietly off to the side asks you why, and you have to have a good answer or the judge gives a meduim score to the opponent. but it is usefull when someone tries to cheat, gets load and agry and throws a fit as everyone knows this looses you points.

I hate it when someone wins or places higher in a tournament because of their painting skills . Some people just can not paint well , like monkeys flinging poo !
Yes , the army should be painted but it should not have a great bearing on the overall results . I've heard of people winning with armies they have not even painted themselves .

Lork Skystompa wrote:I hate it when someone wins or places higher in a tournament because of their painting skills . Some people just can not paint well , like monkeys flinging poo !
Yes , the army should be painted but it should not have a great bearing on the overall results . I've heard of people winning with armies they have not even painted themselves .

Just to clarify, dipped armies and armies painted by others loose points by us. it has never happened that a a painted army has won a tournament here for anyone, the points help, but they wont win it here for you as the points total is 125 maximum for 5 games, 20 being painting and 100 for playing and pass or fail for sportsmanship.
Painting points work simply:if you work on your army and paint it cleanly adding conversions here and there, basing it with sand and staticgrass with a little bit of paint, adding a few freehands and doing a bit of extra work on the characters you will earn 13 to 15 points. the extra 5 gained are for wow factor and those that really are good painters and put 'THE EFFORT' into their armies.
what i hate, absolutely hate is when the tournament says you must have a 3 colour painted army and you end up playing the Grey Hoard over and over again, thats ok for casual play, but most tournaments require painted armies to enter, having a painting score means that mister joe blow without a painted army wont win the tournament unless hes able to make up the deficite in points, something i havent see yet thank gawd. but hats off to the person who does, cause you can say: he really earned it.

I say just BPs. Unpainted models should be banned, and removed if used.

Sportsmanship is just not being a douche, and therefore should be automatic for anyone with social skills - which should be a requirement for a Tournament.

Employ a Yellow/Red Card system for Sportsmanship, it'll be fine.

(Clarification - A Yellow Card will be awarded for the first instance of cheating/gamesmanship etc per round. A second instance grants a red card, and a -10 BP deduction, or whatever equates to a draw's score, so a win is roughly half as good if you cheat. A third instance of cheating in the same game leads to instant DQ - as does a 3rd Red Card overall. Players are not told who has picked up what penalties and where.)

I'd suggest an option for

Battle Points, Painting, Sportsmanship & Composition (no Overall)

It seems from a lot of the threads that this is quite popular. In fact, I don't think anyone really has a problem with Comp and Sports, its just when the Comp can affect people's battle points that annoys people...

Replace "Battle Points" with Victory Points and I vote for the first option.

Battle Points are ridiculous and too easily abused to be allowed on a tournament circuit imho.

I would definitely vote for separate categories as ArbitorIan said.

Anyone who thinks a sports score is needed is naive ...

Theres a lot of people who can be very friendly and have a great game with you, knowing youll give them good sports score, and theyll score you as low as possible to better their chances of winning.

Sports scoring just leaves the game open to abuse.

I dont like people.. why should I have to score people ?


I agree with Kill and others in regard to sportsmanships


The sportsman ship score should not be "graded" by players, to open to abuse

However minus / card systems should be in place for gakkers.

Bad gakkers are ejected end of.

You really should be ranked for everything, or nothing in my opinion. It's a tournament and everything should be judged and on the line, not just a few aspects.

Turalon wrote:You really should be ranked for everything, or nothing in my opinion. It's a tournament and everything should be judged and on the line, not just a few aspects.

Yeah, but who is doing the ranking? When I meet the perfect objective person, I'll know who to ask to rank an event.

I certainly have a problem with sportsmanship, for the same reason others have posted. I won't give anything but full points to someone on a subjective sports score unless they are a horrible person. Competitive players are fine, and arguing rules is fine too, as long as you don't cheat or deliberately be dicky. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks that take a loss and look for a way to ding their opponent, no matter if he's a nice guy or not. The truly bad sports have just the tool to stab the good sportsman in the back.

Composition is even worse to try to get an objective score from.

Painting can be scored objectively and should be rewarded, and I don't mind a slight bump to the overall from painting.

In the end, battle points and modifiers should be, and usually are the deciding factor to the final results.

My experience is that most veteran players are straightforward and amenable to working through the game. The few that aren't are usually lone wolves and they come and go away eventually. Most of the bad experiences I have had in tournaments have been players of middling skills who are big stuff in podunktown U.S.A., and have the ego to match. These guys take a drubbing and can't accept they just got beat, so it must be that you were cheating, a douche or whatever.

I'm actually really surprised that the highest percentage is the "I don't play in tournaments/no preference" option. Does anybody else feel that way?

I opted for "Battle Points, Sportsmanship & Composition (No Painting)" but there's an important point for me - whilst I don't think that grade of painting should score points in a tournament environment, I do think that all models should be painted and based. Always.

I'd hate the thought of spending so much time on my army, just to have the whole atmosphere ruined by an opposing force of grey slod on the other side of the table.

Personally, I am against a Sportmanship score simply becuase it should be a given in any tournament. I don't want politeness to be made into some sort of competition.

I haven't played a torniment for 40k yet but would be interesting to do.

I would have to say the second option would do it for me.

NO Sportsmanship at all, as the last torny i went in i got -3 point because i beat an IG army with 1 warboss 6 mega and a battle wagon.

This is my problem with counting paint as a score.

Not everyone can afford or have the talent to paint like some of these great artist like GMM or Blue Table. You should just give me the credit of having their army painted and ready to play. Com Score should never be added into the factor of this game, it just take the fun out of it.

I'm a fan of all ratings being including, and the reason should be obvious. The ones that don't want comp tend to be the ones that treat every tournament like Ard Boys and show up with the current cookie cutter Tier 1 internet list. Painting should be required, but only to a tabletop quality(so pictures of the event look as good as the event was...hopefully...run. And those that don't want sportsmanship I think just haven't been to a proper tournament that had a good sportsmanship system that didn't favor the vindictive.

All in all, a properly run tournament should include all of the items. Slanted heavily one way or another depending on the theme of the tournament. Some tournaments should reward Battlepoints more than other aspects, while some tournaments should rate Battlepoints even with others(yes, these tournaments tend to be MUCH more fun to play in). Some of the most notable items in 40k history having the losing team gaining something dramatic from the loss...stalling the enemy or such.

As for those that do not play in tournaments and are stacking up that poll answer...I'd imagine it'd be because of the people that think Battle Points are everything. I know that's why I avoid most tournaments, I really don't find it enjoyable to know going in that if I play a full bodied list full of fluff I won't have a chance in hell of scoring in the top 3. Clearly there are exceptions to this, but that's more on how the tournament is organized.

Editted for grammatical nightmares.

Where's the single elimination option?

No comp, no sports.

Comp is counter-productive, biased, totally unfair for some armies, and utterly baffling for others.

Bad sports should be told about it then asked to leave if it continues. It is easy to (be a bad sport and) ding someone who questions methods/rules--even if they do so legitimately and correctly.

I do think that a version of sportmanship rankings can work. . .player's favorite opponent, for example.

All that said, regardless of which ranking are used I think they catagories should be scored seperately.
Only.

I have been to many conventions and tournements in the past and as long as everyone has fun that in what is important.

1) Points for Painting: Normally there is a seperat contest for painted figs, and game wise I think it is proper not to show up with an unpainted army in a tourneyment. So giving points in a game I do not think should really effect the point cost as it should be effected by the players tactics win or lose. No paint score for me thank you, but if you like to paint go ahead and have fun.

2) Sportsmanship: Everyone should act nice and all, even if you overlook a few rules just so an arguement does not break out are fine. I hate complainers, "toss a coin winner is right" I always say. I would use Sportsmanship in the tourneys because its what makes you a good player.

3) I mainly like fighting for BP/VP its all the same to me, move in kill the tresspasser and take the property and hold it. Thats compitition the way I like it, hack and slash.....

Victory points as everything else is subjective.