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Posted By jeremycobert 08/09/2006 10:03 AM
for example if you want less pod/fear lists. then create one of your scenarios that negatively impacts pods. just make sure everyone can have access to your scenarios beforehand. you want less MEQ's ? make a heavy gravity scenario where your movement is restricted to your armor save, so 3+ armor saves can only move/charge 3+. you want less armored company, add minefields to the scenario.

Bleh. I haven't liked the idea of scenarios that penalize a person for bringing a type of army in the some of the indy GTs for fantasy, and it doesn't work here either. Get rid of the comp and let people play what they feel like. The people that play for fun will, and those playing to win will maximize thier lists like normal.

I posted this to get some feedback on the comp system. I know a lot of people here don't like comp of any kind. I like comp, but I like a good comp system.

I want to see limits on the abused armies, combinations, and imbalances, but this comp system does not do this.

I rather have no comp (or just player selected comp) than bad comp.

And yes, we have a right not to show up if we do not like it. We were going to have several people come up from So. Cal to play, but they were all turned off by the comp system.

I want to change the comp system and try to make it better, but it is not getting any better. I was at the meeting after Capitol Punishment, and I addressed a lot of the issues, and nothing has changed.

It's a shame because I want this event to do well. Since GW canceled all of the GTs, I would like to see more local indy GTs pick up the slack.

Is your list's ineffectiveness a product of having been forced by the comp system into a 'mold', though? Is it your weakness as a player? Is it the matchups you faced? Is it the list itself and the cost value of your basic models? Id say yes to all of those except the first.

Mine was the first. I changed my army around to make it more comp friendly, and ended up takes an ineffective list that I hated. (Ironically, I misread the comp rules, and I would have scored a little better if I took my normal RTT list). But I had the worst comp score at Capitol Punishment, so why am I at a very large point disadvantage from playing Thousand Sons? Are they the power list that the local players were all playing that they wanted to limit? (As a note: If it was the last ?Is it the list itself and the cost value of your basic models?? Then the comp system should help you, not hurt you.)

Kublacon is better than most, even though the scoring this year was fubar and the person that was given the best overall award didnt actually win it, turns out. I look forward to Adepticon next year, and the return of the GTs.

Whatever. They scored my judges comp wrong, but I am not going to rehash it over, and over, again. Since it looks like I am not going to Capitol Punishment, I will see you at Adepticon.

well, rending weapons would be considered power weapons 1/6 times, right? Also, as written, the power weapon rule doesn't cover power fists or thunderhammers. What's with the +2 for a maximum score on all checked items? You're perfect already, here have some more points? That's that for?

I don't think special characters have any place in a tournament. No exceptions.

Blackmoor,

If you want feedback on it, or to work on a Comp System, then you need to post it maybe in the Rules Dev forum, and make it clear you don't care whether people like it, just that you want feedback on how to improve it (and then make sure to ignore the people who can't help but post in a derogatory manner).

While it might appear that no one likes comp, that's not true.  I wouldn't attend a GT that didn't have comp, playing that type of power-game isn't my thing.

I'd love to see or help in working up a system that works better, just in case someone might want to use it in their event.

Blackmoor,

I don't believe you can make a complicated comp system like this work. When you run a big tournement like this you have to prescreen weed out broken list and then let the players grade. Most players will be fair (even Ed who never dings people in comp even tools) and if anyone gets below average let a judge review the list. That way you have a system that much more fair were the players have some form of appeal and you nerf no armies from the start of the tourney.

I ran my 1,000 point Last Chancers army through this Comp System and ran into several major problems.

Questions 1, 2, 9, 10, 12 and 13 are impossible to figure out with a Last Chancers army. That?s mostly GW?s fault though.

Question 4 ? so my army, which has only one power weapon-wielding model (total 9) and that?s only because I?m forced to take it, gets the same number of points as a MEQ army that could have fifteen?! What the...? :evil:

Question 8 ? I get dinged because my entire army can Infiltrate. Fair enough, I guess. But why do deepstriking units get dinged for being able to infiltrate, especially when lots of them can?t? And why don?t I get dinged worse ? my entire army can either infiltrate or deepstrike?

Question 9 ? Why should I get dinged on a 50+% of my units being Fearless and lose the same number of points as a Dark Angels player who has a 50%+ Fearless army when I can lose my Fearless ability any time during the game and he can?t?

Question 10 ? define a retinue. Do Imperial Guardsmen with an officer count? Last Chancers with Schaeffer?

Question 11 ? I have no ordnance template weapons but I get rewarded the same points as someone who has 10? Can someone explain that to me?

Question 12 ? This is mathematically impossible for me to score high, or any all-infantry army, which is stupid. I have no armour. Thus I can get two points for having more non-armour than armour, but I can?t get three points because I have to have twice the amount of armour. Twice the amount of zero is zero. I have more than zero models.

Bonus points ? I would presumably get bonuses for having a themed army, as my army is the Last Chancers. But I lose points for taking a Special Character which is vital to my theme? Say what?

Anyway, to get my final result, I assumed a lot, including that I got the bonus points for being well themed. I got 35. For a frickin? Last Chancers army, for crying out loud.

Awful, awful, awful system.

I'm not a tournament player so feel free to ignore my opinion. But...

Two key problems with a complex Comp system like this:

1. It's inevitable that some armies get penalised unfairly. For example, Tau cannot spend more than 720 points on troops without wargear, and some of their wargear is useless junk they should not be forced to buy just to get +1. I'm sure other armies have the same kind of problem. The point is that the game isn't balanced and can't be rebalanced without imposing some quite severe restrictions on list design.

2. The Comp system becomes part of the metagame. Designing a list for the best pay-off of comp/effectiveness is just one step higher than designing for effectiveness. That's not going to help the less analytical players who are in it for fun rather than to win.

UK GTs don't use comp and hundreds of players still enter happily.

Basically it's a wargame and tournaments should be decided mainly by who wins battles.

I don't like the system at all but mostly because I really don't want to have to spend like a half hour with a slide rule and a protractor to figure out my comp score. Comp is the Carson Cressley of wargaming

This comp system is absolutely awful. Comp in general is no good because you can't make a "generic comp" template unless you make a "generic army list game" where each army is equal in regards to the comp scoring. In that case it merely becomes nothing more than a 50/50 chance at winning, i.e who rolls better. That is a horrendously boring way to play.



But I will add this.
The Tau CAN top out over the minimum requirement to have 50% troops, as they can take Devilfish. Seeing as how "Units with transports" are not used in the equation for the ratio of armored to unarmored it wouldn't effect anything. Also I am wondering if Carmachu's Mech SOB list comp score is taking that into account.

Yeah, people want to compare 'effective' versus 'ineffective' units when bashing the comp rules. If your idea of 'effective' is 6 carnifexes, well....I dont know what to tell you. The comp system does just fine when you put a vanilla army into it, but lets face facts -- if youre going to try to get a WAAC army through it, youre going to take a hit and thats the price you pay. Thats the way comp is, you dont score extra points for thinking up sick combos or taking only underpriced units and a fat HQ. The underlying premise of comp is, I believe, the more basic your army, the better your score. RT does this in a very loose way, this comp system is more restrictive and in many ways only serves to complicate things. I'll say it again - I know its not perfect, and I never claimed it to be. But is it really 100% marine biased and impossible to use with another army?

Blackmoor, your 1k Sons army had, what, 20 or so models? From what I heard it was brutally effective. Very specialised, everything bulked up with wargear, and those units were extremely tough. I dont know what you thought your comp score would be, but you can tell before you even start if youve got a comp friendly list with alot of troops or a WAAC list that maximises an army's potential. Stu-rat, I'll agree with you that a Last Chancers army isnt an overpowered list but it is unorthodox and consequently takes hits on comp. Its not a basic army and it operates outside the 'normal' army parameters...I dont know else what to tell you, other than I dont know of a comp system that will restrict all armies equally. The system isnt fair, and I dont think it ever will be. They have said that squads within an infantry platoon count individually for squad size so youre not penalised for not maxing your platoons, for what its worth.

Ive played in non-comp events. You get to bring all the fun toys in your army, you get to break out some nasty units, and I generally think its fun to use stuff I dont get to use or would get kicked in the nuts for using in a 'friendly' game. If I pay $50 for a tournament tho, Im going to want some kind of standard for armies. RT comp covers about 80% of my concerns; playing with no comp oftentimes reduces the game to a mathematical equation where I can figure out ahead of time whats going to happen, or it turns the game into 'my combo trumps yours' and removes some of the variables and, for me, some of the fun.

I know the Dakka Ivory Tower crowd has a seething hatred of anything that supposedly emasculates the game of 40k, but is it really that impossible to create an army that scores fairly well, is still competetive, and is not marines? How much of this thread is a well-founded argument against this and all comp systems and how much is just reactionary, bandwagon whining? Come up with a system that works, if you can, if thats even possible.

Dakka rarely ever agrees on anything, but here it's pretty obvious everyone agrees that this comp system sucks. And sucks badly. If you are trying to limit Armored Companies, Siren Prince Demonbombs, 9 Oblit 4 pie plate Iron Warriors, min/maxed lists and whatever else I haven't thought of, then *limit those* choices. I don't agree with it, but it's a helluva lot better than that complicated mess. As is, that system rewards some abusive lists while penalizing soft & fluffy ones.

Posted By Hokkaido23 08/09/2006 2:42 PM
Blackmoor, your 1k Sons army had, what, 20 or so models? From what I heard it was brutally effective. Very specialised, everything bulked up with wargear, and those units were extremely tough. I dont know what you thought your comp score would be, but you can tell before you even start if youve got a comp friendly list with alot of troops or a WAAC list that maximises an army's potential.

Go ahead an say it...I brought a cheesy Thousand Sons army. I double dog dare you to. (No one can resist a double dog dare!) 

Loading up on wargear is the only way Thousand Sons work. They need to be tooled up because they can't shoot worth a damn because they have no heavy weapons. I took a dreadnought and a predator as my heavy support, and chosen with a land raider in the elite slot. No one who saw my army on paper would ever say that it was overpowered.

Oh, and Thousand Sons are 24 points each. I can't take a lot of troops even if I wanted to.

 

 

I don't agree with it, but it's a helluva lot better than that complicated mess

Exactly. You gain a comp score but you lose time and precious sanity trying to figure out what the score is and WHY that score is....


Comp is trying to replace the old "Sportsmanship" score that was horribly abused by those who didn't like someone or had an opinion of someone else's army being 'cheesy' because they couldn't beat it. While that is commendable (sp) I still find the idea lacking in substance.

Example, an IW army can have 4 Heavy Support Choices and a Word Bearer army can take up to 9. While it is fluffy for both to do this only the IW will be penalized for it even though it is an acceptable part of their army list. Not only that but the WB army would get further points for doing so because they would have twice as many troops as elites, FA and Heavies easily. Not too mention the 50% troops etc...

My point? The specialization of certain armies needs to be represented in the comp score in some fashion in order to better balance it out. You did so in one respect by not counting Infantry transports in the one rule.

May I go through and maybe attempt to bring specifics from specialized armies into the comp score currently or would that be too invasive?

>>The Tau CAN top out over the minimum requirement to have 50% troops, as they can take Devilfish.

How does that work? Dedicated Devilfish are Transports, not Troops. Non-dedicated Devilfish are Troops and fill slots, but cost less than maximum size FCW squads even when pimped.

Let's not derail the thread with this, though.

Posted By Blackmoor 08/09/2006 3:18 PM

Yes, I beat Steve who won best general with them...but that is because I am good.

And modest apparently

@Hokkaido. So just out of curiosity, What is the prize for this super special "comp" event? I don't remember from last year, so please indulge me.

If it were up to me to provide prize support for this "comp" event, I would give the winner a Nerf gun. Best general a box of Space Marines without their guns and I would have them painted UN blue. Best sportsmanship a nice frilly dress. and the players choice maybe a set of those Neuticals that they give to male dogs after they have been "comped", I mean fixed.

I was wondering how to make a 40+ eldar list thats competative. My old standard list, farseer, scorpions, bansheess in serpent 4 guardiand defender sqads, 2 storms squads in serpents, 2 wraithlord and falcon, and 2 vypers gets heavily dinged.

a squad of 8 banshees is nasty but they are so weak, every game I kill a unit and then die. or I just die, and rarely do they ever get to make their points and live. But 48pts for squad of 8 is crazy. I think this comp thing needs to take into account a realistic value based on the strength of the model. A banshee with a power weapon isn't as dangerous as a space marine with a power weapon. 1pt difference right. GW says a banshee is 16pts but a space marine with power weapon is 45pts, and blood angels... sheesh. this chart needs to keep going well past 100 if you want to eliminate all the real clown armies. (oh are powerfists excluded, i assume you meant to include them, otherwise it seems clear that this rule only penalizes eldar, what about rending?)

This other thing about the AP 1 and AP2 weapons... why is balistic skill not factored in? There's a huge difference between BS3 and 4, and twinlinked and stuff like that. But in this comp its all the same, thats so bad.

Eldar can field up to 4 monstrous creatures, nids can field 8... why are they getting some sort of bonus for it? Welcome to 4th edition.... wraithlords are too slow, its a shooting game now. Again what if a nids player takes 6 big bugs.. thts no worse than taking 8... according to this, but in reality its nasty.

What percentatges of your army can infiltrate, deep strike or drop pod... i.e. what percentage of your army isn't in a standard transport that was nerfed in 4th..... No one plays walking armies anymore, if you don't have some sort of accelerated movement or are 100% shooty you will lose. I think that this should be revised so that if you can do any of thise stuff reguardless of the mission.. then calcuate the percentage.

What pecenatge of your army can use the ordinacne template... .... don't give IG the bonus!! WTF. And not all ordinace template weapons are created equal, so please don't penalize armies the same. TAU have hammerheads but those ordinance templates aren't as nasty as a tyranid barbed strangler which is in no way as powerful as a basilisk shot. Why arent we calcualting strenght of the weapon divided by AP? You guys must like old school IG without traits?

% of army thats fearless (why are you doing this?)

I guess the rest is ok. I'd rather you guys just say well we'd like to ban the use of linburger and groeiere cheese, but some swiss and any milder cheese is acceptable.

Posted By Darrian13 08/09/2006 5:11 PM
@Hokkaido. So just out of curiosity, What is the prize for this super special "comp" event? I don't remember from last year, so please indulge me.

If it were up to me to provide prize support for this "comp" event, I would give the winner a Nerf gun. Best general a box of Space Marines without their guns and I would have them painted UN blue. Best sportsmanship a nice frilly dress. and the players choice maybe a set of those Neuticals that they give to male dogs after they have been "comped", I mean fixed.

 

So you mean dark angels then

Chaos Cola its the real thing...

 

 

Posted By mauleed 08/09/2006 8:24 AM

You're dead right, if you don't like the comp system, dont play.

And most won't.

Pure speculation, nothing more. We'll find out after the event.

@Blood Angel:  Compairing "comp friendly" to "Kids glove games" is brutally slowed.

I'm sorry you feel that way but there is no need to get defensive.

Whining and complaing about comp based on someone's opinion of how a list 'should' be constructed is lame.

I typically take comp friendly lists but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what my opponents take - I just try and handle the business on the playing field.

There should be less complaining about what someone else takes and more time spent figuring out how you are going to win with whatever you chose to bring.

Plain and simple - at a tournament (especially at one of these national events) you should be there to bring the heat.

Comp does nothing to even the playing field. You're just playing a modded version of the game. Say, capture the flag or zombie mod in counterstrike rather than the typical mode of play. It's nothing better, nothing worse, since you can choose which army you want to bring and ultimately wipe armies off the board. I don't see why anyone's complaining, really, since it looks like DP marines will do fine.

Posted By Darrian13 08/08/2006 9:42 PM
@Aeneus. I think you are missing the point. No one is argueing that you cannot build an armylist with perfect comp, that is not important. What is important is howto build a "comp-friendly" list (40+ score) AND make it a viable tourney winning list. That is the issue! What most of us have realized and you seam to miss is that Space Marines can do this very easily in the current comp system. Can you do the same with Chaos? I bet you cannot.

This is why the system is unbalanced.

Darrian

Well, to be honest Darrian, I beat you last week with a Chaos army (Word Bearers) that I was going to take up to Contest of Champions (the same comp people) a couple of weeks ago.

That army would have scored around a 47 under this comp system. (I only lose 3 points for not having half of my troops at max size.)

 

 

Blackmoor, your 1k Sons army had, what, 20 or so models? From what I heard it was brutally

After a statement like that, I can't see any point in continuing the conversation. Obviously you not only don't get it, you lack the capacity to get it.

Either that or you live in the land of the easter bunny, the tooth fairie and brutally effective thousand sons.

Again... marines. Marines and MEqs are favored by this system.

How does that work? Dedicated Devilfish are Transports, not Troops. Non-dedicated Devilfish are Troops and fill slots, but cost less than maximum size FCW squads even when pimped.

Let's not derail the thread with this, though

Curious statement. I wonder just what you are insinuating at? Points wise in order to meet the 50% troops you would need 925. Taking 6 twelve man squads of FW each in a Devilfish would more than top that out before upgrades. 200points per unit times 6 equates to 1,200 points in troops. The transports points still count in regards to the size of the unit pointswise.

 

The only thing that transports DON'T count in regarding this comp score list is the percentage of armored vs. unarmored units.

Besides this isn't YMDC... Devilfish are not able to fill Troop slots alone in the real world, only on dakka's RaW driven forum previously mentioned.

Hey,

Posted By stonefox 08/09/2006 7:35 PM
Comp does nothing to even the playing field

Sure it does. Everyone's lists are nerfed equally. :- /

I can take a stab at guessing the organizers' intent:

army points spent on troops
Why: Lists feature racial Units as core.

troop selections at maximum size
Why: Min/maxers.

points spent on wargear
Why: WYSIWYG fanatics.

power weapons
Why: Fewer Troops = bad, apparently.

weapons with AP1 or 2
Why: Irresistable force.

monstrous creatures
Why: Wraithlord, Monolith, Gav.

vehicles with a combined armor of 48 or more

Why: Rabid treadheads.

Infiltrators and drop pod units
Why: Tourney Objective Scenarios.

fearless
Why: Immovable object.

your most expensive HQ choice
Why: Herohammer.

ordnance
Why: Zero conflict shy-guys.

armored units
Why: Troop transports = good, apparently.

troop Units
Why: Sly comp jiggery by the unwashed.

multiple saves
Why: Bogged Assaults.

background appropriate to the 40K universe
Why: Female SM, Nazi Deathkorps, Grey Knights of Khorne.

no special characters
Why: Bookkeeping.

twice as many troop selections as any other
Why: Theme.

maximum score
Why: Carrot.

Of course, YMMV . . .

Playa

The problem is that certain armies get punished and there isnt anything they can do about it except play a different army, any cult army with the fearless, or daemonhunters(although they can take storm troopers), any chaos army in general with the maximum troop sizes(try playing TS with 20 marines in each troop slot), among others, every army should be able to get max comp and with this system they cant.

aaron

Posted By mauleed 08/09/2006 8:16 PM

Blackmoor, your 1k Sons army had, what, 20 or so models? From what I heard it was brutally

After a statement like that, I can't see any point in continuing the conversation. Obviously you not only don't get it, you lack the capacity to get it.

Either that or you live in the land of the easter bunny, the tooth fairie and brutally effective thousand sons.

 

The funny part is that he accuses me of being a WAAC (win at all costs) Thousand Sons player.

The other thing is that I wanted to bring my WAAC pure Demonhunter army to the 2006 Capitol Punishment, but the comp really hurts them.

I guess I am drawn to the cheesy lists.

 

@Blackmoor, I think you are underestimating the comp hits on your WB army. You failed to take into account your number of summoned units and the number of power weapons in your list (bloodletters?).

While it is true that you beat me with that list, to be fair, it was my first try with Space Marines. I know I am a fast learner, but come on. BTW, I did happen to win the RTT 2 days later with that list and you played your WB's list there, didn't you?

Darrian

Well, I ran my (rather bad) footslogging Orks through and got a 41 without bonuses. Things that stick out as dumb for Orks are...

% of points spent on Troops. I'd spend more if I got more than 6 slots. A Grot mob is around 90pts.

% of Troops at Max size. Grots?

% of Fearless. Maxed out Ork mobs... are Fearless.

% of Units with Multiple Saves. Grots and Kustom Force Fields.