army composition scoring and tournaments

[experiment 626]

afternoon everyone

okay, so here i go opening the perverbial can of worms again! army comp and tournaments; what do you guys all think of it? good or bad or just needs work???

personally i'm mixed the issue - i do like the idea and the concept behind it; namely trying to punish people for taking excessive amounts of one or two slightly over-powered/no-brainer choices and/or discouraging certain tactics like the 'uber killy daemon prince from hell!
basically, i see army comp scoring as the 'keeping the game fun and challenging for *both* players' score
but then i personally hate alot of the systems that have been tried, especially those that rely on set mathematical formulas like say 40% minimun of total pts spent on troops while only 20% max total pts spent on say heavy support... worst of all imho, are those systems that let your opponent's give out the comp scores! how many of you have found out that your opponent gave you only 1 or 2 out of 5 or so possible comp pts, simply because you crushed them during your game?!

so, what are your thoughts/opinions on the whole 'comp system' debate?!!

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

i think judging of army composition should be handeled by a judge, without the use of any numbers.

while im on the topic, ive always thought that GW should invest in a judge-exam, that awards people who pass with an official judge certificate. WotC do a similar thing with Magic the Gathering, and their judges are top-notch.

once gw has judges like that, i think things like army composition, fluff and sportmanship can be handled fairly well by a trained individual.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

i think judging of army composition should be handeled by a judge, without the use of any numbers.

while im on the topic, ive always thought that GW should invest in a judge-exam, that awards people who pass with an official judge certificate. WotC do a similar thing with Magic the Gathering, and their judges are top-notch.

once gw has judges like that, i think things like army composition, fluff and sportmanship can be handled fairly well by a trained individual.

well, either have properly trained judges or else they need to come up with a set copm scoring system that's;
a) fair for every army and doesn't simply cater to the smurfs.
b) easy to follow.
c) avoids the mathematical formula mess!

the main problem that i see is that the army books/codices try and allow for maximum choice/theming and this can be a very bad thing were comp is concerned!
i think personally though that the astronomi-con tournament has hit on a really good idea with how they judge army comp;
a) it's judged by the 2 tourny organisers only!
b) they've spent years playing with a system that rates according to the FOC itself, but don't overly restrict unit choice... only excessive duplication of specialist units is heavily punished!
it's a good system and they still play around with it to ensure it's fair for pretty much any army you can concive of... (only armoured companies truely suffer as of now.)

as an aside, i think sportmanship is handeled fairly well right now - if you want to act like a jerk and dock someone just because they kicked your teeth in, then word of wouth gets around about you very quickly!
the 'honour pts' system they've brought in here in canada is a bit daft though

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

opinion plays a big role too. what two judges may consider beardy regarding army selection may be, in another part of the world, be considered completely sporting.

its a very tricky thing to adjudicate. Pull too much in one direction, you loose something from somewhere else, pull back, you loose what you gained before (i hope that makes sense to people who dont have a spinal tap into my thoughts)

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

opinion plays a big role too. what two judges may consider beardy regarding army selection may be, in another part of the world, be considered completely sporting.

its a very tricky thing to adjudicate. Pull too much in one direction, you loose something from somewhere else, pull back, you loose what you gained before (i hope that makes sense to people who dont have a spinal tap into my thoughts)

ah! but that's the true beauty and genius of the astro comp system; it's judged by the force org chart - not actual min/maxing, how many star cannons, 'uberfied death prince from hell and such
basically, the chart is broken down into two brackets - the blue boxes and the red boxes. within the the blue boxes (no comp losses) you have a total of 2HQ's, 2 elites, 4 troops, 2 FA's and 2 heavy support choices. stick to just that and you'll likely score top comp! the red boxes contain the last few boxes - 1 each for elite/FA/HS and 2 troops. going outside of the blue boxes is only a -1 for each choice...
the real penalties come in with unit duplication! troops selections are excluded in this case - only duplicate (ie: 'identicle') chioces take comp hits... so for example, if a guard army included 3 basalisks they would recieve a -4 comp. (-1 for the extra heavy support and -3 for triplicate heavy supports) meanwhile, an army of say all pathfinders & rangers can easily score perfect comp!

of corse, s player is free to compleatly ignore the comp rules and build whatever army they feel like and hope they can make back the pts through game play...

granted we haven't outright stoped the use what alot of people consider 'beardy', 'cheesey' and/or 'power gamey' armies (that's what the missions are for ) but we feel that the comp issue at least is alot more fair than most other tournaments many of us have been to...
the immortals tournament in vancouver BC for example has an outright awfull comp system!!!

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

i think thats an unfare method of judging. many armies, like tau and eldar make heavy use of non-troops slots as standard (its the way their armies work, in fluff and both the game) whereas other armies, like necrons and orks can make do with proportionately more troop choices in their armies).

im not sure on that one

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

i think thats an unfare method of judging. many armies, like tau and eldar make heavy use of non-troops slots as standard (its the way their armies work, in fluff and both the game) whereas other armies, like necrons and orks can make do with proportionately more troop choices in their armies).

im not sure on that one

you'd have to see it layed out in chart form to really get it i think... overall we have a large number of eldar/tau/'nid/guard players as well as a few dark eldar players and they usually score 18-20 comp... (20 being perfect comp!)
the newer codices also help too - eldar i think have the most troops choices of anyone now!

i think the really great thing about the astro comp system is the comp hit for maxing out your troops choices! (usually seen in severe min/maxed armies...)
and the two organisers still play around with the system too, just to help ensure noone's getting a raw deal

i know i'd never accept a system like the aformentioned immortals tournament;
army comp scored out of 10 on a yes/no basis;
- do their fast attack, elites, heavy support choices equal or exceed the amount of troop choices?
- are there 3 or more troops choices? at least one of each fast attack, elites or heavy support choices?
- are there more than 50pts of any kind of upgrades used on their army commander?
- do they have a neatly writen army list showing how all points are spent?
- do they have all gaming supplies including rule book, necessary codex books, dice, templates & measuring tape?
- is there more than one hq choice?
- are there no more than 100pts spent throughout the entire army on upgrades from the armoury/biomorphs/psychic section of their codex?
- is there only one force organisation chart used?
- is the entire army modeled with all appropriate upgrades? (ie; wysiwyg)

*shudders* awfull, just plain horrible and a totally unfair system of comp scoring, not to mention rather confusing... (is it supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing to have more than 50pts on your commander?!)
i'll no doubt rant on and explain this later! (stitch hungry - lunch time )

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

of course elites, FA and HS are going to outnumber troops! gah, that IS bad

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

of course elites, FA and HS are going to outnumber troops! gah, that IS bad

again, that's part of the confusing bit! do they mean 'is there 1 troops choice for *each* elite/FA/HS choice? or do they simply have 3 troops choices total so that the total ratio is 1:1???
then i really like the bit about having to include at least one elite, fast attack & heavy support choice! how nice of the organisers to try and choose your army for you

i try my best to avoid these kinds of tournaments that seem built solely to accomodate smurfs and punish everyone else... (especially us poor guard, chaos and/or eldar players!)
no more than 100pts of wargear/'morphs/psychic powers?!! lovely that space marines can ignore this seeing as the chaplain and librarian come pretty much fully equiped... sucks to be you if you fathom an army other than space marines though!
and what the hell does having your rule book and dice have to do with your army list composition?!! if anything that's a sportmanship issue and honestly, i've never yet gotten annoyed that my opponent doesn't have their own rulebook/dice/tape measure/templates and such handy... (heck, i almost always forget to bring my own templates!) as long they know the rules and can prove any special abilities their troops might have in their codex, so what if we're passing a tape measure back and forth?!

cheers!

[Guard Master]

We had a good way of judging army comp for the tournament I went to and that was your opponant judged it along with your fluff before each match was played and then they averaged it out at the end for a final score and it worked quite well IMO.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Guard Master

We had a good way of judging army comp for the tournament I went to and that was your opponant judged it along with your fluff before each match was played and then they averaged it out at the end for a final score and it worked quite well IMO.

that's how it's being done now too here in canada for the conflicts as always, it's not fool proof (as you're still relying on your opponent being honest and all!) but i do like how they drop your highest and lowest score to stop someone from overly influencing your score!

i do like this way alot better than the old formulas they used to use...

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

that would be my choice of judging, but one it gets down to it, unscrupulous beardy players may abuse the trust of such a system

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

that would be my choice of judging, but one it gets down to it, unscrupulous beardy players may abuse the trust of such a system

that's the main reason for droping each player's highest and lowest score... though of corse the system isn't fool-proof and i know a few people who have their scores unfairly docked because the word got put out that they had what someone considered a 'beardy' or 'power gamey' list.
and as you point out there's also those players sadly, who simply mark their opponent's low simply to ensure that they score better in each game...

that's why i prefer the astro system; you can look up the charts & rules and how it all works on the website, therefore you know right away what your comp score will be!
plus handing your army list in early earns you a nice little 2pts bonus

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

do you have shares in this astro system thing?

well, from whats cropped up here id say it is the best method. Sadly, army composition is still an abstract thing, very subjective, difficult to create rules for.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by DeAd_cOmMaNdO

do you have shares in this astro system thing?

well, from whats cropped up here id say it is the best method. Sadly, army composition is still an abstract thing, very subjective, difficult to create rules for.

lol! what can i say, us alumni are simply a massive bunch of shameless self-promoters!!!

but i agree comp is most definately a very touchy subject! (we go on and on all weekend at each and every astro about how to improve ours!)
i've heard that the uk tournaments have simply scraped the comp scoring idea altogether too... but now there's the debate over how their tournamnets have become so cutthroat and viscious affairs where the only concern is winning...

comp is a necessary evil i think... if only to at least keep the greater majority of players a bit more honest and sporting in their army selection! (the main reason i don't play in many tournies now is the fact there's so many 'boring' armies like the 9 oblit & 4 defiler IW's...)
comp at least is a way to keep armies sporting for both players!

cheers!

[Killermoose]

I despise players who abuse 40k like that. It really just ruins the game. Pretty much everyone I seem to play at the moment seems to be obsessed with winning, which makes it a pretty one-sided game.