DaBoyz GT 2011 comp rubric

[hyv3mynd]

The thing it razorbacks have 5 different turret options so even if you limit weapons to 2 or 3 of any type, space wolves can still get 10-12 razorbacks in.

[crimthaan]

I think it's fair to say that we have a lot to think about when it comes to the rubrics. Jay, Rob, Chris, and I will be meeting today to try and hash out a final soft score system. With any luck we'll have it all done by Sunday (but do NOT quote me on that, I don't want Rob beating me senseless for saying we'd have stuff this complex done hahahahah).

Thank you everyone that contributed to the discussion. it's a heated and touchy subject, but with any luck we'll get something out there that works.

[bfosburg]

For what it's worth, Thank you guys for taking the time to do all this. It's rough being in your shoes and trying to do the best with what you have to work with. Regardless of what you come up with I will be attending even if you happen to dock points for someone who runs yellow marines

[sambutler]

Jul 21, 2011 14:37:42 GMT -5 bfosburg said:

For what it's worth, Thank you guys for taking the time to do all this. It's rough being in your shoes and trying to do the best with what you have to work with. Regardless of what you come up with I will be attending even if you happen to dock points for someone who runs yellow marines

What he said, except greenish and rusted dudes not yellow ones.

[trichloro]

I do like this approach then lasts years, which seemed more subjective. I hope we have final rules soon, as July is almost over and tickets should be going on sale soon.

[skyth]

For what it's worth, here's another take on 40k comp.

www.giantfanatic.dk/download/85/

[jay]

Jul 25, 2011 8:57:41 GMT -5 skyth said:

For what it's worth, here's another take on 40k comp.

www.giantfanatic.dk/download/85/

link does not work.

Skyth when was the last time you played 40K.

[skyth]

Weird. Link doesn't work, but copy/pasting it into browser does.

It's a restriction-based comp with a similar basis to the rubric that was initially presented. Some ideas might be worthwhile to include such as certain armies being able to ignore part of the rubric x times (Necrons are 4, for instance).

[jdubb]

www.giantfanatic.dk/download/85

Try this one.

[sinistermind]

i actually like the way they handle comp in the form of restrictions

[carlosthecraven]

Hi

I thought I would throw in my two cents on the comp system.

People are kidding themselves if they believe that comp systems should not be gamed. Players that want to win review the rules and prepare accordingly. Attempts to limit power level with comp do not work, except to shift where the power lies according to one's own biases, which is fine as far as it goes, but one should not delude oneself about it. I would note that even the decision not to have a comp system is in effect a power level decision, but one that simply states that GW established it for you.

In my view, the goal of this system is to encourage variety, rather than control power level (which as stated above no comp system can effectvely do because all that it does is shift where the power lies rather than actually balance it out). This comp system can succeed if it clearly defines its goals for itself and communicates those goals rather allowing people to read things into it that are not really present.

Regarding the comp system as presented- I think that the addition of a preamble to the sheet would be helpful in explaining what your goals with Comp are, as well as a detailed explanation of what the judges are looking for, including whether you are starting at everyone starts high and loses points, or everyone starts low and earns points, or somewhere in the middle.

My Detailed Critique of Version 3:
Upfront, I am basing this on how I would attempt to break the system, as well as the desire for the presentation to be improved so I can quickly calculating my score. I am also looking for the unintended consequences of the system as presented.

Layout stuff:
- You should add that the base score is 80 to the actual sheet, and that a minimum score of 30 (before Judges points are awarded) is required.
- adding another box in each section where a person can write their score modifier and a box for the total would be nice.

Thoughts on the system itself
- The Comp Matrix - excellent layout and it works across a broad number of armies. A little planning makes full compliance, or a calculated small loss, very easy to do.
- Special Character penalty - Instinctively, this seems OK. However, have you done an exhaustive listing of characters to see who falls where just to be sure?
- I would strongly consider removing the bonuses for taking just one Elite or Heavy (to be clear, one HQ is probably fine but I wouldn't care if it were also removed). It creates an incentive for people to make really weak lists. Given that I can build a really powerful list at a score of 30, this is creating a recipe for disaster as the player that scored 80 may be crippled before the game begins. This is still a tournament, which means to me that the point is still to win, but with variety. A bonus for only one of X category choice reduces the competition while failing to encourage variety.
- I would remove the 4th troop exception where differing wargear matters - my space wolves can easily abuse this with Grey Hunters without losing effectiveness, whereas my Necrons pretty much can't (who would buy disruption fields, really?)
- I would also note that I think it would probably be better to be consistent in the penalty for duplicate Elite, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. Elites and Heavies are the same, but fast should be there as well. Right now, if I were taking marines, I would be willing to take a hit on spamming land speeder typhoons instead of auto-las preds to get my long range (cheap and mobile) anti-tank. If I was playing Blood Angels, I would strongly consider heavy use of 3 vanguard units (or three flamer Baals) because there are fewer transports and my penalty in FA is lighter. Basically, I see this inconsistency as a thread to exploit in the system.
- Dedicated Transport - I have a goal related question - is it spamming of transports that you want to curb, or spamming of armour? When I look at this, I can see a meta-shift that may result in a reduction of anti-armour... which provides a huge edge to a guard army that features a lot of armour that isn't a Ded. Transport. I think I would rather see a penalty based on the amount of armour taken rather than the number of transports, but I am mostly asking just so the team is clear about its goals.

Regarding the Judged portion, I will repeat that it is very important that you establish what you are looking for. If it was me, I would go with:
The judges portion is meant to catch list abuses that fall through the cracks of the rubric and to award those who go above and beyond our stated goal of maximizing variety. Everyone has 15/20 Points to start.
Examples that I would use:
- 1 point for each differentiated model in a multi-wound unit (nobs, paladins).
+5 for having no repetition in the army where possible (armies with only a single troop option can qualify if everything else is different)
- 5 for having more than 5 pieces of armour that are not transports (or whatever).
penalties for other abuses that you dislike
bonuses for other things that you want to see.

For the record, my variety based list from last year, which was I believe a 78/120 scores a perfect 80 before judges discretion, where in my example above I would lose 5 points for having 5 differentiated nob bikers, for a score of 90/100. I happen to fall one unit short of having the entire army being different, which is two units of boyz armed with different heavy weapons.

On the other hand, my typical Tau army (which I brought a version of in 2009) would not be allowed as I spam battlesuits, scoring 25/80 thanks to duplicate HQ, Elite and Heavy Support selections.

My typical Necron army would score a 55, gaining for one elite and one HQ choice, but losing on duplicate fast (destroyers) and heavy (monoliths) and losing for only having 2 troops but a third fast attack (scarabs).

I know that my ork army is more powerful, but the Tau and Necron forces fail to bring the variety that is wanted at DaBoyz Gt. It is easy to make the adjustments to bring both in line and potentially score very well if I want to. Without posting the exact lists, I think this demonstrates that the system as presented can work to force variety but fails to handle power (which shouldn't be it's concern).

Cheers,
Nate

[darkwynn]

I have to say I had a lot of fun going to Da Boyz Gt last year. I meet new people and got to see old friends. The drinks were great along with the food. It was super cheap for us to fly from Austin Texas to Rochester around 120 dollars for the whole week.

What made the whole event unfun and made me shelf my army because I got so disgusted with it was the comp system. Last year I brought a Blood Angel Foot army/ jump pack build with Astroth the grim. It was not a competitive list by any ways but since I had a special character among other things I scored a really low comp around a 40 or a 50.

I didn't have any tools to play a lot of the armies and was matched up against builds they had stronger list because they were scored similar to me in comp points. It made for a terrible time and made the event unfun expect for one game against Nate. That was a fun game but was also annoying as I didn't have the tools to counter or take on Nob bikers.

That being said you guys have had comp for many years and the system changes. No one ever likes it and no one is ever happy with it. There is obviously a problem with execution around comp. Just drop it from the tournament as no matter what your taking fun from away and its only a detractor to the event. You want people to have fun as your goal and this isn't doing it for anyone.

I really wish you guys the best of luck and I truly enjoy the company of the Boyz such as Shaun, Jay, Smitty and Chris but we will skip out on the tournament this year for the sole reason above.

Nick Rose Darkwynn

[evil_red_orks]

For whatever my opinion is worth,If comp is abandoned alltogether I will stop playing. I have stopped playing 40k for a bit cause i got tired of the same nuts being played from the same codex's.

Any moron can take 3 long fang squads with missile launchers and kick ass.Any moron can take a dual lash list and win. Hell, my wife can take 16 or so dark lances and wipe the table too.

How about a little creativity in your list making, its getting to the point where evry game being played is an 'ard boyz event. I would rather have a smaller Daboyz GT, than a large 'ard boyz event anyway.

Hell it took me 2 years before i even bought a loota box for my orks, and i took second at the boston brawl last year. I used tankbusta's and looted wagons at last years DaBoyz, and i took 11th place.

Im not trying to pat myself on the back, but trying to prove a point. How about NOT doing the razorback spam with min. squads, or the mutiple squads of long fangs.

How about a little imagination.


By the way, im bringing a chaos list with all the cult troops, No lash demon prince, and no obliterators to this years GT.

Again im just trying to prove a point, how about stepping up to the plate and use more than the same 2 or 3 units from the codex everytime u guys play.

This post is for EVERYBODY, NOT anyone in particular.

Darkwynn, I do enjoy watching u guys on BoLS and your battle reports. I encourage u guys to come on up, u know how good our event is. Just say f**k it, come on up, do a lot of drinking and throw down on the tabletop.

[darkwynn]

I agree and that was my attitude last year. Just have fun and play some games. I didn't bring a over the top list or a razorspam list at all but I got servilely punished for bringing a non traditional list and penalized for it.

No reason for me to put my hand back into the garbage disposal if I know its there and same thing happened last time.

Now that being said I think any of those razorspam, long fang list, and even lash list are not bad and are quite easy to beat if you can bring the tools to deal with them. My Black Templar list that I am playing now destroys Space Wolves and its totally nontraditional but right away this new comp rubric penalizes them into nothing.

I have to bring a Emperors champion and I want to bring a Marshall as my one HQ. I get hit again as I have one troop choice to pick from. NO reason to bother with it if the same effect is going to happen.

[Catachan Colonel]

I also used to come to play some fun games and hang with the best gang of people and gamers going. I won some and lost some. But as the years go by I see more and more over tooled lists (Or whatever you wanna call them) and a general we want comp statement followed by a gang of compless armies knocking the hell out of ya. And being rewarded. There are many of us who if we wanted to go to a hard boys or other compless GTs would go, but we want a higher caliber and we used to see it.

I implore those in charge, DO NOT do away with comp, in fact in whatever system you use make it severe and give it wide range. It used to be that the top 3 players had to score well in all categories and that although they may not have had the best example they sure were not the worst. But that seems to be going away. Let me show some examples.

Our 1st GT
1st place had tied with one other for 7th in comp and 3rd in painting
2nd place had tied for 1st in comp and had the 2nd best painting score
3rd place Tied with the over all champ for 7th in comp and was the 1st best painted army
Look at those stats they played games and scored well in other categories.

Our 2nd GT
1st place had the 2nd best Comp and 4th best painting score (Very respectable)
2nd place was 15th on comp and 6th on painting (That’s a low comp for the 2nd place)
3rd had 3rd best comp and 11th best painting (Wish his painting was better for top 3)
ok the champ was right on the others are degrading, but nobody was in the bottom half for any score. Slipping standards but still there.

Our 3rd GT
1st place had the 45th best comp and 23rd best painting (Wow that’s sad for our overall champ)
2nd place had tied for the 2nd best comp and had the 1st best painting score (Right on!! This is a true champ, to bad he didn’t win the prize.)
3rd place had 66th place in comp DEAD LAST!, and 12th best painting. (How is anyone who scores dead last in any category end up in the top 3 overall. That’s a shameful! Way to run a tournament)

Out 4th GT (Last year)
1st place had 21th score on comp and 23rd on painting (Kinda sad where is the top 10 scores of older years)
2nd place had 3rd best comp and 21st on painting. (Ok at least one score was top 10)
3rd place had 28th on comp and 38th on painting
Wow standards must really be slipping I remember when having a comp or painting score that wasn’t in the top was going to hurt you.

As long as standards continue to slip and comp is less and less meaningful than sadly this is becoming just another hard boys and not something to head to. I implore the judges this year to make our champs the guys who showed greatness at it all. DO NOT let them be just someone who scored preposterously high battle points and didn’t lose enough points in the other categories to knock him down. Make a good comp and painting/appearance scoring system most of us like it and want it!

Suffice to say I long for the tournaments of yester years where comp and painting were a meaningful part of being champ and the top 3 scored in the top 10 in all categories and Last in none.