Kill Points vs Victory Points & alternative tournament winning conditions

This post is inspired by the below e-mail from Foh. Whilst there are other e-mails before this which need to be answered I thought I'd post this now because of the recent discussion about such concepts in relation to the recent completion of the NOVA Open. Don't worry, your e-mails will be answered shortly! The email is below in italics with my thoughts below.

“hi there!

i have been lurking YTTH and 3++ for some time now and learned a lot. a big thx to everyone that puts effort into educating the 40k community! :)

when i read about the nova open at dakka (the dash vs stelek match caught my interest) i discovered a discussion about KP vs VP. i can understand both sides of the argument. i looked up YTTH for that matter and found that stellie is not a fan of KP. he had some good arguments. another thing is there are often additional objectives in tournaments like "hold" tablequarters", "kill troops", whatever...i am more of a core rule purist... i prefer to stick to the missions in the rulebook for competetive play because they are the official ones. no question: the more different stuff to play in fun games the better! but when it comes to hard-fought fights for the win i'd prefer simple well known missions, the ones in the core rules. they may not be optimal but they are known to everyone and everyone played them before.

my question is what's the 3++crew's opinion on this matter? should TOs create their own missions to try to improve the game or change it a bit to their own likes? is it just another point to prove that you are good at 40k when you can adjust your army and strategy to new missions? does such a changing mission environment water down the comparability of events and put players at a disadvantage that cannot affort to adjust their army often to best fit the environment they will play in next?

greetings from germany,
foh.”

Hey foh, lurk less and post more! I skimmed the Dakka post and I recall Stelek’s post from last year. I’ll give you my thoughts first and then we’ll open up the discussion for everyone else. I firstly agree with you and some of the posters on Dakka that stripping things like KP or making odd missions is not 40k. This is the exact same reasoning for why comp is bad, especially since GW has put out a very balanced system of late with 5th edition + new books. However, in regards directly to the NOVA Open, Mike’s missions were play-tested extensively. I think the organisers racked up over 1000 test games and from the success of NOVA, I’m going to say they balanced this well and kudos to them. The biggest problem with making your own missions is this kind of effort is rare and so the missions are often not balanced or don’t focus on 5th edition concepts. Mike’s missions were tested, were balanced from what I can see and did highlight 5th edition elements of mobility, Troops, objectives, midfield, etc. Mike’s missions weren’t overly complex either. I’m not too familiar with them but looking at the missions from some of the BoLS tournaments and the recent Lords of Terra, some of the missions are overly complex and/or introduce new factors into the game (I.e. secret orders). Tournament missions aren’t there to trick you or surprise you or test your adaptability, that’s your opponent’s job. Tournament missions are to separate winners and losers whilst hopefully adding a bit of balanced spice to the game.

So in regards to making their own missions I think TO’s should, 9 mission variants is great from the rulebook but gets boring fast, especially with KP and capture & control. What TO’s need to keep in mind when they make missions though is what 5th edition 40k is about and don’t screw around with new funny deployments. Mike’s missions used deployments everyone was familiar with, just the actual winning was different. This offers some variety but doesn’t require a mass amount of learning before the tournament. It’s also REALLY important to publish the player’s pack very early so everyone can look at the missions and get their head around them. Good tournament missions shouldn’t require a balanced 5th edition army to change it’s make-up as this shows the missions are relating to the core concepts of 5th edition. This is a good thing. Refer to the ‘Ard Boyz missions this past year, the prevalence of night fight made some armies really need to work on their layout and this is not a good thing. Whilst it was a change of pace and it could be done, it’s also changing 5th edition. Whilst this is GW’s prerogative because it’s their game, regular TO’s should be very hesitant before doing this.

So specifically to the KP issue, did Mike err or not? I personally believe he didn’t. Competitive armies really don’t care about KP because most of those are 15+ KP anyway. I can think of very few balanced armies at 2000 which have too many less than 15KP and most of those are competitive foot. Lists which are specifically designed to minimise KP gain an advantage in 1/3 of games but generally suck anyway (I.e. Nob Bikers). So what happens in a tournament setting where a minimised KP army meets a balanced army? The minimised KP army has an inherent advantage and this is bad. No army should have inherent advantages or disadvantages in a tournament mission and whilst GW may have implemented this as another deterrent away from min/maxing (I..e. MSU), their codices and 5th edition ruleset (pro-mech) doesn’t support this. If you have two armies which both have 15+ KP, not a problem but in a tournament setting you can randomly be assigned against a minimised KP army and in a proper tournament setting where the winner is undefeated, well that’s your tournament screwed unless you table your opponent.

Back to did Mike err or not. By removing KP completely he did indeed change the make-up of 40k but by removing this aspect of 5th edition, he made the rest of 40k more streamlined IMO and kept with 5th edition concepts. KP don’t make balanced lists worse and if you ever don’t include units/transports because of KP, well stop. Right now. Army composition is WAY more important than KP. Are there different ways to handle this rather than completing remove KP? Yes. Stelek’s 5x5 mission is a very good example, especially for a tournament setting. Using a mix of objectives and kill points where kill points are assigned by your opponent provides instantaneous primary and secondary objectives and the additions of table quarters, kill troops, etc. can be added in as well. Add in three deployment styles and that’s way more mission types than what they BRB currently has and yet all still focus on 5th edition concepts.

So whilst I think running a system where you pick your kill points (which also brings in the tactical knowledge of knowing what is important in your opponent's army in relation to the mission being played and against your army list) would be better than the no KP system, VP were a good choice which everyone knew and easily replaced KP as a tertiary scoring system. The removal of KP completely from the tournament I think was what a lot of people were questioning and I think the removal of low KP armies having inherent advantages in KP games where they were in fact worse lists was a good thing.

To summarise, I think Mike did a great job. He took out KP which does kind of change 40k but he did it in a way which discourages individuals running minimised KP lists and promoting fun and competitive lists whilst emphasising what 5th edition has brought to 40k.

So what does everyone else think? Do you think the removal of KP by NOVA Open was okay and should be ecnouraged in other tournaments or do you think KP should be kept but with some modifications to ensure some armies don’t have inherent advantages in some missions or should they be scrapped for a different system? Any other thoughts, let's hear em!