Email in: about [Swedish] comp

Here is an e-mail from a Swedish fellow furthering the discussion on comp. My comments will be in blue as I felt replying to his points in-text would be a lot easier for everyone. Snowmobile debate style!

Hi, Will! He knows my naaaaame!

My name's Erik. Hello. Swedish, of course, and fascinated by the comp-discussion regarding your latest blogg (and, of course, Abusepuppy's). You was asking about some information about comp to help you understand it better and so I will try to give an answer. I'm writing in a second language and so spelling errors should be frequent but I've tried to make it readable. Better than us who know only one :P. Also it's a long post. I'll understand it if it's not interesting enough to read through but I'm hoping you will read it anyway :-).

First up: I won't change your mind. My hope is to give an understanding about why it has become something regular on half of Swedish tournaments. But I have never heard one to change their mind about comp when speaking about it. I've seen some changes when it comes to actually gaming (in both ways!) but never when discussed on a forum or likewise. So I'm not even going to try. Fair enough for strong contenders for either side but these discussions help irk out ‘the truth.’ The majority of contributors and readers here are strongly anti-comp for the reasons I will explain but as Puppy has said, if comp is shown to work excessively well and do what it sets out to do, we would use comp as well. We aren’t blinded by our beliefs but rather decide based on information and I think through this e-mail we will find our information differs.

Since there's seems to be several opinion that past experience is extremely important I'm going to introduce myself. It’s not here at least. Good ideas are based on merit, not who’s saying them. Oh if only the world could operate so. I'm a hardcore Tyranid player that has had some success on tournaments (and a lot of...not-so-successfull-days, too). I've organized about 5 larger-than-30-participants-tournaments and several smaller ones in the latest couple of years. Two have been "uncomped" and three with some sort of comp. I'm not pro comp per say, more of a pro variation. I'd like to vary my gaming experience with both comped and uncomped tornaments... now that's maybe a lie. I think I'm more of an "play-at-what-ever-you-can-kind-of-guy" but if I had to choose between a tournament that's uncomped and one that's not in a specific weekend, then I would choose according to whatever I've played least the latest time. I'm going to have my 30-year-old-crisis next year You’re a bit early for a mid-life crisis yes? Lol and been in tournament gaming about 10 years. My experience is purely about Swedish tournaments but I'm hoping for some brittish Grand tournaments in the future. My most successfull placements should be 2:nd place in the latest Fantasia Fanatica and 2:nd place in the Fantasia Fanatica that was before that. Fantasia fanatica is always uncomped (though they had three restrictions last time). Same bastard beat me both times...

Now...

As I understand it, there seem to be some kind of opinion among your blogg's readers that 40k is good as it is and as some posts seems to mean that only stuff from the rulebook is 40k. I'm of an different opinion. Missions, point values, painting scores and terrain set-up are all things that you can change to create different 40k games. Which aren’t then 40k. Yes the missions in the 40k rulebook are meh because they encourage a lot of draws (see DoW w/C&C) and tournaments often have to create new ones but very rarely do they base these missions off of actual 5th edition concepts. When you start adding in painting, comp, funky terrain rules, etc. you get a very much hobby-oriented setting which is fine but you’re not catering to the two distinct populations in 40k. This is why tournaments like NOVA and Centurion are so fantastic, they cater to both sides without significantly deviating from the 40k game with strange FAQs (INAT), wonky missions or hugely penalising comp scores. Especially missions are boring if you only go by the book. Missions in Sweden (interesting to know if you have the same experience or if it's only rulebook missions on your local tournaments) usually have some kind layout that force players to change how they play their army each tournament-round. Some missions demands more Troops, some more fast advancing units, some missions demand you to just kill while lasting it out yourself and so on. I don’t know the missions so can’t comment hugely but for the most part, when missions change significantly they introduce odd deployments and objectives and you take away from the 40k side of it. That’s not to say they aren’t fun or well-balanced and may actually work really well for 40k but a tournament isn’t about who can work the missions best but rather who can play to the missions best. Missions which are designed well for 5th edition should basically require little to no change for a balanced army list then. For me, the step to comp is a small one. It's just another way to vary the game and force player to take extra heed to what they bring to the battle field.

For me, the 40k is what an tournament organizer make of it. An organizer set up rules. Which is another of our beefs. It’s ultimately his/her choice. This is fine when we’re all abiding the same rules (BRB + GW FAQ) but when external documents are added in (even if they are liked and agreed upon by the community) it has become a subjective interpretation of 40k. He decide on missions, terrain and other stuff. And I, as a player, decide to (or not to) compete during those conditions. This is also fine as they are your models. If you want to play that way, we aren’t going to stop you but we will campaign against subjectively handicapping 40k through comp. Sweden seems a lot different from Australia/NZ in that there are a bunch of comp and non-comp tournaments to choose from. I rarely hear of non-comp tourneys here. Usually all the information is available through contact or the "svenska40k.se"-forum so everybody who joins in knows how the tournament will look like. Very important. Transparency FTW. In short: my 40k game is what the organizer and the players make of it. Here are one difference between your readers opinions and mine. What 40k is isn't cut in stone, in my opinion. What happens if two professional sports teams and the referees decide one day to play by some different rules. Change things up, etc. The impact is obviously huge on the standings if this happens more than once as the whole ‘data’ collected for the playoffs becomes invalid as some games were played under different rules. If you want to play modified 40k, by all means go for it, but there are restrictions placed upon doing that. Browsing the Swedish forums and blogs I see a lot of “Don’t diss Sweden, we do awesome at ETC.” As Puppy has pointed out, ETC is a completely different format of 40k with the pairing system and so in our eyes, is invalid. This isn’t to say you don’t have good players but rather we don’t externalise the results of ETC and most comped tournaments.

I'd like to point out that I haven't really found that there are more variations in a comped or uncomped tournament among participating armie's units. Same shit, I would say. Which is interesting as one of the strongest and loudest arguments for most pro-comp players is it encourages variety. My experience is more in the difference in the top armies. In uncomped torunaments. The armylists aren't that surprising in an uncomped tournament (exception always exist, though). They are hard hitting, tough-as-nail-armies. But they are not, for instance, Necrons.

Someone in your blogg posted that people couldn't play with this and that unit according to the compsystem discussed. I'd like to turn it around: Why can't someone play with any army and still have a chance in an uncomped system? This is the basic idea with comp.

In general, this is the difference between pro and anti about comp. If you think it's more fun if you can play with exactly whatever is in the codex - go comp! Not sure I follow you here as non-comp players want to play whatever is in the codex with no restrictions on doubling/tripling up, etc. If you think that the game balance shouldn't be changed and it's tough luck (until next codex) for necron-players - go uncomp!

Here's a secret: they are both really fun to play. I don’t think that’s a secret ^^, they are still games afterall but to take my army list and be handicapped at a tournament because I don’t want to pay money on what I see as “less viable units” or to fit my army into comp is a turn-off for me to even go. If I can take my list without changes to a comped tourney and feel like going, I will as in Australia that’s pretty much the only way I’m going to go to a tournament. I know going in that comp is there and if it’s done right (as objective as possible) I’m not going to complain even if it costs me a prize because one would imagine I had fun. And exciting. Overall, you get the same feeling in both types of system. It's just a matter whether you think it's more fun to change the game balance slightly to make sure more players can play with whatever they want and still get the feeling they can win - or not!



Comp will, however, never be perfect and so is always under development. Just like 40k, look at the effort GW is putting into the new books atm. I’d argue against building two systems at once because of the added complexity. This is good and bad. Bad is that it will never be perfect (in case you missed it first time I wrote it :-) ) and good as you can make changes to game balance as you wish and long before Games workshop does it. I'm one that hate that GW never update anything. How hard can it be! Just release an FAQ to tweak units and get it over with! Agreed and hopefully they will change this but they have done infinitely better than usual over the past couple ofyears. Whilst the Tyranid FAQ was a bit disappointing with it’s few unpredicted changes (Tyranid Primes, SitW, etc.) GW has done much better with rule design and fixing problems. Look at 8th ed fantasy, how quickly did those FAQs come out? Couple weeks at most. Sure releasing an errata that Eldar tanks (except vyper) are all 15 points cheaper, Necrons are stubborn, modifying CSM/BT/DA points to be more streamlined would make all of these armies more viable in the short-term but at the same time, I believe GW believes they get more sales by completely re-vamping the codex every couple of years (or decades in the case of DE).

Now for a small story. It has truth in it but is...ah...dramatized somewhat, for the fun of it. Lars (I thought about using a more modern swedish name but thought it more fun with Lars) plays at a tournament without comp. He get crushed and sees the top players list and now know much more of hot to pick an army. Then he plays in an comped tournament with the same army and get boosted because he chosen units that look cool and is fun to play with - not because their effectiveness. He realize he can actually win without sacrificing the bad units he oh-so-much love in his army. Next year, on the same tournament, Lars bring 5 buddies. And soon after, Swedish tournaments are twice as big! And so on. Or Lars could go “I’m going to win a tournament” and work really hard at building a list and improving his skills so he can win a non-comped tournament. Or Lars could go to a comped tournament with a ‘net-list’ and get hammered by comp but still do well in games and feel discouraged and leave, etc. Lot of options here =D.

The comped tournament gives a feeling that you can play with more of the units that aren't that good but fun to play or looks cool - and still win. But looking at the new books how many units “suck” or aren’t good? Not many and most of the time you can have those units counts as something or work them into a good list for minimal downside. An uncomped tournament you many times will have to make a sacrifice. Those cool pyrovores and lictors has to be more cool-looking than how effective the hive guards are. And you will probably loose more games because of it. Comp is a faulty system (though the general population don't think it's worse than Games workshop's codex) and so wíll never balance the game straight out. But it will level it. How does it level it though? It simply changes what is good and whilst it may or may not make more army lists good, there are still over-powered options, etc. Does it make a bad player’s skills better? No. Your Lars story above is the “best” example of comp but it’s not always going to work like that. You said yourself you see the same armies at both comp and non-comped tourneys, are the top 10 players significantly different? Does a player who attends comp tourneys regularly place in the top 10 and place in the bottom 10 at non-comped tourneys? Whilst 40k punishes poor list building and comp tourneys minimise that punishment, the same skills are still needed by any party to be successful at a comp or noncomp tourney so I would be surprised to see that unless the player was taking a terrible list and being boosted by their comp score. This then comes back to W/L versus battle points where some people believe people who lose more shouldn’t be able to place better than those who win more.

Uncomped: Play with whatever you like OR play for the keep! or Play with whatever you like and play for the keep. Works here too.
Comped: Play with whatever you like AND play for the keep!

Also I think that ETC is a tournament that actually can show how skilled a country is in 40k. Even though its not Abusepuppys idea of 40k. It still takes skill. A different type of skill though. Paired games were not designed for in the 40k BRB. Also, Swedish tournaments have great variety and so offer hardcore uncomped tournaments, hardcore comped torunaments and everything in between. Which is great. As has been said, we’re not going to say “play 40k like this or gtfo” and if there are enough tournaments with good attendance for anyone to go to whatever tourney they feel like at any point in the year, go Sweden. This is not what it’s like in Australia which is why we have a very firm stance on this subject (beyond our belief we dislike comp). The comp system have made 40k larger in Sweden and I'm one that think that something that makes the hobby bigger is good. Worldwide the comp scene and 4th edition made the 40k scene smaller. The early to mid naughties saw a large drop in market share for GW as a lot of players migrated to other systems. I’m not sure if this trend has reversed or stabilised, but I know I got back into 40k because of 5th edition balance (hell I started 8th edition Fantasy, too) and I know American tourneys are a lot less comped than they used to be. Also the arrival of such tournaments as NOVA and Centurion bode well for the expansion of the game as a whole because it caters to everyone at one venue. Especially if it doesn't remove any options for comped or uncomped tournaments.

So all in all I think there are 4 major ways that pro-comp-speakers base their opinion on.

1. The difference between the hardest and the nicest army list is smaller in an comped tournament. I imagine this is true to some extent but you can still ‘abuse’ the comp system and go for a non-optimised but good build and get a really good comp score.

2. Play with whatever you like AND play for the win. But you can do this too in comped. I love all of my armies (I wouldn't play them otherwise) and whilst some are worse than others, they are all very good lists. Yes there are some units I’d like to use which I won’t but those units are very minimal in the new books.

3. It does balance out some of the games edginess and an organizer should be allowed to do so if he so wishes. Again, subjective. Remember that what is considered overpowered by the internet often isn’t.

4. variation adds to the pleasure. Yet you said yourself you don’t see different armies. There may be variation within the armies but there’s always going to be variation within armies under the new books. Sure older books are a lot more restricted and comp could make foot armies for Eldar, DE and Witchunters winnable but does it actively encourage un-used armies? I see no evidence to suggest so at Australian tournaments and again, you said yourself you don’t see different armies between tournaments.

Even if one doesn't agree with these points I hope they can actually understand them and respect their opinion. This goes for both sides. The tournament scene is big enough for both of them. of course we respect (well most of us) your right to play and modify the game as you wish. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with the points if we don’t believe they are right or agree with the system as a whole. Again, in a country where you have lots of comp and non-comp tourneys where one is able to go to whichever they feel like on any given weekend, that’s awesome. I may not like comp and wouldn’t go to comp tourneys but if as a country your gaming group can organise and run that many varied events, kudos to you. Most places however, do not.

I hopefully have made some points to why some people like comp in Sweden. As stated above. I don't expect to change any opinions whether which system is best - all preferences are equally good, and should be respected (as opposed to people on bloggs that shout "idiots" just because they don't agree. I'm just hoping I might change some minds so that they think that any system, as long as it brings more players to the hobby, is good for the 40k tournament stage. And if it does that’s great. All versions of 40k-tournaments bring variation and more fun to more players. If uncomp is a vanilla milkshake then it's sometimes nice to taste the chocolate-one as well.

Regards
Erik Robertsson

Thanks for the e-mail Erik/egge. Let's hear what others think!