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Monday, February 21, 2011

Email in: comp score ruins tournaments


Today I got an e-mail about a comped tournament in New Zealand called Battlecry (I think this is the link; please inform me if this is incorrect). I was e-mailed by the Tournament winner, which seems odd considering the title of the e-mail. Then I read it... Let's see what you think...

"I've just won a tournament and I really don't deserve it.
The breakdown of the tournament was:
40% Battlescore
20% Sports
15% painting
25% Comp.

The problem is this, The guy who should have won the whole thing won all 6 games and only dropped 2 bonus points, so 88/90, he got a 2/5 for comp. I had 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss with 67/90 Battle points, but pulled a 5/5 comp. Because of this I won the tournament... The following is my list, which in my opinion deserves a 3-3.5.

Sammael - Land Speeder
Interrogator Chaplain - Fist, Bike

6 man bike squad - Fist, Apoth, Banner, Plasma gun x2, Attack bike MM
6 man bike squad - meltagun x2, Attack bike MM
3 man bike squad - meltagun x2, Attack bike MM
3 man bike squad - meltagun x2, Attack bike MM
3 man bike squad - meltagun x2, Attack bike MM

Land speeder typhoon, MM
Land speeder typhoon, MM
Land speeder typhoon, MM

So 16 Melta shots and 6 missiles per turn...

My problem is that comp is so subjective, what some people perceive is good other think are rubbish. So my army, which is good, got a great comp score that it didn't deserve and as a result I won the tournament. Over a guy who won all six games... fair? no."


First congratulations for obviously doing well in sports and painting and having a good army list get 5/5 comp (you bribed the judges right?) as well as your wins on the day(s). As was pointed out though by the e-mailer...the guy who goes 6-0 doesn't win? Ouch (he does come 2nd overall I believe). Not to mention the e-mailers list is actually quite good and by no means a 5/5 no matter how you shake the proverbial pointy stick. Poor form indeed.

I asked the e-mailer for more info (and pictures of his army which you can see in this post) and got this in return:


"Yeah if you want to post it go for it, pic's attached including some of my conversions =)

You were close, it was a New Zealand tournament called Battlecry, the second biggest tournament we run in the country with 50 players. The guy who won 6 games ended up second. I've attached the players pack for the tournament as well, though the missions were only given on the day (something I have a huge beef with because some missions can greatly disadvantage some army's) The missions were (from memory):


Mission 1: Kill Points, Pitched Battle.
Mission 2: 5 objectives taking turns to deploy each (as in rulebook), Dawn of War.
Mission 3: Spearhead, one objective in the center of the table, one in the center of the unused table quarters.
Mission 4: Pitched Battle, beginning of player 2 one objective drops 12D6 from the players left or right randomly decided. Turn 3,4,5 one objective lands 3D6 away from the last objective placed untill turn 5 or one lands off the table.
Mission 5: Pitched Battle, Victory points, night fight turns 2+
Mission 6: Table quarters but cant deploy within 18" of the center. One objective in the center of the table, which can be contested as normal...

Excuse the shorthand.

Kjeldorian.

P.S. yes that is a bike rail grinding =D"


First, cool models. It's nice to see a fully painted bike army =D. I think I've got the right weblink up for the website of the tournament as I cannot attach the sent document (though if this weblink could be confirmed that would be nice). Secondly, agree very much regarding missions. For any prospective TO's out there, this is a huge no-no. Give the missions first and don't make them random (like Mission 4) or complete bollocks for some armies (like Mission 5) or super easy to draw (like mission 6).

Anyway, this isn't a place for flaming comp (so shut up VT2 ^^) but I thought it was important to publish for a couple of reasons.

1) Come on. Painted bike army. Do I need more reasons?
2) It's a prime example of someone who did 'worse' than someone (and not by a tiny amount in terms of wins on the day) and got handed the 1st place trophy. And this person felt it was unjust.
3) No matter how you look at comp, it ends up being subjective. A good army list got full comp. Go figure.
4) Painted bikes!


Comments (40)

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Absolutely ridiculous that this stuff happens. The majority of the players who play under these systems think that everything is pie-in-the-sky wonderful and it simply is not. Its incidents like these that highlight the fallacies of these extremely flawed and broken comp systems.
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

Look ma i'm on TV!
Yeah the link is correct =)
Tratchenberg's avatar

Tratchenberg · 737 weeks ago

Can confirm thats Battlecry. No comment on the comp but Battlecry has always been comp heavy. The fantasy tournament run at the same time is called fluffycon and the list of restrictions is out the window 'designed' for fun.

Played against the guy who sent the email a week before in another tournament, great game (drop podding dreads if you read this).
2 replies · active 737 weeks ago
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

I remember that game, it was heaps of fun =) look forward to seeing you at other tournaments!
Tratchenberg's avatar

Tratchenberg · 737 weeks ago

Equinox, be there!
bob bitchtits's avatar

bob bitchtits · 737 weeks ago

and also this comp was reallllly subjective because the T O was the only person who comped the tourny
1 reply · active 737 weeks ago
So the TO decided 25% of the overall points him/herself

Wow. thats... umm... silly.
Panel comp I can handle, where 4 experienced players work it out.
Peer comp I can handle (as I always make people comp score BEFORE the first dice roll).
But TO comp, with such a huge weighting... ouch.
I'd like to see the other guys list. Love it or hate it, everyone went into that tournament knowing that how you built your army was a fourth of everything you could get. If he said screw it and just built a min/max triple-option list and figured he would weather the storm, then no pity. If however this was a case of people saying comp will be judged, then throwing out what seems like arbitrary scores based on lists, it may be a valid point.

Personally, I'd rather see comp done away with and just put up a set guideline of what you want to see out of lists. Like, 'You can't take three of the same option unless it's a troop' or whatever the heck they are looking to keep away from the tables.
2 replies · active 737 weeks ago
list is posted below. a tough list, but not as hard as they come, not by a long shot.
Ok, looking at those lists those scores are crazy.
bob bitchtits's avatar

bob bitchtits · 737 weeks ago

oh... another silly rule
only one of each special character could be taken over the hole tourny except for baliel and samuel.
So if you played dante wing and some else got thier army in first that ran dante then you cry
Comp doesn't balance the game. It creates diversity. Usually in a given region there are many different tournaments, some with comp, some with restrictions and some just vanilla 40K. Go to the tournament you like best.
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

Well to help you guys decide on whether or not comp was fair here i'll post some other lists and what they got at the bottom so you can guess before you find out...

ORKS (the guys who came second)
Warboss, Powerklaw
Bik Mek - Kustom Force Field

Gretchin x20
12 Trukk Boys - Boss, Pole, Klaw
30 Shoota Boyz - 3 big shootas, boss, klaw
30 Shoota Boyz - 3 big shootas, boss, klaw
Mega Nobz x8 wound allocated as much as possible

3 Killa Kans (not sure on weapons sorry)
3 Killa Kans (not sure on weapons sorry)

Battlewagon

4 Deffkopta's, 1x Buzzclaw

TYRANIDS (ended up 4th or 5th)
Hive Tyrant, Pyroxism, lash whip bonesword, old adversary, regen, leech essence, scything talons
tryant guard x2 - lash whips

Hive guard x3
Hive guard x3
Ymgarls x6

Tervigon x2 - adrenal glands, toxin sacs, stinger salvo, dominion, catalyst
termagants x10
termagants x10

Shrikes x3 - pair of boneswords, adrenal glands

Trygon x2 - adrenal glands

ELDAR
Eldrad
Avatar

9 Banshees, exarch, executioner
wave serpent, Spirit stones, linked scatter lasers

5 fire dragons

18 storm guardians - 2 flamers, warlock, enhance

5 dire avengers

10 storm guardians 2flamers
wave serpent, spirit stones, linked missile launcher

3 jetbikes, 1x cannon

Falcon, holo fields, spirit stones bright lance
Falcon, holo fields, spirit stones bright lance
3x war walkers, 6x scatter lasers

Hope you had fun guessing... If you said:
Orks 2/5
Tyranids 3/5
Eldar 1/5
you are correct, and insane and should never mark comp, EVER!
10 replies · active 737 weeks ago
Tratchenberg's avatar

Tratchenberg · 737 weeks ago

Think its grotzookas on one unit of kans, rokkits on the other.

For the record that ork list is pretty much romping through the tourney scene in NZ. Won the tournament the week before.
more than that, that ork list has won more tournaments (all comped) in NZ then any other list in the past year. The guy playing it has over 200 games with it, is considered one of the top players in NZ / AU and generally plays hard and fast.

In NZ the standard has been panel comp of late so seeing that this was TO comp (with a TO with very strong opinions on how the game is "supposed" to be played) I'm not surprised with the results. Disappointed, but not surprised.

But definitely, the bike list is stronger than it lets on, the Ork list is a list everyone has seen and has a certain "aura" around it. I can't believe that eldar list got 1 out of 5.

WTF.
Tratchenberg's avatar

Tratchenberg · 737 weeks ago

Its going on two years now, he hasn't had the time to commit to building/painting a new army or so I've been told.
Warboss Stalin's avatar

Warboss Stalin · 737 weeks ago

Why would grots on one and rokkits on t he other be 'wrong'? Pure silliness. if anything with comp, they should ask what tribe of orks the guy plays. That migth give a TINY insight intow hat the orks would field...but then he could always say 'a minor unknown tribe' and then he could use anything...another reason why comp is pure elitist shit.
Oh my poor little eyes. Please tell me you're trolling us?

Let me guess, the 5th Ed Rulebook and codices hasn't reached NZ yet??
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

I wish i was trolling you bro, but it's true. And we aren't that far behind the times =P
"And we aren't that far behind the times"

What are you talking about. Don't you still have hobbits living down there. Hobbits are all but extinct in the rest of the world my friend. Don't worry, I'll get some 5th Ed. codices in the post. You do have post right?

;)
New Zealand is ahead of most places...in terms of GMT at least lol.
Up one day, down two hundred years.
the sad thing is, a lot of the tourneys and players in NZ have a very good idea of exactly what 5th edition is all about. This tournament is the exception. Standard seems to be panel comp with way less variation then this tourney has. For example, Equinox, the tournament held last weekend with 30 people, comp completely didn't matter for the top three spots. They would have been 1st 2nd and 3rd based on sports paint and battle. This tourney looked like a disaster from the players pack onward (TO Comp, TO who doesn't play a lot, rediculous rules about the special characters, hidden missions) and sadly it looks like it certainly wasn't what would be considered a very fair bout.

Now, to the emailer's credit I saw his army and his list at Equinox and was impressed with it and his play of them. I think it's a bit of a sleeper list in NZ because no one's taken a bike list like this in the recent past, but a 5/5 on comp seems a bit high.
Benjamin Order's avatar

Benjamin Order · 737 weeks ago

I'm guessing the OP scored so highly because the list is very clearly 'fluffy', ie it is ravening and nothing else. This has nothing to do with the actual strength of the list of course :p I wonder how a pure doa blood angels force would have done, as that is equally fluffy. On a side note judging like that (assuming these were the criteria) does make it harder for a lot of armies that can't field effective fluff themed lists, or even very recognisable fluff themed lists. Elder could perhaps field a ghost warrior army, Guard have options, but what could other armies do? DE probably have the most options but I doubt they'd get a good comp score for a lot of them...
Proximity's avatar

Proximity · 737 weeks ago

Doug, please don't sweat it or look at it as a hollow victory, I'm glad that after all the hard work you've put in you've had it pay off and walked with an event win finally. Few people in our scene have the right kind of attitude to really be competitive and do well, so it's great to see you getting stuck in, and to see that rewarded :D

Comp tends to be purely about army power these days over here, they've separated theme from power, so it was just a misjudgment of power. I'm not going to try guess where they were coming from, as they got the vast majority of armies seriously wrong over the event. Im convinced that the ones that were scored properly, were scored that way by accident. Probability works out that you couldnt possibly get them all wrong.

As to my list, whats mentioned here is mostly right, a few changes though,

I also had 5 lootas (because it was 1850), and it was only 11 grots and a runtherd, not 20. The kans are one unit of big shootas, one unit of grotzookas.
In truth, I get a lot more milage out of the big shootas, and prefer them. The grotzookas are just there to make people afraid to bunch up when they get in close to my army. They then spread out, and leave units too close to each other, allowing me to multicharge and kill 2+ units where I would otherwise only get to kill one. The grotzookas very rarely do much killing, they're just there to help me make an opponent play in a way he isnt comfortable with.
Also there isnt much wound allocation you can do with meganobs, its just 6 normal meganobs, 1 kombi-rokkit, 1 kombi-skorcha.

The list started off very differently, and wound up as it is based on a couple of bits of feedback, and a math comp criteria tournament over in Australia.
The tournament at the time started comp hitting after 8 vehicles, so i set that as the limit (and have exactly 8). Feedback from people was that a single trukk is a bit shit, you either take a lot, so you can afford to have them blow up everytime someone sneezes at it, or you dont take any. In truth it quite often plays out exactly that way too - the number of times this has blown up on the first shot of the game is hilarious.
The deffkoptas were originally buggies that I would use to zoom infront of landraiders and block them from moving forward for a turn. To cut down to the 8 vehicles I lost this utility, but gained a sometimes worthwhile alpha strike. I generally run with pretty much no long ranged anti tank so they can help with at least one vehicle a lot of the time :D
The meganobs went in after suggestions that because I was painting them yellow, meganobs might be a bit better suited over regular nobs. Personally I think the regular nobs are far more versatile, almost the same survivability vs normal attacks, better survivability against ap2/1 or power weapons, meanwhile the all power klaws on the meganobs are almost always overkill, while you can still have a large number of klaws on the regular nobs and be at a higher weaponskill for like 5 extra points.
In the times I've played against my own army, or against others with meganobs, I've found them to be reasonably easy to counter.

I've probably played somewhere in the vicinity of 300 games with them now. I'm still not really bored with them to be honest, because there's so many ways to play that list. I have a lot of games where I never cross half way, and it becomes a game about board control and mediocre shooting but at the right priorities. I normally have at least a couple of games each tourney where the meganobs chalk up a grand total of 0 points, and depending on what type of army I'm facing it requires such radically different approaches to the game. I can never use the same tactics regardless of opponent, or it all just falls to custard.

I would most likely have been playing another finished army by now, except that the army I picked up and got half way through was Guard. There's just too much hate out there for them at the moment, that I dont think I would get any joy from playing them at all. I'm so swamped with work at the moment that starting from scratch hasn't been an option - and when I'm not studying stuff for work or having some level of interaction with my wife, I have 2 siberian huskies running me ragged. I'd like to get a wolves army done up this year with a couple of thunderwolf cavalry painted up to look like my dogs, but we'll see if I have the time :/

I did a battle report for the event which can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/3... if anyone was interested.

Not a bad little blog here, I'm quite fond of it actually! I hadn't stumbled across it before until someone mentioned it on my facebook this evening D:

- Charlie
4 replies · active 737 weeks ago
This man seems like a nice chap Kirby... he's welcome back. A sensible talking Ork player... maybe Charlie's the new fester?

Welcome Proximity!
We can replace fester! Finally.

*waves to the kiwi* Glad you like it and congrats on going 6-0.
Cheers, it was a bit less touch and go this time around, but sometimes ive had some realllllly close games where I've won when I really shouldnt have. Since the end of 2008 there have only been 2 or 3 tournaments I havent gone 6 and 0 at, one of those was an 8 round tourney though, so 7 and 1 was still enough to clinche it.

However it works out, I think next month is probably the last month for the orskies D:
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

Next time though i'm going to win because I win 6 games and beat you =P
You see my understanding of comp is stuff like 'no 3x the same heavy' or 'at least 25% pts spend on troops' etc.
A random pleb going 'ooooh nice army 5/5' isn't comp. It's a random judging award. If I wanted to win I'd never go to such a tournament as it seems rather arbitrary.
The real problem with comp is how arbitrary it is. It would be one thing if you could build an army and confidently say how high it would score on comp. But the problem is, people will see a brutal cheeseball army and say, "Ooh, ravenwing! Never seen that before!" And they'll give it high comp because it's pretty and they have no idea what it can do. Then they'll see a balanced army, but because idiots on the internet say it's cheesy, they'll give it 0. Or maybe they'll give it 0 because they don't like you, or because they know you're the best player and the one to beat. It just takes away the hard truth of the dice and the battlefield and replaces it with the soft truth of peoples' personal opinion about your army, which may be based on bias or ignorance.
bob bitchtits's avatar

bob bitchtits · 737 weeks ago

in all fairness the T O isnt a tourny player.
Not sure about the rest of the world but down here regular tourny players host tournys.
The T O might have been a tourny player in the past but i havent seen him lately.
1 reply · active 737 weeks ago
How is that in any way "fair," though? If you don't know what you're talking about, you shouldn't be making decisions that affect who wins the tournament. That's just as stupid as pulling strangers off the street to decide rules disputes.
bob bitchtits's avatar

bob bitchtits · 737 weeks ago

hey charlie its sean (dougs swearing arch enemy ;)
I just wanna say in response to your thread on dakka that you are what i believe the appitome of a great tourny player.
And i mean that in that you are one of the chillist , friendliest guys in this game and im dissapponted i didnt come to the last two tournies because you crack me up.
I look forward to more mexican with you bro
2 replies · active 737 weeks ago
Proximity's avatar

Proximity · 737 weeks ago

Oh man Sean, bromance overload! That was clearly one of the most bromantic things ever typed in the history of mankind ;)
bob bitchtits's avatar

bob bitchtits · 737 weeks ago

thats right bro i sneak into your room at night and watch you sleep :)
I have nothing to add to the rest of the e-mail, but that Chaplain conversion looks awesome - only thing I dislike about it is the Fist, would have liked to see a gun or something a little flashier.
2 replies · active 737 weeks ago
Shadowmancer's avatar

Shadowmancer · 737 weeks ago

It was a What you see is what you get conversion.
Kjeldorian's avatar

Kjeldorian · 737 weeks ago

Yeah it was What you see is what you get, I wanted to get a pistol in there but needed somewhere to put the fist =S

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