Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Comp Part II


In my comp article I wanted to say that I was talking about 40k. Fantasy is a mess right now, and they may need some kind of comp system because they have 3 army books that are overpowered compared to of all of the others. I know that GW wants a little bit of codex creep to sell new figures, but they are doing a very bad job of balancing Fantasy right now.


 

For the most part I think 40k is in good shape as far as balancing goes. To give an example of this here are the results of the Heat #2 of the UK GT that took place last weekend. Remember that this is a 1500 point, no comp, bring the hardest armies you can make:


 

1) Mark Burstall - Orks
2) Simone Di Tomaso - CSM
3) Kiam Reddy - Eldar
4) Felix Porras Munoz - CSM
5) Ricardo Bacelo Polo - Orks
6) Andrew Church - Blood Angels
7) Alexander Fennell - Imperial Guard
8) Manuel Andres Fernandez - Necrons
9) David Fairweather - Daemons
10) Gianni Vacca - Imperial Guard


 

We see that there are 7 different armies in the top ten. That is pretty good. Not only that but Necrons* who everyone says are a bad army had a good showing. Also I am glad that I sold my Heat 2 ticket to Alex so he could place 7th. J


 

If I have to point a finger at the imbalances in 40k have more to do with certain units instead of armies in general. When 5th edition rolled out, it made previously mediocre units very powerful. Nob Bikers, Seer Councils, Mech armies, etc. So I would say that if you were going to have comp, it would be to limit certain units, and not really punish armies.


 

*I like Necrons, they kind of play like my Eldar army. They can chuck a lot of strength 6 shooting down-range and they are fast and durable. At the Wild West Shootout I won a Necron army and I am tempted to play one, but I told myself that I need to cut my armies down to only 5.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, I'll admit that I was rather big on the idea of comp until about a year back. I think this is a hold over for me from the days of Assault Cannon dice...with allies, etc etc. The only way you could semi-control the games was to introduce an outside system of guidelines. Today though, it seems like the solution (comp) creates more awkward situations than it fixes (Like your examples). No doubt Fantasy needs it though, their army books are all over the place and the system is pretty weak.

    However...all that said I still feel an urge to encourage players to take variety in their lists. While I think comp is broke....I don't really enjoy going to tournaments and playing the same units from each respective dex (With slightly different quantities/gear). While good players may be able to take sub-par units and compete, most people I've played in tournaments...really aren't good, even with net lists. However, if they didn't have the net list it wouldn't even be a game.

    So, given that perfect dex balance is impossible, how do you encourage variety in lists without comp?

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