To comp or not to comp?

Background: I have played in both comp and no comp events and have success in both. I prefer no comp, but will play in any well organised and managed event.

Now that I said I will not use comp in Event Horizon, I will go though some of the reasons I did not use comp.

Most Australian players would be familiar with “comp” in tournaments. “Comp” tries to rate an army on its power and gives codex that are weak a chance to compete.

The challenge with comp is how do you rate an army on its power?

Generally, it is rated in a vacuum without consideration of missions. With people designing missions (on purpose or otherwise) that hindered certain build (which all acknowledge), this would be a double hit, but rarely is this recognised.

Second challenge with comp is who has the ability to rate an army?

I do not believe I am qualified. How could anyone determine how strong is an army when there are no measurable or criteria, it just become an opinion/perception of reality. 

I want balance. Not the subjective balance I place onto a codex thinking it is weak or strong but the balance where all entrants have the same expectation. You will enter this competition knowing you want to tune your list to cover all bases, has good fire power, has good close combat, and has good mobility. How much you choose to build and tune your list might be different, but no one will have any other expectation when they play.

This act of tuning your list and practicing the game is part of preparation, and I would always encourage people who want to better themselves to always practice and improve, not just in 40k.

As for people who believe “anyone can make a hard list”. I don’t think anyone would believe the statement “anyone can paint a Golden Daemon winning model”, so why would you believe the first statement. Just like everything in life, it is 99% perseverance.

Would this encourage “net list”?

Just like finding inspiration on Cool Mini or Not, it is a mean to the end and not the end itself. Ultimately it is not your work, you need to tune it to your way of play, test it out and find what works for yourself. Also, most people would have practised against a “net list” and understand its strength and weakness.

Understand that great generals would tell you “it is not just the list”.

Tournament within a tournament

What is the difference between Event Horizon and most other tournament?

Not much (or a lot).

• I believe each aspect of the hobby is important and we should recognise, respect and reward them equally.

• Some love to paint, some love the story, some love to play the game, so why do we have to reward one aspect over another.

• I want each aspect of the hobby to have an independent path to victory, and also reward the best all rounder in the hobby.

This is mainly the same with most tournaments in Australia. The difference with Event Horizon is how it is executed.

• Event Horizon rewards each aspect of the hobby equally. 

• Event Horizon incorporates a win/loss knock out style event to determine the best general, a more competitive evaluation process than battle points.

• Event Horizon incorporates the model painter, army painter and converter to determine the best artist.

In essence there are 3 different tournaments held within a tournament. This is the main difference.

Win/Loss and Battle Points

Knights Champion runs on a win/loss with no draws results and battle points are used for seeding players for each round (opposite pairing). So why win/loss only and not use battle points?

Challenges with Battle Points

All tournament participants are familiar with battle points. It measures margin of victory with bonus points awarded for extra targets like HQ, most expensive squad, etc. 

What most players might not be aware is that battle points requires you to severely beat anther player to maintain you chance of placing high in the tournament (to move clear or stay close to the top). Even when you know you have won the game, you still need to continue to club your opponent because you need those points. You are not willing to have some “fun” (like an HQ bash) because you could not afford to lose points. This creates a situation where you have to keep punching someone who is downed, which is not fun for either party.

Battle points also deter people from building armies that could win games by smaller margins but not capable of wiping the opponent, therefore, the common appearance of “rock” armies. Not that a “rock” build is over powered, but if it wins, it will normally win big.

Battle Points (margin of victory) is not the right way or the fair way

Another reason to not use battle points as primary ranking is that battle points is not a fair method for primary ranking. I have not found an example where a Player v Player (or Team v Team) tournament that uses margin of victory as primary ranking, especially in a limited round environment. Golf or F1 is close but not a correct example because it is a Player v Environment, competition is against the elements and not true PvP. 

If anyone knows a system that uses margin of victory as a primary decider, please enlighten me.

Why a Win/Loss system?

If the tournament will not use battle points to determine the best general, how should we determine the best general with limited number of rounds available?

The best system to use to determine best general would be a seeded knock out system (similar to all Australian sporting events like Tennis, Rugby, AFL and Soccer) and incorporated it into the tournament.

Opposite pairing seeding will be used to ensure the best players meet as late in the tournament as possible.

Instead of plagiarising, below is a link to a great article by Mike Brandt.

http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/08/running-your-own-nova-why-battle-points.html

Does it mean I will be out of the running after one unlucky game?

Yes and No, for Best General, and unlikely for the other awards.

Firstly, there is no way to eliminate luck (or lack of). You could roll poorly, your opponent could luck out, or you could be matched against a strong player in the first round. In the end, the winner would be the most consistent player over the two days with a touch of luck. Using this format, you will find that the good general will consistently appear towards the top (just like Golden Daemon Awards). Similar to Golden Daemon, the more you practice and trying new techniques, the better you will be as a general.

Finally, to qualify into second day knock out event, a player will need to be in the top 4 (32 players or less) or top 8 (up to 64 players) win/loss bracket at the end of day 1. Unless the tournament is exactly 32 or 64 players, the highest scoring 3-1s could still be invited into the second day best general knock out.