What do people mean by "comp" these days?

[T10]

I remember when 6th edition was coming ito its cups that some tournaments and organized event attempted to curb overly enthusiastic power-gamers by allowing other players to evaluate their opponent's army, effectively assigning it a "composition score".

The idea is good: if you want a good comp score you take a non-abusive list and instead build it around a clear theme (as if those two were completely distinct and opposite. Sigh). It doesn't take a genius to figure out that anyone with a "win-at-all-costs" mentality will consider a low comp score a reasonable "cost".

I've noticed a change towards trying to nip abusive lists in the bud, as it were, by introducing "composition restrictions" where there are limits on how you can build your army. I don't much approve of this approach: to me comp restrictions incite me to find the most abusive combinations allowed rather than making armies I'd like to play.

Aside from those proactive and reactive comp mechanisms, there seems to have emerged a third meaning of the term: That "comp" is somehow the same thing as nerfing the game (I think we all know what "nerf" means. If you are reading this you are surely aware of the existence of the Internet).

So, when you say "comp", what exactly do you mean?

[Fubar]

The Idea of comp is to balance the game, but in practice it just prevents people from taking armies they want to play ^^

[Urgat]

My understanding is that comp is whatever rules change supposed to balance the game.
As for if I like it or not (since you gave your opinion, I'll give mine): I play goblins, with a massive central unit (100 strong horde), and a lot of other units that are often duplicated two or three times. I still have more units than most other armies, it respects all the requirements for all the scenarios (including a lot of fortitude points), there's no deathstar, nobody I've faced has ever complained about anything in my army, on the contrary its' always been deemed fun to play against, yet under most comp systems my army list will still be penalized left and right, and would force me to play some sort of ****** min-max crap. You can deduce for yourself what I think of "comp".

[Morkash]

My understanding of comp is similar to Urgat's. It is a set of additional rules attached to the main rules, mostly regulating magic, unit sizes and strong combos/items/units (in the TO's eyes). How strong the restrictions are depends partly on the country, partly on the ruleset used: 'Ard Boyz is one extreme with no restrictions at all, ETC rulesets are on the other side, since they make restrictions in most of the phases and for every army; most tournaments are found in between, restricting Special Characters and maybe granting Lo,S! against Dwellers & co. (Edit: To my mentioning of country: Austria & Germany seem to be more restricted than the UK, while the US are less restricted... although it's hard to generalize of course)

I like comped gaming for the most part, though I enjoy friendly games just as well because I do not play with people who bring 4 Hydras + other extremes to them. As Urgat said, sometimes it's just funny to play a Goblin horde or another cool unit/combo/item (like the Hellheart or the Crown of Command) and most rulesets restrict unit sizes and bann certain items. (For example I never used CoC, simply because every tournament forbids its use and thus I forget about using it in friendly games...)

[Bodysnatcher]

I've never actually had an army that would be allowed under most comp systems.
My armys are themed.
They have nothing absurdly cheesy in them.
They generally don't rely on one sided dice rolling a la gunlines.

But I like special characters, magic combos and big units. Gets me coming and going.

[BigbyWolf]

As with the OP, to me "Comp" first meant rating armies after games in tournaments. Now it's just a sign for me to switch off and apply a glazed look over my eyes.

I've not got a problem with the modern idea of comp, if done correctly. The problem is very few places do, and most prefer blanket- banning and blanket-restricting things. Sometimes the restrictions smack of pure laziness.

[Bodysnatcher]

I used to like the little rate you opponent's army score that they had at GTs - points for theme and so forth.
I was much more accepting of a cheesey list if it looked and felt awesome.

[Tae]

Comp, to me, means nothing more than an arbitrary set of restrictions imposed on players to increase balance and to help make more 'themed' lists.

Well firstly it doesn't create balance. All it does is re-define the balance that already exists in the game. It doesn't do things that would help the balance - i.e. amend stats, points etc. it merely imposes often arbitrary restrictions on units/combinations that are often viewed as overpowered. Well there removal doesn't balance the game, it just creates new units/combs to sit atop the 'power tree'.

Secondly it does little to help promote themed lists, as Urgat pointed out above. Some themes are flatly impossible (Khainite or Throgg armies for example) as they both require special characters which are usually the first thing on the 'ban list', whilst others become virtually impossible due to unit size limits or repeating restrictions.

So all in all, comp is fine if people want to play it as I'm more than aware that this game should be what each individual makes of it. However what I do not like is the view which seems to have been increasing (though thankfully not amongst GW itself - for perhaps obvious reason) that comp is the 'better' Warhammer.

It's not better, it's different.

[Stonewyrm]

I understand "Comp" as follows:

Changing the rules of Army Composition in order to achive a goal. This is usually (but not always) to make the game more enjoyable for the group as a whole.
Players give up some freedom during the list building phase to try to insure a more balanced environment, and thus theoreticaly, a more "enjoyable" one.

For example where I live they try to
1) Reduce the chances of early turn wins through powerful spells (4 dice per spell cap, only 2 dice generated)
The idea being that the game is more fun if both sides have reasonable chances to win or at least survive and act until the end of the game.

2) Increase the chances of dealing with Deathstars through unit size limits (variable based on model cost: 1-8pts max 45, 9-11pts max 40 ect.)
The idea again is that the game is more fun if both sides have a reasonable chance to deal with the units in an opponents army.

3) Increasing the chances of surviving "Instakill" spells through addition of a LoSir roll (Dwellers ect.)
The idea is that spells should be able to either signifigently damage a unit or "snipe" a character but not both at the same time.

4) Inceasing the chances of being able to deal with potentially abusive Characters, Items, Monsters or other "Centrepiece" models by making them a 0-1 choice and/or reducing thier effectiveness.
See number 2. Example: K'daai Destroyer is 0-1 and always wounded on a 6.

5) Increasing the tactical movement in the game by limiting the amount of shooting models and/or artillery.
The idea is not to ban something that is too effective as gunlines have been reduced in power but to eliminate something which just isn't fun.

Even under these kind of restrictions there will still be player that try to "find the most broken things" that are still allowed. This however, will never change regardless of weather games are comped or not.
It does however gives players the option of taking a wider variety of units (read: the less effective ones) without severly reducing the effectivness of his/her army.
It also tends to result in slightly bigger armies with more units and more diverse units present (less obvious choices, less double rares ect.).

Stonewyrm

Tae:
"It merely imposes often arbitrary restrictions on units/combinations that are often viewed as overpowered. Well there removal doesn't balance the game, it just creates new units/combs to sit atop the 'power tree'."

Yes that is correct, however the "power tree" is much lower and that is the whole point. By lowering the maximum possible effectiveness comp in fact does "create balance" or at least "better the balance" by reducing the possible range of power.

[Graxy]

From my viewpoint, comp is there to take out some of the b******* that makes the game unfair. In general, It can work pretty well, since things like unit caps stop people from taking oversized power units that would otherwise seem extremely difficult to kill, as does the points cap on every unit. Basically, it's there o keep the game under control and stop people from winning games in which they should not have won (kind of redundant in a luck based game, but I digress). Now the real problem is the execution of it.

As others have said, special characters are normally one oof the first things counted out. In some comps they allow special characters, but disallow the unbalanced ones, such as Teclis. I see no problem with this, since I'm ppretty sure we can all agree that Teclis is a bit good and really dominates the magic phase in a gamewhere magic is already dominant. General comps of all special characters seems a bit strange to me. Really, what is the point in banning, lets say, Greasus Goldtooth (I don't know who would take him, but characters like him shoud still be allowed.

I think that comp works well, if executed well, however, if not then it could be as bad, or even worse than uncomped warhammer.

[Gradek]

To answer the OP, I think comp can be defined as either imposed "hard" limits OR some sort of score based on actual composition. Both get to the point, but the "hard" limits version is at least known to everyone, while the comp scores can at times seem like the judging of Olympic Ice Skating.

To me, comp wouldn't be necessary if it didn't seem like GW randomly assigned points to units (expalin to me the points of Hydra, HPA, and Shoggoth?) and at times seems to splatter a bunch of abilities on characters/units that are obviously NOT PLAYTESTED (see Teclis, Kdaai Destroyer, Kairos, etc).

[Grocklock]

Comp is there in my eyes to try to balance an already balanced game, all it really dose is allow for the game to be played in a different manor, which is fine to play a different style of fantasy, but alot of comps fail to do this,

in regards to the old comp fo marking your opponent it is seen in the same light as sportmanship it can easily be abused.

Although it can lead into problems where you cange one rule forces you to change another, as said earlyer people take out powerful spells, because they end the game early, but one of the ressons for them is to try to combat deathstars, so by taking it this out they then need to limit deathstar Strength. and so the changes keep coming and coming, before you realise half the changes are only required because of the changes that have been made.

[yabbadabba]

House rules for tournaments and tournament players.

[tmarichards]

I don't see balancing the game as the main aim of comp, but instead a means to an end- that is, stopping players taking wins they don't deserve purely because of abusable game mechanics and thus encouraging people to have to actually be able to play the game with a measure of skill.

[Duke Ramulots]

I don't see balancing the game as the main aim of comp, but instead a means to an end- that is, stopping players taking wins they don't deserve purely because of abusable game mechanics and thus encouraging people to have to actually be able to play the game with a measure of skill.

If the game has abusable mechanics wouldnt being able to abuse them be part of earning a win? Thus taking that mechanic out would be giving the win to players that otherwise could not win within the rules and would be handing the win to unworthy players?

[Krish]

Oh my oh my, i do no know from where some peaple are, but where i live it is simply impossible to use half of the armies because of restrictions. Everywhere you go, there are bans or this or that. People complain on hydras,on abominations, on steam tanks, on chosen stars, on special characters, on power spells, on big units, and they simply ban them. They cut them and disable them, and its so absurd, if almost every army has something that strong than mayby it should be left alone? So it will balance itself. An come on if i play warhammer it is for me mostly fun of the world i play in, fun of having Archaon leading his horde, fun of having morathi on the field and creating the army around these characters. Its the essence of warhammer, and all this restrictions are only complains of men who want to play mathhammer, if so why bother and use the miniatures, just use calculator thats all the fun that is left after cutting everyhing out. ( i wont even mention all the amazing models from FW i mean imagine someone who have mammoth or other great best - and what now oops sorry its useless ... )

[tmarichards]

What restrictions are you playing under where it becomes "impossible" to use fully half of the armies in the game?

[pointyteeth]

Frankly, I don't think much for the List Restriction type comp (can't take this, that, max of 1 of these). In my area we have none of these restrictions for the two big tournaments (GottaCon and WCP Indy GT). GottaCon has absolutely no restrictions whatsoever besides the points limit of a game and after three years of attending neither I or my gaming group has run into one of those "d-bag power list armies". There have been a couple players who were jerks ("I don't think I can beat you, so I'm just going to run from every charge and aim for a draw"), but the armies have all been very reasonable to deal with. WCP doesn't have any restrictions except for no special characters, but imposes a panel judged "Comp Score" between 1-20 to each player based on their list which determines the initial seedings and counts to your overall score.

[T10]

I used to like the little rate you opponent's army score that they had at GTs - points for theme and so forth.
I was much more accepting of a cheesey list if it looked and felt awesome.

Agreed: The main issue I have with "comp", be they composition restrictions or composition scoring, is that it is entirely subjective: The guy that hates the Hellpit Abomination will say that they are banned. The guy that absolutely loves them will say they are required With composition scoring at least, each player gets to voice their subjective opinion.

-T10

[Morkash]

Oh my oh my, i do no know from where some peaple are, but where i live it is simply impossible to use half of the armies because of restrictions. Everywhere you go, there are bans or this or that. People complain on hydras,on abominations, on steam tanks, on chosen stars, on special characters, on power spells, on big units, and they simply ban them. They cut them and disable them, and its so absurd, if almost every army has something that strong than mayby it should be left alone? So it will balance itself. An come on if i play warhammer it is for me mostly fun of the world i play in, fun of having Archaon leading his horde, fun of having morathi on the field and creating the army around these characters. Its the essence of warhammer, and all this restrictions are only complains of men who want to play mathhammer, if so why bother and use the miniatures, just use calculator thats all the fun that is left after cutting everyhing out. ( i wont even mention all the amazing models from FW i mean imagine someone who have mammoth or other great best - and what now oops sorry its useless ... )

Hmm, it depends, I'd say. I agree on the general SC ban, never really understood that one either. On the general ban of stuff: I need more information to judge that adequately, to give a comparison around here you usually have either 0-1 restrictions or a pool from which you can select a few units. For example the Empire has a pool of 3 points, where you can choose the following: Steamtank (0-1), Cannon, Engineer (each one after the first), Shadow Magic, Death Magic, Light Magic (each user after the first)
Strict bans are only applied on a handful of items like the Book of Hoeth, Cupped Hands, Siren Song ...
Chosen stars aren't possible (neither many other deathstars) because a general point limit of 400-450 points and a model limit of 40-45 models per unit is in order.

It would be interesting to know from which country's perspective you're speaking!