Swedish Comp System

[Fritz]

Has anyone else taken a look at the Swedish Comp System? Unlike ETC, which gives you hard caps and limits, Swedish comp basically rates armies on a scale of 0-20 based on how powerful your list is. I'm curious where everyone's list come out on this. My optimized list comes in at 1. However, I was able to make a list that was a 15 that I'm pretty comfortable with. Jeff and I are constantly talking about making lists that are more in line with each other in terms of power levels. I think this might be a good tool that evaluates those power levels without bias. Here's the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dmimw14f6j8q ... v1.9.0.pdf

[Berserker]

Generally, I'm leery about comps since each decides what is OP and what is not, and with the amount of debate on that, how can we trust that this guys are more right in their opinion, especially when they start banning units/item and changing rules to make things "fair".

I tend to really not want to restrict anything from any army, as I feel GW is likely the most correct in how they balance the armies since they actually play all the armies and run math and stuff on them far more, with less bias then players might.

Now, having said that, these guys don't seem to actually change rules and ban units, like most other comps out there so i can still play whatever I want which is a plus. I'd be willing to score some of my lists for curiosity sake. I do have over 30 lists though so that may take some time

Edit: Aparently, I play rather weak armies. So far: 12, 12, 12.2, 12.5, 6.8, 15.4

[Berserker]

Ha! A giant is viewed so poorly by these guys that it's worth only 2 points. In comparison a frost phoenix is 25, a stegadon is 12, and a hellpit abomination 40 ;)

..goes off to write a list with 2 giants!

[Fritz]

I tend to really not want to restrict anything from any army, as I feel GW is likely the most correct in how they balance the armies since they actually play all the armies and run math and stuff on them far more, with less bias then players might.

This is generally not true. GW's designers are notoriously bad at balance, with a few notable exceptions. I've seen some editorials on it. They acknowledge that they often get caught up in the story and tend not to think how something can be abused. Of late they've been contracting out for playtesting, but there are still things that slip through the cracks (looking at you Banner of the World Dragon and Skull Cannons)

I also tend to prefer to avoid comp, but I'm starting to think this system might be the comp hater's comp system. It allows us to have a metric for 'playing soft' rather than just kind of guessing. More importantly, when I bitch out WLCs, Jeff can tell me to fuck off because his army had a 15 comp score even with them.

[MorGrendel]

I like the idea of it. Especially, if we were doing a themed campaigne. I'll look at it in a bit.

[MorGrendel]

Grabbed the first list I found . . . 2500 points - 7.6 Wow. Did not think it be that high. One HPA, One Cannon, no Storm Banner, and no Weapons Teams. So no cheese, just troops (albeit it is a mmu army).

[Berserker]

Alright, I'll keep scoring my lists then. Maybe one day I'll see if I can create a 1 list. Doesn't seem any of mine even come close to that at the moment ;)

[Fritz]

Correction. My base list is a 5.3, not a 1. I've gotten all the way down to 3.8 by taking double Frostheart. I managed to get one list all the way up to 15.8. Not taking the Banner of the World Dragon, rather rightfully, makes me jump 5 points on its own.

[ahrimen]

15.6. And I thought I was being cheesy .

[MorGrendel]

Serban, the list I played tonight came in at 10.3. I'll be interested to see where you come in. I hope this does not make me even more obessesive.

Fritz, you said you are at 5.3? I think I'll try to make a list close to that.

[Fritz]

I tweaked a couple lists. I have a 5.1, a 9.3, and the previously mentioned 15.3. I can flex to just about whatever you want. This is exactly what I'm liking about this system. I can do up lists that are more or less powerful and have a simple number to represent it.

[MorGrendel]

Yeah, I totally agree. I think one of the reasons I like fantasy is the vastness of the lists.

In 40K everything moves about the same, and just about everything shoots; so all lists, regardless of army, are essentially the same. Possibly it is the locking in of troop types (fast, heavy, elite) that limits list variance. IMHO 40K is basicly: My dice vs. Your dice (give or take your opponent bringing an unkillable deamon, then you just lose, or a rule-exploiting list, rock/paper/scissors).

But fantasy is all over the place, and in my opinion, way more imaginative. I think a good game in fantasty comes down to: List design + Deployment acumen + Dice gods MINUS Opponent list design + Deployment acumen + Dice gods. The closer you you are to 0, wherein everything balances out, the better the game. Of course the draw back of all this imagination is unbalanced/uncompetitive lists. No one wants to table a "fun" list, IMHO, a good player hopes to just pull of the win by way of some epic feat/ridiculousness that becomes a story that will be remembered for the ages.

Of note: I managed to Miscast and Misfire Ikit's Storm Deamon bound spell last night. My dice are classicly bad.

[Berserker]

You did miscast, but the next turn, you managed to take out 10 ironguts, a firebelly and a tyrant (of which you actually killed 6 ironguts and the tyrant, then ran the rest off) ;)

[Berserker]

But back to the comp system, I am still not liking it simply because it will cause the "you only beat me cause your army was stronger". Even this system seems to be very arbitrary. Some magic items have points, some don't. For some reason if I take beasts magic lore, I actually gain points back, but I simply don't see why the beasts lore suddenly makes my army weaker (there are some real synergies with the beasts lore that I see). Or taking the fortress (which costs 100 points, so it makes whatever lord you take very weak), makes your army a 20 (costs 100 Swedish points) without even starting to look at anything in it. I just don't see how having a tower in your deployment is suddenly going to win you the game.

Anyway, I don't think it's very reliable, and it will still be biased, which is why my reluctance stands.

btw, Jeff, mine was a 10.7

Edit: Found another weird thing. A sabertusk is worth 3 points, while a giant is only worth 2 (even though it's 23 pts vs 200 in game terms). And if I get a 2nd sabertusk, it's 5, and a third is 10. So 3 sabertusks are 18 points -- which is worth more than a tyrant! I do start to wonder how they decide these point values..

Edit2: Or my 1st canon is 30 points, 2nd canon is 60 points. However, a dwarf cannon is only 11 (with additional cannons also 11). It shoots just as hard as a dwarf cannon. So is the fact that my canon has a chariot that makes it worth 3x and 6x more than a regular canon? That's can't be since my scraplauncher which is also the same chariot (and has the same rhinox pulling it, same T, same armor save, is only worth 6 pts). So what explains this?

[MorGrendel]

I think the scoring system works on something like: Viability DIVIDED BY Points TIMES 100 = Swede Value.
I have a similiar issue with Giant Rats. I'm not looking at the chart, but I think on unit of 60 Giant rats cost me less than 2 units of 6 models. I have to pay for redirectors.