Comp List.

Alright, today I’m going to try and break the comp system found here:

http://www.daboyzgt.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZECL9MNqa38%3d&tabid=77&mid=454

By that I mean make a list gets a perfect Comp Score that does not succeed in what the comp is trying to do. This is the longest post I’ve done so far, so get comfortable.

Disclaimer: Were I actually going to the Tournament or doing this in a casual game, I would not run a list I made in such a fashion. Also, I do not count the extra 30 points from the judges as part of this, as it is so subjective (explanation of this statement at the end).

Okay, so I’m not absolutely sure what the points total is supposed to be, so I’m going to assume 2,000 since that’s what I’m most comfortable at. Any and all times of using a unit more than once is not allowed, and you can have no more than one squadron (I’m assuming they only mean Vehicle Squadrons, and do not include Biker Squadrons). I also cannot take more than two Dedicated Transports. Awesome. Furthermore, I cannot take more than one choice before taking at least one in every other group (so I can’t take a Vindicator and a Predator unless I’ve taken a Fast Attack, an Elite, and at least the minimum HQ and two troops) the exception to this is that I can take three troops without penalty, it is the fourth and fifth that have this requirement. And, just to cover everything, for taking a third of anything (or a sixth of Troops), I need to take two of everything else (five troops). No, they don’t want you to build certain types of armies. Just two last things, one being no Special Characters. The other is that there is an exception to the one of each unit rule (the one that says I can’t have two Predators) and that is troops; as long as the Wargear for troops is different, they can break this rule all day.

Now, there is one question that I have thought of. Do Predator Annihilators and Predator Destructors count as different units? Technically, they are separate in the Codex, but I’m going to assume that this system isn’t really open-minded to this argument. I am assuming no.

On to the actual list. I’m going to start with what I can bring from a regular Black Templar Gunline (because I know that I can have to most versatility in the units I choose and the Wargear for the Troops, despite being forced to foot it). Accept for the Champion for now, because we might as well improve our combat ability, Predator (Auto/Las), Terminators (Cyclones, Tank Hunting), shooty Crusader Squads on foot (Plasma Guns, one with Lascannon and one with Missile Launcher), and a Squadron of three Typhoons.

Emperor’s Champion: Vow (Accept); -140

Terminators (5): 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers, Tank Hunters; -265

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Lascannon, Plasma Gun; -101

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun; -96

Land Speeder Squadron (3): 3 Typhoon Missile Launchers, 3 Heavy Bolters; -210

Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Smoke; -128

Total:-940

Still have a ways to go, but we aren’t starting out poorly. How do we kill tanks? Predator, Typhoons, Terminators. How do we keep those alive long enough to kill tanks? Saturation. How do we attain Saturation? More targets, especially vehicles and things that can also kill tanks. I’m thinking Bikers, Dreadnought, Transports, and maybe even a Vindicator. But for those we need another Crusader Squad. Grab a third just like the Lascannon one except armed with a Meltagun, get the Bikers (5, 3 Plasma Guns, Attack Bike, Multi-Melta), Dreadnought (Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher, Extra Armor, Smoke), and Vindicator (PotMS, Extra Armor, Searchlight). Now we have:

Emperor’s Champion: Vow (Accept); -140

Terminators (5): 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers, Tank Hunters; -265

Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers; -123

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Lascannon, Plasma Gun; -101

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Lascannon, Meltagun; -105

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun; -96

Land Speeder Squadron (3): 3 Typhoon Missile Launchers, 3 Heavy Bolters; -210

Biker Squad (5/1): TL-Bolters, 3 Plasma Guns, Multi-Melta; -243

Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Smoke; -128

Vindicator: Power of the Machine Spirit, Extra Armor; -160

Total: 1,571

Okay, now we have an entire first wave capable of doing as much as our back-group. It’s all short-range (except for the Missile Launcher on the Dreadnought) and mobile, so we’ve got that going for us. We need another HQ and two more troops to take another of anything else, so let’s focus on that.

Unfortunately they seem to consider both the Emperor’s Champion and a Command Squad as additional HQ units, and we aren’t allowed to take more than two. So we can choose between a Commander and a Chaplain. A Commander would better fit with our list, but let’s put him on hold.

We’re down to under 500 points left and still need some aggressive troops. And transports. Both should be of about equal threat to our opponent, so let’s consider a small squad with an attached HQ in a Razorback and a larger squad in a Rhino. There’s a problem there, that first (smaller) squad is going to suck all of the points. We could make the Razorback have a Heavy Bolter instead of a Lascannon, but then we would lose another threat. No, Drop Pod isn’t the way to go. Okay, lose the HQ and we should have enough. Let’s see, Crusader Squad (5, Powerfist, Frags, Meltagun, Laserback), Crusader Squad (8/2, Powerfist, Frags, Meltagun, Rhino) comes in at fifteen points too many. Not fair. Okay, drop a single Biker from his squad, give the Predator, Vindicator, Razorback, Dreadnought, and Rhino Searchlights, and give the Terminators two Chainfists. We will now have:

Emperor’s Champion: Vow (Accept); -140

Terminators (5): 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers, Tank Hunters, 2 Chainfists; -275

Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher, Extra Armor, Smoke, Searchlight; -124

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Lascannon, Plasma Gun; -101

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Lascannon, Meltagun; -105

Crusader Squad (5): Bolters, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun; -96

Crusader Squad (5): BP/CS, Powerfist, Meltagun, Frags; Razorback: TL-Lascannon, Smoke, Searchlight; -204

Crusader Squad (8/2): BP/CS, Powerfist, Meltagun, Frags; Rhino: Extra Armor, Smoke, Searchlight; -241

Land Speeder Squadron (3): 3 Typhoon Missile Launchers, 3 Heavy Bolters; -210

Biker Squad (4/1): TL-Bolters, 3 Plasma Guns, Multi-Melta; -211

Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Smoke, Searchlight; -129

Vindicator: Power of the Machine Spirit, Extra Armor, Searchlight; -161

Total: 1,997

And we have a list. Three major vehicle killers, Six or seven minor ones, almost everything is a threat to infantry (notably not the Predator and the Crusader Squads aren’t until they get close), five vehicles plus the Typhoons, thirty-six Infantry.

Alright, I’ve checked the numbers it gets on the Metric System, and here’s why it isn’t a great list.

The strategy with this can be summed up in overwhelming your opponent’s target priority so that he doesn’t kill what can kill him while you keep a cool head and take advantage of this. The Predator, foot-Crusader Squads, and Land Speeders stay back while everything else moves to midfield/to his lines. The Terminators, Dreadnought and Razorback won’t get there first, but the others will begin almost immediately, breaking his ability to move and to fight back. There is Redundancy, but it isn’t as normally thought of. You don’t have another Predator, you have something else that does the same job. To go with the Vindicator (fast, excellent at killing infantry at 24” range, capable of putting holes in Mech fairly reliably) you have the Bikers. Terminators, Dreadnought, Predator, Typhoons, foot-Crusader Squads, and Razorback all do basically the same thing. And the list is about as organized as this paragraph, the stuffs there, it is just hard to work out. Don’t praise the diversity of this list until you can at least understand and make sense of this paragraph.

Now, not much Synergizes. A few things do, and I don’t see any glaring flaws, but how does the Vindicator work with the Close Combat Crusader Squads? They both are going for the same things, but the Vindicator can easily give out some Friendly Fire. The list as a whole isn’t the best, nor is its strategy, and you would need a lot of practice with it to know how everything worked and where you need what when, but I was genuinely surprised at how well it scored:

DMS:-29.73

DMCC:-24.98

DRPG:-66.03

DLRPG:-13.42

So it has all of the bases covered, plus some. It won’t walk over anyone worth mention in Close Combat, but it has a better position that most Gunlines. A mass of Land Raiders could cause some problems, but only if the dice go against them. And once targeted, those transports and other light vehicles will die quickly.

We’re winding down now, and I think I’ve only got one more thing to say. If you don’t care about Comp one way or another, go ahead and skip the next two paragraphs. Did the Comp system work? Aside from the Bikers (mostly in that set-up), no. For me personally though, you can still only add the Vindicator and maybe the Close Combat Crusader Squads. So no, it didn’t work. *gasp*! Who could have guessed that the system could be gained? I wasn’t even making a list to use in the Tournament, if I was then I would not have gone for a perfect score and instead taken a ~30 point drop in favor of a more organized list that I was more familiar with. You’ll notice something else if you’ve read the whole post (bravo). I wasn’t choosing units because they were normally used (as I technically should have), I chose units which were the right choice to add to the list. Their system does not work.

And why is this Comp system here in the first place? They want you to ‘Explore the Codex’? AKA, the organizer(s) don’t think that there are enough different units being used in each army, so they’re going to penalize you if you bring them. Not only that, but if you bring something really off, you can’t even come. What is the purpose of Tournaments again? To see interesting lists? Gee, good thing that’s not subjective or anything and too bad you don’t have the chance to do that all the time at your local store (or others should you care to visit) [/sarcasm]. To see who is the best player? Well, assuming you include List Building, which you should. I will give this to Comp, would the defenders of it ever to bring up this argument, it usually tries to remove that ‘List Building skill’ from the process and reward actually good generals who don’t take ‘broken’ lists to win with. The problem is that they don’t, they encourage List Building skills by having another requirement to meet when building the best list you can. You need to get a good Comp Score as well as bring a strong list, so all you need to do is find the hole in how the Organizer wrote the system and use it to your advantage, it’s that simple. If you want to build a list with certain requirements, go for it. You don’t need comp for that.

++++++

Well, that’s it. All I have. Man that was long-winded. I’m still deciding on what my next post will be, though I would love to get a Vassal Report up sometime (getting closer to having a Tyranid list I’m happy with) but I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that, so no promises.

Explanation of earlier statement: That extra 30 points is awarded based on how much the Judges think that I ‘Explored the Codex’. What is ‘Exploring the Codex’? I assume it means using units that aren’t normally taken. Now which ones are those? I know of several Black Templars who use Bike Squadrons or Assault Marines, do those count as normally taken? The Assault Marines wouldn’t count on B&C, unless they are used extensively by people who don’t speak up of course. What about Dreadnoughts? I know that a lot of people take a Venerable Tank Hunting TL-Lascannon/Missile Launcher Dreadnought. Does that mean that another type (such as Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer) would count as normally taken? Further more, this is from the Judges’ perspective. It is up to them what constitutes ‘Normally Taken’, and this could swing wide of a more accurate mark by them all coming from areas with similar ideas or preferences (you could read this, ‘metagame’, but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate). And if only one judge is familiar with Black Templars and all the others differ to him based on his experience/arguments, it could be even more skewed, especially if he is the only Black Templar player he knows. Just think, would a Close Combat player ever field things like Shooty Terminators, Typhoons, or Laserbacks? He might, but they would definitely not be considered ‘Normally Taken’. There is no accounting for these extra points, and thus I will not.