Guardcon Comp - It's Getting Ugly

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Guardcon is on next weekend. Due to the recent release of 8th Edition composition was always going to be a vexed issue.

The TOs for Guardcon took a somewhat halfway house by issuing a set of guidelines on what would and would not be deemed acceptable and waved the "stick" by saying that a 10 point penalty would be imposed for those that they felt broke the guidelines and therefore their lists would need to be amended and resubmitted.

After reviewing the lists it appears that a number or re-submit emails were issued. From posting on the City Guard forum it seems that the majority of those that received them are less than happy. In some cases this has led to people withdrawing from the tournament - presumably because they are annoyed at getting the resubmit email and/or they don't want to play with the 10 point penalty.

I felt from the start that we were likely to arrive at this point. Virtually every tournament held in Auckland is accompanied by a Comp whingefest. Prior to submission of lists there are a group of gamers who actively comp campaign either for their own lists or against other races. I'm not sure whether they realise it but they are turning a lot of people away from attending Auckland tournaments as people can't be bothered with the aggravation. This is putting enormous pressure on TOs in the area and I can see why many of them see it as a thankless task.

There seems to be a strong propensity to push the veto line at time with numerous re-submits until a list is seen as acceptable - under subjective comp. This has necessitated the TO for Guardcon imposing the 10 point penalty for the current event.Given the penalty was advertised it is important that it is followed through on - both in the short and long terms.

There was a clear instruction that the TO's door/inbox was always open for list discussion and an instruction that if in doubt err on the side of caution. I know I changed my list in light of this.

Do I expect the behaviour of the vocal comp crowd to change? No. Already I'm expecting a series of posts on who has beaten the system once the lists are released.

In the long run this is not going to help the local scene. People play at these events primarily for fun and the constant comp-sniping is tedious.

Last year I got the lowest comp at Guardcon with my Vampire Counts army. I didn't agree with the rating and spoke to the TO to understand the thinking behind it. While I still didn't agree with the scoring I realised there was nothing I could do about it and that the best thing to do was mark it down as a lesson and move on. This year I have consciously tried to avoid any kind of comp debate and accepted the scores I've been given. What I don't like is the constant niggle we see from the same vocal crowd who seem to live by the maxim "everybody else's army is so unreasonable".

Guys.....you need to look after your TOs......they are a dying breed!