FOW Editorial: But Judge, What’s My Comp Score?
An old-time wargamer but new player to Flames of War might wonder why Flames of War events have no composition scoring of any kind, whether democratic or judged. Hopefully an old tournament vet can explain why not – and why that’s a good thing.
For all two of you who might be reading this because you love Flames of War but have not played any other miniature games (God bless you), I should start by explaining what composition is. “Composition” or “Army Composition” is a term used to separate stigmatized force structures or combinations (heck, even entire army books in Australia) from accepted ones in popular miniature games such as Warhammer or Warmachine. Forces that are recognized by some authority (player votes, a judge, or even a scoring rubric made public before the tournament) as being abusive of game rules are said to have “bad comp”, and forces that the same authority believes are exemplary by the same standards have “good comp”.
Now, the extent to which this sort of thing is enforced varies greatly. Sometimes it’s totally informal – for instance, Privateer Press’s Warmachine and Hordes games encourage players to bring their A-games all the time (and thus there’s no official scoring), but the stigma remains – one still hears “I really don’t bring out eHaley unless it’s a tournament or someone royally pisses me off.” Sometimes composition is the height of formality – Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games have spawned a myriad of composition scoring systems enforced by tournament staff, with the possibility of changing the overall results of the tournament just like a painting or sportsmanship score might. And sometimes, the enforcement is foregone specifically to “get away from it all”, like at the nationwide no-painting, no-comp ‘Ard Boyz tournaments.
For all hundreds of you who might be reading this because you read BoLS but have not played any FoW (yet), all that is old news. What will be news to you is that Flames of War does not acknowledge “good” or “bad” composition in any way. The manufacturer’s official events do not have composition scoring or voting, independent events (even when their scoring systems differ from the official ones) don’t either, and the community does not widely frown upon anything that is legal in the rules. If you were to call someone’s force “cheesy” across a Flames table, even very casually, at first he would probably not understand you – and once you explained it to him, he’d take it very personally! There simply is no communal acknowledgment that X build from Y battle book is “overpowered” or “broken”. The closest thing you will find to this is a general desire for the revision of the Demolition Carrier rules from the main rulebook.
On the surface of things this probably sounds to you much like Privateer Press’s stance on things – the game is the game, deal with it, and Play Like You’ve Got A Pair. They even go so far as to include a page in their rulebooks about this manly ideal. The underlying facts are different, though – FoW does not respond to the idea of army composition with an “all hardcore all the time” attitude; it simply doesn’t respond. Battlefront Miniatures does not expect you to be a man and suck it up when your opponent’s dirty trick is dirtier than yours; it expects you not to find any dirty tricks. This is an editorial, so the list will hardly be exhaustive and sources won’t be cited, but here’s why I think this is.
-The rules don’t sell the models
FoW players play with FoW models because they like them. Flames tournaments, even the ones officially run and sponsored by the manufacturer, do NOT require Battlefront-brand miniatures to be used. Any 15mm World War II models may be used to play Flames of War. This means that, for example, Battlefront cannot really raise profits by turning the game balance on its head and waiting for everyone to go out and buy the newly excellent units. Game balance is, therefore, rarely upset.
Flames of War releases fewer “new editions” and more errata and FAQs than other rulesets. As a result, the rules for each edition are refined over a long period of time with input from players forming the primary instrument of refinement. Remember back to the definition of composition; it’s a response to abuse of game rules. In short, the game is as close to unabusable as possible.
-Historical priority
Because Flames of War is a (semi) historical game, there are many players who do not care about the potential power of a force as long as it existed in history – and all Flames of War briefings existed in history somewhere at some time. (If it’s found that a briefing is ahistorical, even after publication, it is amended.) Their reasoning is that it’s not really their place to tell reality “no”. I personally think this is a non sequitur, but it’s something I’ve noticed.
–Proof of lists’ irrelevance
Perhaps the most powerful reason the Flames of War community has not developed a self-policing attitude towards force selection is one that can’t have been responsible for the initial decision, but very much ensures that things stay this way. In the United States at least, it’s statistically provable that bringing a certain list to a tournament does not necessarily help one win games. In the FoW community at large, this boils down to the maxim “Player not list”. This oft-quoted belief is an outgrowth of the “proof” that I’m talking about – the same names often end up at the top of leaderboards in high-visibility national events (just in a different order), and these “star players”, to borrow a Blood Bowl phrase, switch nationalities and force types constantly and compulsively. They are not German players, or American players or Infantry players; they are FoW players and over the years they’ve taken basically every list under the sun (recent releases are not overrepresented) to competitive events and won with them. And it’s not just for celebrities either; even players who rarely have the opportunity to travel (such as yours truly) can show consistent performance in regional qualifiers over time, regardless of new releases or rules changes. (On a side note, if you’ve ever wondered why I write so many tactics articles and so few list-building articles for FoW, this is why!)
-Forces share most rules
Most of Flames of War’s rules are in the rulebook. Forces still play very differently from each other, but there are very few rules that apply only to one nationality or force type. As a result, changes to the game usually change the way the game is played, but not necessarily in anyone’s favor in particular. Additionally (this is probably worth its own bullet, but this is getting long), forces for several nations are released concurrently in the same tome, so if there were ever a “sea change” in the game’s balance due to one book (this is highly theoretical; there never has been), most or all players could take advantage if they felt it necessary.
As you might have gathered, I could editorialize just about forever – but I’d prefer to let you get a word in edgewise! What have been your experiences with composition scoring (explicit or implicit) in miniature games? If you play FoW, do you think it should have more? If you play other games, do you think they should have less? More? Are they just right?
