Topic: WPS comp scores and magic

[vesrian]

It seems someone convinced everyone in my area to use the WPS army composition system (pdf version here) for tournaments. I avoid tournaments, so normally i wouldn't really care, except that now people are calculating WPS scores for their non-tournament lists as well. I don't want to be the one jerk who doesn't make a WPS friendly army, but i skimmed through the rules, and it looks stupid. I'm probably a bit biased because the system doesn't like my army theme. It's a colleges of magic theme, so not surprisingly it's magic heavy, which the system punishes harshly. (I'm taking a wizard lord as my general, and my comp score is trashed because of it. Oddly enough, I'd actually get a better score if i replaced him with with an AL on a war altar...)

I'm hoping to get a reality check here:
Is a magic heavy empire list (wizard lord, wizard, priest, and either BSB/wizard) actually that bad to play against?

I know some of you are familar with the WPS comp system - am i whining over nothing or is the system not worth the trouble?

[Finlay]

The fact you'd get a better score with a Waltar instead of Wixard lord is ridiculous.
I guess the system is designed to punish magic heavy VC and Demons, but doesn't apply properly across to Empire.
Aslong as you are not taking a waltar and stank, or multiple stanks, it is quite hard to make a cheesy empire army.

[dabber]

I'm taking a wizard lord as my general, and my comp score is trashed because of it. Oddly enough, I'd actually get a better score if i replaced him with with an AL on a war altar...

I think you must be calculating wrong.  The AL on War Altar is worth 3 power dice and a penalty of -200.  Only if you have 11+ power dice is your Wizard Lord worse than that, and then just -100 more.  But any War Altar has the speculum, which is another -400, which puts it worse than a wizard lord.


The system is designed to punish any list taking something to the extreme.  A highly magic heavy army is definitely extreme.  Wizard Lord, level 2, priest is 9 power dice, which is only -550.  Not a big penalty in that system.  Even adding Doomfire for -800 is not that big a penalty.  Limit your shooting and take ranked infantry and your score should be reasonable.

[vesrian]

I'm taking a wizard lord as my general, and my comp score is trashed because of it. Oddly enough, I'd actually get a better score if i replaced him with with an AL on a war altar...

I think you must be calculating wrong.  The AL on War Altar is worth 3 power dice and a penalty of -200. 

Ah, you may be right. I guess the war altar counts as a bound item? so an extra die? If so, I missed that. That changes things a bit, but not much. If i have a lev. 2 wiz and a priest (which i do) i have 5PD 4DD before adding a lord. (6 PD with a bound item). Now look at each of the lord choices:

AL on altar: 8PD, 6DD: -650 (with bound item and 9PD: -850) (with VHS: -1050/-1250)
wizard lord: 9PD, 6DD: -650 (with bound item and 10PD: -900) (with VHS: -850/-1100)
grand master: 5PD, 4DD: -50 (with bound item and 6PD: -100)
 general: 5PD, 4DD : +150 (with bound item and 6PD: +100)

A wizard lord is likely to have VHS too. Giving it to both, they're still pretty close. Either way, is a wizard lord in the same league as a AL on the altar? I actually thought i was nerfing my army quite a bit by using the wizard lord. However....

The penalty for a bloodthirster is -800, a star dragon is -1200, all the other dragons are -600 to -1000.
Unless i screwed up again, it's costing me between -600 and -1200 to take a Ld 8 wizard lord instead of a Ld 9 grand master or general who are probably going to be more useful and likely cheaper in points as well. Are those extra 4 PD/ 2DD really that unbalancing?

Ph34R the empire wizards !!!!!1!1one

It seems a bit askew. That's not my only problem with the system. The whole thing seems badly flawed.
But like i said, i'm a bit biased. That's why i'm asking the questions in my original post.

[Finlay]

Hmm, if you build your army around it (ie compensate for the lack of a LD 9 general by using Greatswords and Flaggelants) then the Wizardlord is probably the 2nd best lord, imo.

[Mikael.K]

Could you post your list so that we may see what else you bring to the table?  You can usually take one good thing with this compsystem, but you have to balance the with something else. I would probably go with a AL on war altar and get some infantry to balance him up.