I've not had any big picture topics that strike me as worth writing about lately so things have been a bit quiet on that front. Over the last two weeks I have seen some simmering arguments about Composition/The Rule of 3 with regards to The Old World and been in a few myself despite my best efforts. In light of that I've actually pulled back from a lot of online discussion boards regarding the game, such as Reddit and larger Discords, because there is a ton of toxicity surrounding the game and I don't need any of that in my life. Instead of wading into the muck, I'd like to discuss why Composition of some type is 100% required to play The Old World and why the Rule of 3 is a good starting point.
The Old World - Vanilla
Before I dive into Composition, let's look at The Old World just as it stands with official materials. There are some limitations built into the game itself, this is usually in the form of either "0-X per 1000 Points played" or a Unit/Character being tied to another selection, such as Black Orcs and a Black Orc Character. It's clear that the writer/s knew that spam would be an issue in some description: I won't dive into my opinion on how good of a job they did with this as it's not important. My main point is that Composition is baked into the game itself, it's not an outside or foreign concept.
Of course the other limiting factor is how many points you can bring from Characters/Core/Special/Rare. These are very soft limits, with only Rare being something you'd run up against, although Armies of Infamy are a bit different as well. This limits spam in a way but a very hands off way, you can still make absolute filth within these restraints. Here is a popular online example:
- Engineer w/ Great Weapon (General)
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- 5 Thunderers
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
- Organ Gun
- Organ Gun
- Organ Gun
- Gyrobomber w/ Clatterguns
Under only the official rules, that list is 100% legal. It's also 100% impossible to beat, nothing in the game even has a chance against it. Now, you might be saying to yourself "Well, I'd simply refuse to play against anyone using that type of army!" and you'd be right to do so. It's an extreme example, the most extreme in fact, to hyperbolically prove a point. My retort to that reasonable statement would be "Alright, where is the line then?"
This is where the official army composition rules fall apart: where is the line? If the line is official rules only, then I can bring the above list to any Tournament or Event. If you participate in the same event, you are forced to play against it whether you want to or not, at best you instantly concede and are cheated part of the experience you paid for. While people often roll their eyes at "Tournaments", they're actually a very popular form of play even for casual or semi-serious players. Large events like the Las Vegas Open, Adepticon, and many more are hobbyist destinations, do we want those participants having to run up against extreme spam armies in the early rounds? Are they just sacrificial sheep for the competitive wolves, or would a more balanced approach narrow that gap?
Composition
Enter the term composition. This has been around for decades in wargaming, including older Editions of Warhammer Fantasy which use forms of it to this day. As a group, players and community leaders decided that the official rules didn't go far enough when it comes to restricting what a player can bring to the table. Some games still don't use any comp, and they suffer for it, such as Age of Sigmar, where spam lists often dominate the top tables. The renaissance of Warhammer 40K Tournaments came about largely because of comp, going all the way back to 7th Edition, and many rule sets simply bake some sort of tougher comp in these days.
A complain about comp is typically "But I can't bring my thematic list!" and that's a valid criticism. If a player wants to take nothing but, say, Glade Riders for Wood Elves that's not a competitive problem and is probably a very weak army overall. So why are they disallowed? Well, the simple answer is that there's no way to make a rule set that only targets the problematic Units/Models without digging into extreme and subjective detail. Maybe some players do think loads of Glade Riders is a problem while others don't, what does a Tournament Organizer do? No rule set will please everyone, but equal treatment across the board usually results in less grumbling, in my anecdotal experience and the experience of other TOs.
The goal of comp is to balance the game, not by changing units or rules but by forcing variety. There have always been, and will always be, units that are simply better than their Points Values indicate and TOW is rife with these. Necrosphinxes, Gyrocopters, Night Goblins, Dragon Ogres: it's a lengthy list. Bring those in line is the job of the publisher, Games Workshop, and I have always been against changing Points Values and so on because it ruins how people are used to their units working. If you play 20+ games where Dragon Ogres are Strength 5, and an event says now they're Strength 4, that's going to play with your head quite a bit.
This is why I'm in favor of comp that simply seeks to restrict or limit spam. If you're unfamiliar with the term, spam is when an army takes an out-sized amount of a specific unit, often with the exact same wargear. The list above is a dictionary example of spam, it's identified a "too good" unit and will cram them down the opponent's throat. My position has always been that even non-powerful spam is boring to play against, even if someone takes endless 10 man blocks of Goblins and I run through them that's not a fun gaming experience. I think detractors of comp glaze over this part of the argument in their mind and only focus on the tournament side of things, comp is just as at home on your kitchen table as the top table of a massive event. It's about enforcing a common rule set to better all versions of the game, while acknowledging that what two players do amongst themselves in a private game is up to them.
The Rule of 3 - Ups and Downs
While comp comes in many flavors, an easy to implement one over the years has been the Rule of 3 (Ro3). All this says is you cannot bring more than three of something, for any reason, ever. So for TOW, if you're playing Tomb Kings, you can't bring more than three units of Tomb Guard, Skeleton Warriors, etc. etc. While not perfect, the Ro3 is easy to understand and makes for a good starting point.
Let's look back at the Dwarf list above, how does the Rule of 3 change that army? Well, not much when you really get down to it. The Dwarf Player simply has to put the Gyrocopters into two units of five and one unit of four, they have just as many. That same is done with the Thunderers, they form bigger units but the number doesn't change. Now, those minor changes WOULD weaken such an army because it's easier to tie them up and plan where they can go, but I think a vast majority of players would still be unhappy to see it across from them.
There are several ways to handle this issue. My favorite is to simply have a Sportsmanship score for any organized play events. Sportsmanship is something that's sadly fallen by the wayside in recent years as competitive players often complain that they shouldn't be tied to a subjective rating when it comes to placement. I disagree and find that argument to be a smokescreen for bad behavior, over my anecdotal decades of tournament play I've never had a single opponent complain when I took a powerful army that was at least interactive and not spammy. People understand that some are there to play to win and some are there to just play.
Other methods either have to get into details of individual units, such as saying "No more than 3 Gyrocopter models are allowed per Army." This gets very subjective most of the time, for me, and rarely has there been a unit so powerful that this is required in most any game. I'm more a fan of attaching Points Spent or Unit Types taken to other slots, although that's still imperfect. I've found that TOW is a very difficult game to apply "fair" comp to because some models may form larger units, like Gyrocopters to continue the example.
One other idea that's struck me is tying multiples of a unit/model to the other points spent for that slot. Here's an example using Tomb Kings:
- The Tomb Kings player wants to create an Army List with two units of Necropolis Knights. To do so, they must spend a number of points equal to the most expensive unit of Necropolis Knights, from other units in the Special Slot.
- If the player then wants a third unit of Necropolis Knights, they'd have to spend points equal to the two most expensive units of Necroplis Knights first, and so on.
This would allow players to run multiples of what they like, as long as they're mitigating it with variety. The downside is this is more complicated to explain and check for when it comes to running events, each Army has to be inspected in some detail compared to quickly scanning it and checking there's not four of anything. Ro3 flourishes in its simplicity but does well in games like Warhammer 40K where Monsters and Tanks aren't taken in units for the most part.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, TOW is not a fun game to play in a competitive manner with the rules that are available. Before you snicker and say "Good, competitive players ruin x, y, z!" please note that wanting a serious, tactical play experience is not wrong and fracturing an already niche community with such comments is unwise. No one has ever insisted that private, casual games abide by any particular rules (official or otherwise), it merely helps to know what to expect when going to an event or scheduling a game with another competitive player.
Another counter-argument I hear is "The game is brand new, you don't know what's powerful yet!", I can only sigh at that. Many, many people have been playing these games for years and can instantly identify what is powerful and what isn't upon the release of the rules. If you aren't one of those people that's fine, but don't say a skill doesn't exist simply because you don't possess it. If anything, with the changes to TOW for topics like pre-measuring, a lot of skill has been funneled into creating army lists because there's less to practice. I'm not decrying that, it's just a fact of the game.
No matter what method is used, the rules we have right now are not up to the task of covering every style of play. Even community comp won't address all of it, nor should anyone go chasing down that infinite rabbit hole in search of perfection. Let me provide another list as an example:
- Archmage w/ Lvl 4, Talisman of Protection, Seed of Rebirth, Silvery Wand, Pure Heart, Moon Dragon
- Prince w/ Armor of Destiny, Seed of Rebirth, Lance, Star Dragon
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- 5 Ellyrian Reavers
- Lothern Skycutter
- Lothern Skycutter
- Lothern Skycutter
- Lothern Skycutter
So that's my take on comp, why it's needed, and how it can be implemented. I'm always happy to hear other systems as nothing is perfect. My hope is that over time there is a competitive supplement for TOW, perhaps similar to what AoS and 40K get with new Scenarios and so on. If not, I'll be happy to 3D Print the Dwarf list from the start of the article and win events with it until a change has to be made. The best way to fix something is to show why it's broken, people rarely argue with results.
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