What is "Competitive Gaming" and Why I Feel 40k Never Has Been

[Auticus]

Last week I wrote a little forum post that turned into an article asking “what makes 7th edition 40k LESS COMPETITIVE than 5th edition 40k”. The answers that were posted back and the conversation that followed highlighted a very important piece of information that probably should have been resolved first. The definition “competitive gaming” had many different definitions to many different people; no wonder there is such heated discussion on the topic!

I don’t think that this article is going to be the ultimate definition of what Competitive Gaming is, but I am going to give my opinion on what Competitive Gaming is and will also touch on why I feel that Warhammer 40,000 has NEVER been a competitive game in any of its editions.

To the first topic, Competitive Gaming is to me a game played between people where the skillset of the players are compared against and the player with the most skill should come out on top. This can be in anything, be it sports like football, soccer, or games like chess.

Competitive Gaming should primarily be resolved based on the skill of the player(s) involved and should be against players of roughly equal caliber.

For example, the game of football can be played by anyone. However, there is a large difference between a high school foot ball team, a college football team, and a professional football team. We expect that these teams be matched up against people in their same class or caliber.

Fighting sports such as boxing or mixed martial arts, or even wrestling, pair people up in weight classes, because there is nothing LESS competitive than setting a heavy weight fighter up against a 130 lb fighter.

Competitive players also have to deal with random elements in the form of weather, sporting venues, and things of that nature. Not only must they deal with them, they must overcome them.

Competitive Gaming ultimately seeks to determine who is the better overall player.

Why I feel 40k has never been a competitive game has nothing to do with its core rules. The things many people who claim to be competitive talk about hating, I don’t see as making any more or less “competitive”. Random charges, random powers, etc don’t make a game less competitive, they enforce a different set of skills and tactics that must be employed.

However, the lack of game balance between factions DOES make a game less competitive, and Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy have never had any real balance in any of the editions, which is to me why neither game is competitive nor has it ever been.

When competing in warhammer, players will actively seek to have their army list do as much of the heavy lifting as possible. In sports terms, it is the same as being handed a professional football team, being able to freely obtain all of the super star players in the league, and then also be given the caveat that one can play teams at the high school or college level, and if the weather is not preferable one has the power to change the weather so that conditions are always perfect.

As a fighter, it would be like getting to be the heavy weight fighter and taking on opponents in weight classes far below the one assigned.

None of these scenarios to me is competitive. I’d even go so far as to say that actively engaging in these types of contests is NON-COMPETITIVE because the skill of the player is secondary to how well the deck can be stacked. While that may be fine in a deck game like Magic: The Gathering – in a game of war where one expects tactics and strategies to be tested this falls very very short.

To me – for 40k to be truly a competitive game, the balance in all of the factions needs seriously overhauled. Barring that, a solid comp system needs put in place to put more builds in viable standings.

Second, for 40k to be truly a competitive game, tournaments should deviate from every table being the same and having the same scraps of terrain on them. This enforces certain build types. A truly good player should be tested on different types of boards, with different types of terrain and cover available. Start showcasing tournaments where some tables are like city scapes where line of sight is not freely given to every model on the table, and you’ll start to see lists shifting to accommodate the fact that you won’t always get to play on planet bowling ball and do nothing but shoot.

Third – for 40k to truly be a competitive game, the designers need to lessen or eliminate the ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS aspect of the game. This has always existed, from the time I started playing in third edition, to today.

My two primary tournament 40k armies were starcannon spam eldar and leafblower Imperial Guard.

A little history: my first army was Dark Angels. After three months of playing the game I played in my first tournament and got curb stomped bad. The winner of that event was a star cannon spam eldar player, who said something to me to this very day that I will never forget, even nearly twenty years later. He said “eldar are a tough army to play properly and only veteran players can really get a hang of it”.

I didn’t understand that, since he tabled me in three turns by rolling a lot of dice with weapons I got no save against. So I built the same army. The next tournament I attended, about six months into the hobby, I won my first tournament by tabling two blood angels players and a space wolf player.

That really summarizes competitive 40k to me. I am not a great player. When you kick my crutches out from under me, I win as much as I lose, and I certainly would never have been able to win a tournament without a list that took advantage of no cover, and a meta which was dominated by blood angels players with a smattering of space wolf players.

That next year and a half I played in over one hundred competitive games. I lost twice: once to an ork player and once to a tyranid player. I mistakingly thought that I was a great 40k player because my lists were busted and few played my hard counter (a hoard army).

The thing was, I was the 270 lb heavy weight fighter fighting 125 lb high school kids. I was the New England Patriots playing football games against Springfield High. There was nothing competitive about it. When I tried playing lists that did not exploit whatever was broken at the time, I didn’t do nearly as well. That to me again speaks volumes about competitive 40k.

It never has been competitive while the army rules are as imbalanced as they have always been and sadly has never really been a test of player skill or strategy so much as it has been a test with how good one is with rudimentary math and effective spreadsheet skills.

[Path Walker]

While people write there own army lists from all available options, you wont get balance, either people write a list and it goes in a pot and you draw one at random (forcing people to write balanced lists, they don't want to give someone an advantage or potentially give themselves a disadvantage) or, force everyone to take the same lists.

Those ways will make a balanced game.

[Denzark]

Your sports team analogy doesn't strictly stick because all players can access 'all of the super star players in the league'. No one is forced to take an underpowered, sub-meta list.

The issue is not necessarily rules balance, but points balance, where some units/armies have such economies of scale that they are hard to beat.

I agree what you say about table layout. But that links into another point - can a tournament ever be truly competitive unless all tables are identical? And even moreso, all armies.

Unless there is a swiss system after a random selection at first round, you can get a tourney winner who just had lucky selections.

Actualy in the face of lacking identical missions identical armies identical tables, and other factors like randomness (daemons table) and some factions bending the rules (ie achieivng extra VPs in a way that their opponent can) you must say that stock 40K is not a competitive game at all and you cannot game competitively in it with out some serious modification.

[Erik Setzer]

Actualy in the face of lacking identical missions identical armies identical tables, and other factors like randomness (daemons table) and some factions bending the rules (ie achieivng extra VPs in a way that their opponent can) you must say that stock 40K is not a competitive game at all and you cannot game competitively in it with out some serious modification.

So no game with any amount of luck can be competitive? No miniatures game that uses dice or any random factor. Not even poker can truly be competitive.

Except there's ways to get around that stuff, for the most part. "Hedge your bets" in different ways, basically. Make sure luck can't hurt your army too much. Part of the skill is in building lists, so if you built a nastier list, you're a better player in that part of the game at least.

Pretty much the only games that could be considered competitive, with such a definition, are chess, checkers, and the like.

[Charon]

However, the lack of game balance between factions DOES make a game less competitive, and Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy have never had any real balance in any of the editions, which is to me why neither game is competitive nor has it ever been.

The problem is that if this does make a game less competitive (which it does, we tend to see the same armies at top spots) it also makes the game less fun for the player who lost the codex lottery.
You do not need a competitive setting to realize which codex is good/bad or which unit is OP/UP.
I have NEVER seen ogryns/bullgryns in an IG list. What I do see (in a non competitive setting) EVERY TIME are Wyvern Batteries, Imperial Priests and Pask.

[Auticus]

Depends on your setting. We do have bulgryns in our campaign. Especially during zone mortalis missions. They are very useful in there.

The thing with tournaments is that its always the same type of missions, which bleeds into casual play as well.

[Erik Setzer]

Pask.

My friend said I was being over the top by bringing a Knight in a 1500 point match. I pointed out he brought Pask.

I also wiped his whole army out once not just because it was the only way for me to win (bad luck with Tactical Objectives, he got a huge lead), but because the last model was Pask, and seriously, **** Pask. With a rusty shovel.

(Though I did enjoy in another game casting the Telekinesis spell that causes "Gets Hot!" on a Pask-controlled Punisher. Freaking hilarious.)

[Path Walker]

The only way to balance that out so that all sides are fairly even at the starting point is to look at what M:TG does, everything is very fairly well balanced and they spend a lot of time and money ensuring this is the case but, that comes at a price and GW don't see that as beneficial to them as a business to do. We're seeing why now, as they release more and more things that enourage new things and different ways of playing, balancing all those would be a nightmare, Magic sets are based around particular mechanics and so encourage particular builds, the whole design philosophy is designed around competitiveness.

So, GW could do this, aim the game at the competitive crowd but they've desided against it (which I don't think we need to get drawn into as a conversation), if thats the case, then the responsibility to make 40K a competitive game relies on those who want it to be competitive.

This really a case of trying, as I think Mr Mystery is fond of saying, to get a family salon to enter formula 1, its possible but you can't expect good results,

[lantzkev]

odd points and a completely silly argument in total...


For example, the game of football can be played by anyone. However, there is a large difference between a high school foot ball team, a college football team, and a professional football team. We expect that these teams be matched up against people in their same class or caliber.

Have you ever gone to a soccer tournament? there's alot of teams you will outright destroy, they were by far "terrible" and not of the same caliber... like wise with pro football... there's alot of teams that just aren't that great. like Cleveland Browns, who haven't ever even seen a superbowl game let alone won a superbowl.12895


Competitive players also have to deal with random elements in the form of weather, sporting venues, and things of that nature. Not only must they deal with them, they must overcome them. Not true, I'm guessing pro bowlers aren't competitive or any indoor pro game....


Second, for 40k to be truly a competitive game, tournaments should deviate from every table being the same and having the same scraps of terrain on them. not true at all, most competitive games/sports are played on the EXACT same terrain, weather is attempted to be controlled, all random elements are minimized or reduced. Hell in 40k, you can buy your own terrain and change the map so to speak, likewise, the missions and deploy change the importance of terrain. And on the last issue with this point, you site a reason "it enforces certain builds" but you don't even provide anecdotal evidence.


Start showcasing tournaments where some tables are like city scapes where line of sight is not freely given to every model on the table, did you watch the LVO?


Third – for 40k to truly be a competitive game, the designers need to lessen or eliminate the ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS aspect of the game. This has always existed, from the time I started playing in third edition, to today. What would you suggest otherwise? Why do you think there shouldn't be hard/soft counters? you've come up with a point, but sighted no reason as to why it's bad for competition.



That really summarizes competitive 40k to me. I am not a great player. When you kick my crutches out from under me, I win as much as I lose, and I certainly would never have been able to win a tournament without a list that took advantage of no cover, and a meta which was dominated by blood angels players with a smattering of space wolf players.

Wait so you're telling me you won and were competitive, because you knew what the field would be like and the predominate strategy was?
Gee, that sounds awful to win because of planning and foresight.

[Path Walker]

Basically, I think whats being said is that 40K isn't a competitive game but here are some ideas to increase the level at which it can be played competitivly and still be an interesting game.

From what I've seen of the LVO it did have decent terrain coverage but thats the first and only time I've seen a 40k tournament that used anywhere near the right amount of terrain for the game.

But i think the general jist of the argument is that more balanced "all comers" lists that don't spam particular units or facets of the game are preferable as they stop the situation where an army is unbeatable except by another army that it might not ever face, the way to encourage the more interesting lists is to try and make it as unpredictable as possible, so that they can't tailor the list to the situation. Thats why he suggests more variety of missions and terrain, having no way of knowing what you'll face and how you'll face it means that you'd naturally want to aim more towards the middle.

[Denzark]

So no game with any amount of luck can be competitive? No miniatures game that uses dice or any random factor. Not even poker can truly be competitive.

I see how that is difficult, but Poker mathshammer, the odds are steady. everyone at the table has same starting odds. That ain't the case in a tournament where certain armies will mean their winning T1 is hugely advantageous.

Except there's ways to get around that stuff, for the most part. "Hedge your bets" in different ways, basically. Make sure luck can't hurt your army too much. Part of the skill is in building lists, so if you built a nastier list, you're a better player in that part of the game at least.

I am unsure if you can call copy pasting a netlist and happening to have the money to purchase it, skilled. Its Pavlovian but is there much skill to that aspect?

Pretty much the only games that could be considered competitive, with such a definition, are chess, checkers, and the like.

If the definition of competitive is where the single most important deciding factor is player ability then the less random factors, the more innate talent is required so I probably agree.

[Auticus]

odd points and a completely silly argument in total...

Your condescension is noted. Let me reply in kind.




Have you ever gone to a soccer tournament? there's alot of teams you will outright destroy, they were by far "terrible" and not of the same caliber... like wise with pro football... there's alot of teams that just aren't that great. like Cleveland Browns, who haven't ever even seen a superbowl game let alone won a superbowl.12895

Gleans past the quote which was that pro footballers playing high school footballers is not competitive. Citing that some pro teams are not as good as others is like trying to explain to me that water is wet. No ****. The Cleveland Browns may have never won a super bowl, but the worst Cleveland Browns team in history would still seal-club a high school team, which is about the same to me as loading down on a power list of any era and facing someone's balanced list with it.


Not true, I'm guessing pro bowlers aren't competitive or any indoor pro game....

We call this a strawman considering that none of my statement talked about how every competitive person on the planet has to be played outdoors.


not true at all, most competitive games/sports are played on the EXACT same terrain, weather is attempted to be controlled, all random elements are minimized or reduced. Hell in 40k, you can buy your own terrain and change the map so to speak, likewise, the missions and deploy change the importance of terrain. And on the last issue with this point, you site a reason "it enforces certain builds" but you don't even provide anecdotal evidence.

I've played many competitive sports. Your assertions are incorrect in regards to sports. You cannot control weather. Attempting to control the weather in an outdoor sports event is like climbing a tree and screaming at the storm. Good luck with that.

"enforces certain builds" is pretty easy to spot. You can google up about 100 battle reports that show just how playing on sparse tables effects what builds you will see in the competitive environment.


did you watch the LVO?

Nope sure didn't. However, twenty years of tournaments have shown me that for the most part all of them play on sparse tables. If this year's LVO was not, and there was a lot of terrain, then great - glad to see that changing. That is still not the norm though.


What would you suggest otherwise? Why do you think there shouldn't be hard/soft counters? you've come up with a point, but sighted no reason as to why it's bad for competition.

Because PAPER/ROCK/SCISSORS is a poor competitive sport.





Wait so you're telling me you won and were competitive, because you knew what the field would be like and the predominate strategy was?
Gee, that sounds awful to win because of planning and foresight.[/quote]

Knowing that I'd be clubbing baby seals with my planning and foresight wasn't a very impressive competitive victory. It was actually pretty worthless, and I keep most of my plaques and trophies in a box in a closet because they weren't won with anything other than knowing how to stack odds in my favor through rules exploits, exploiting poor balance, and poor tournament terrain. I don't consider that something to be proud of.

[Path Walker]

Some people think that the list building stage is part of the competiton, however, due to the very nature of the game, all lists can't be equal, meaning there are certain lists that are better than others and so its likely that there is always going to be a list that is probably mathmatically superior to most it will face, some people will judge that as part of the competition, however, that relies on the competitor being willing to collect and paint a new army to fit in with which ever army is most likely to do well that time. This is constantly in flux given the nature of the game and new releases.

If you factor in that within the subsect of hobbyists who play the game and then the smaller fraction of those that do some competitivly and see how many would be willing or able to do that and you're left with a tiny minority of people who can for all intents and purposes, be more mathematically likely to win the game based on an advantage given to them because they could buy the best list. If there was a large amount of competitors doing this, it would balance out, if you knew that every player was taking [Insert name of flavour of the month netlist], then you'd have to try and think of something to hard counter that or counter the counter, ad infinitum. However, as there are likely to be only one or two players per tournament willing or able to play the meta like that, given that its an expense and dedication timewise for little or no recompense, then you will have the one or two netlist players who can do that dominating.

Now, to fix that? Well, the obvious solution is to better balance the armies so that 1000 points spent anywhere is equally effective, this isn't going to happen, GW aren't interested in it, so lets consider it off the table.

The only other concievable way is to either accept that exploiting the rules of the game to make more powerful lists is part of the game and embrace that, knowing you'll effectilvy allow some players to buy an advantage, I'm not condeming this approach, professional sports have this, the richer teams get better results and therefore richer, its accepted as part of competition.

Or you can try and mitigate the ways that one list can dominate, having a variety of mission types, not available ahead of time, and terrain set ups that mean you can't reasonably predict what you'll need the army to do mean you would be forced to tone down some aspects to cope.

Dropping down the accepted points value helps here too, at 1850 - 2000 armies can build in enough redundancy to not have to worry about it. 1500 means less room and you have to generalise a lot more.

[TheyStoleMyName!]

When I used to be a TO I always wanted to run an "Everyone is Equal" event where every round had a single army designed by the TO given to EVERY player to use. These lists would be mediocre in power at best - you'd be as likely to see Scout Bikers as you would Centurions, and never any abusive HQ combos.

Obviously this would be logistically impossible, but I always thought it would be cool to see how the player base straightened itself out if they were handed, say, a Codex company and told to fight each other with it. Might we see "weaker" players who were used to playing around the weaknesses of their own army do better than "elite" players who were used to breaking codexes as their primary strength? Most tournament players I know ARE very good, regardless of what they use, but there always is at least a couple people who just try to dump a netlist and go, stacking dice odds so far in their favour that they'll beat most average players handily.

Anyway, obviously a pipe dream, but it was just something that I thought would be an interesting experiment at some point. Heck with things like Vassal out there, it might even be possible at a basic level!

[Charon]

The Cleveland Browns may have never won a super bowl, but the worst Cleveland Browns team in history would still seal-club a high school team, which is about the same to me as loading down on a power list of any era and facing someone's balanced list with it.

Why would you face a "balanced list" in any competitive setting? It would be "power list of any era" vs "another power list of any era". Why are you adamant about meeting non-competitive lists with your hyper-competitive list in an competitive environment?
You will rather see CentStar vs Serpent Spam. Next Round Serpent Spam will face Gravbiker Spam. The chances Serpent Spam will play against an melee imperial guard with Bullgryns and Rough Riders only is pretty slim. So why bother comparing the two armies?
You are basically pointing out that 40k cannot be competitive because a comeptitive list will win over a non-competitive list 9 out of 10 times... which is... odd?

[Moriar52]

pretty good post. it is true that most of the tournament winners are near enough the same lists of that particular race/combination of races. much as those people like winning it is off putting when your opponent puts his army on the table and you have a pretty good idea of how screwed you are and the only thing you don't know is what turn you lose your last model. though that said it is funny when the power gamer you're playing gets pissed off cos your army isn't dying fast enough according to their plan.

[lantzkev]

Why would you face a "balanced list" in any competitive setting? It would be "power list of any era" vs "another power list of any era". Why are you adamant about meeting non-competitive lists with your hyper-competitive list in an competitive environment?
You will rather see CentStar vs Serpent Spam. Next Round Serpent Spam will face Gravbiker Spam. The chances Serpent Spam will play against an melee imperial guard with Bullgryns and Rough Riders only is pretty slim. So why bother comparing the two armies?
You are basically pointing out that 40k cannot be competitive because a comeptitive list will win over a non-competitive list 9 out of 10 times... which is... odd?

to further go in his own ridiculous argument.


Knowing that I'd be clubbing baby seals with my planning and foresight wasn't a very impressive competitive victory. It was actually pretty worthless, and I keep most of my plaques and trophies in a box in a closet because they weren't won with anything other than knowing how to stack odds in my favor through rules exploits, exploiting poor balance, and poor tournament terrain. I don't consider that something to be proud of.

apparently where he plays everyone brings those casual lists to the tournament and don't bother bringing the strongest and their a game.

Where I play, we have about 18 players in our tournaments, and about 8 of them are "bringing the A game" they will bring what the most powerful thing they can is, and most effective. And when you watch those 8 play each other, it's a good close game nearly every time baring odd luck.

When they play those outside of the 8, it's not exactly one sided, but it's very tilted.

[Moriar52]

same to me as loading down on a power list of any era and facing someone's balanced list with it.
Why would you face a "balanced list" in any competitive setting? It would be "power list of any era" vs "another power list of any era". Why are you adamant about meeting non-competitive lists with your hyper-competitive list in an competitive environment?
You will rather see CentStar vs Serpent Spam. Next Round Serpent Spam will face Gravbiker Spam. The chances Serpent Spam will play against an melee imperial guard with Bullgryns and Rough Riders only is pretty slim. So why bother comparing the two armies?
You are basically pointing out that 40k cannot be competitive because a comeptitive list will win over a non-competitive list 9 out of 10 times... which is... odd?


the way you're putting it is basically rock paper scissors and balanced armies are someone putting a foot in instead of a hand.

[Defenestratus]

I've often marveled at how similar my two favorite hobbies are. One of them I consider a sport in the competitive sense, another I do not. 40k is the one I do not simply because both sides are not subject to the same set of random odds, nor are the two participants going into the "competition" with equal odds of winning. While the points value of each model may give the appearance of equal odds of winning, everyone knows that the points system is broken and unable to account for a perfectly balanced playing field. I don't buy the idea that list building and creation takes skill and talent - and unfortunately its the biggest part of the game that determines the winner.

My other hobby is sailing. And sailboat racing is something I do consider competitive. While there is certainly a lot of "luck" involved, its amazing how the best sailors always seem to create luck for themselves over and over and over again. There is a certain type of racing called "One Design" which means that when you're racing, you're racing against boats that are 100% the same as each other. They have rules that include crew weight restrictions so that the physics of the sailing vessels are effectively equal and the ultimate winner of the race is as much as possible up to the skill and talent of the sailors. In essence, I feel that if 40k was going to be competitive, then the competitiors should be forced to use the same lists against each other - or at least be able to chose from a predetermined set of lists.

I find the comments about the "randomness" of weather in sporting events quite hilarious because weather is anything but random. Indeed, we sailors time wind shift oscillations, and the best amongst us can sense when a pivotal wind direction change is about to happen, and take tactical advantage of it. Personally I'm not there yet, but I can see wind's effects on the surface of the water, and from 100m away I could tell you the velocity and relative direction of the wind on the water surface. I can look at clouds on the horizon and estimate the time that the thermal transfer "sea breeze" is going to kick in during the afternoon and its relative strength based on how hot the sand is on my feet before I left the beach, and how cold the water is when I shoved off. The point being, while the circumstances that we compete upon might seem completely random, we have distinct skills that we have developed to adapt and deal with those environmental factors. This skill would almost be akin to being able to see what your charge distance roll was going to be before you moved your units in the movement phase. Sure we know that the average of two dice thrown is a total of 7", but deciding whether or not to put a squad in range to charge during the movement phase based off of that average isn't a set of skills developed over time and experience or talent - its called playing to lottery. Its odds based. There's no skill or talent you could use as a competitor to affect that roll - and that is the problem. 40k Is a game of playing random statistics, and those statistics can and often do determine the winner.

[lantzkev]

If you go in with a competitive mind set and face opponents that aren't competitive, of course you'll feel hollow about your win.

[Path Walker]

Why would you face a "balanced list" in any competitive setting? It would be "power list of any era" vs "another power list of any era". Why are you adamant about meeting non-competitive lists with your hyper-competitive list in an competitive environment?
You will rather see CentStar vs Serpent Spam. Next Round Serpent Spam will face Gravbiker Spam. The chances Serpent Spam will play against an melee imperial guard with Bullgryns and Rough Riders only is pretty slim. So why bother comparing the two armies?
You are basically pointing out that 40k cannot be competitive because a comeptitive list will win over a non-competitive list 9 out of 10 times... which is... odd?

It's not odd to want the inherently imbalanced part of the game, list building, to have less importance on who wins.

The only reason to argue against that is if you rely on netlists to win

[Auticus]

Why would you face a "balanced list" in any competitive setting? It would be "power list of any era" vs "another power list of any era". Why are you adamant about meeting non-competitive lists with your hyper-competitive list in an competitive environment?
You will rather see CentStar vs Serpent Spam. Next Round Serpent Spam will face Gravbiker Spam. The chances Serpent Spam will play against an melee imperial guard with Bullgryns and Rough Riders only is pretty slim. So why bother comparing the two armies?
You are basically pointing out that 40k cannot be competitive because a comeptitive list will win over a non-competitive list 9 out of 10 times... which is... odd?

Not quite. I am not in any way, shape, or form discussing competitive lists winning over non competitive lists. That should be clear to anyone.

I'm saying that the power disparity in the army lists means that there are only a very small amount of legitimate lists that can be played at a tournament with any chance of really winning. That until the army codices are balanced better against each other, that being competitive is for the most part figuring out which one of the three or four lists have a chance, and using that.

That to me is not competitive. That's letting your army list do the work for you. When I was fielding my "competitive list" i didn't have to really have any skill. I just had to understand target priority and roll a lot of dice.

To me (and this is an opinion piece after all) competitive gaming would be the army list building phase taking a back seat to actually playing the game.

Ther are too many players that rely on their powerlist they found on the internet to win games, and that removes any credibility for wins when they are based off of exploitation of bad Games Workshop balance.

- - - Updated - - -


the way you're putting it is basically rock paper scissors and balanced armies are someone putting a foot in instead of a hand.

Kind of. Rock paper and scissors all bring guns, anything else shows up empty handed. Rock paper and scissors all weigh in at 280 lbs and everyone is else is 150 lbs. Too much emphasis on rock paper and scissors. Show me a game where not getting to rely on crutches wins games, and that will be a game I consider competitive.


apparently where he plays everyone brings those casual lists to the tournament and don't bother bringing the strongest and their a game.

If you go in with a competitive mind set and face opponents that aren't competitive, of course you'll feel hollow about your win.

Poor internet tough guy. I can guarantee you that blood angels rhino rush lists in 3rd edition were anything but casual lists. The reason they didn't fare well against eldar starcannon spam had nothing to do with them not being internet bad-*** enough, but entirely because tournament tables had little terrain and they were a shooting gallery.

My leaf blower guard list - same thing.

These are games at actual tournaments, from local to regional to the old Games Workshop Grand Tournaments. There was nothing casual about any of it.


I find the comments about the "randomness" of weather in sporting events quite hilarious because weather is anything but random.

I played football for five years, soccer for fifteen, track and field for four, and baseball for five.

A football team that excels at passing cannot do so as well when its pouring down rain and windy. The weather is indeed random in that if you pull your schedule and look at your games, you have no idea what the weather is going to be on those games, but you have to deal with whatever weather is "rolled for on game day". It may very well make your game plan hell depending on "what you rolled for weather on game day".

[oldschoolgameroO]

To the first topic, Competitive Gaming is to me a game played between people where the skillset of the players are compared against and the player with the most skill should come out on top. This can be in anything, be it sports like football, soccer, or games like chess.

Competitive Gaming should primarily be resolved based on the skill of the player(s) involved and should be against players of roughly equal caliber.

That is exactly what tournament warhammer is. It's Two people who built list and pitting one list versus the other by doing the math. The skill comes in how they maneuver those pieces, what they shoot at, etc... Much like an athlete or a chess player, those are determined by experience and 'training.


For example, the game of football can be played by anyone. However, there is a large difference between a high school foot ball team, a college football team, and a professional football team. We expect that these teams be matched up against people in their same class or caliber.

It has been said already but, that's not true. Not everyone in those leagues are the same caliber. Let's take chess for example because we both agree that is competitive. They have several classes players are ranked into, I have played people in my rank that were both well above and well below my skill set but we're ranked the same as me. More often the not the skill set well below me stayed or grew in rank because they got lucky and faced someone in the rank that was worse then them or were lucky on a critical move against someone better.


Fighting sports such as boxing or mixed martial arts, or even wrestling, pair people up in weight classes, because there is nothing LESS competitive than setting a heavy weight fighter up against a 130 lb fighter.

Actually some MMAs don't have weight classes and I have seen several 'light weights' utterly destroy the heavier weight class. We're the skill comes in


Competitive players also have to deal with random elements in the form of weather, sporting venues, and things of that nature. Not only must they deal with them, they must overcome them.

Competitive Gaming ultimately seeks to determine who is the better overall player.

Saying chess is competative, you proved your self wrong on this one.


Why I feel 40k has never been a competitive game has nothing to do with its core rules. The things many people who claim to be competitive talk about hating, I don’t see as making any more or less “competitive”. Random charges, random powers, etc don’t make a game less competitive, they enforce a different set of skills and tactics that must be employed.

However, the lack of game balance between factions DOES make a game less competitive, and Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy have never had any real balance in any of the editions, which is to me why neither game is competitive nor has it ever been.

When competing in warhammer, players will actively seek to have their army list do as much of the heavy lifting as possible. In sports terms, it is the same as being handed a professional football team, being able to freely obtain all of the super star players in the league, and then also be given the caveat that one can play teams at the high school or college level, and if the weather is not preferable one has the power to change the weather so that conditions are always perfect.

That's exactly what ball club owners do, in a lot of sports it is who has the most money or who can get the best value. That's were the unequal points cost come in. Which relates to another point you brought up about getting a net list, spending tons of cash to get the right pieces and putting it on the table. If you took two players, a casual and a tourney player, gave them identical lists that both are familiar with and had them play 10 games, I would promise you the tourney player when the majority of the time because he knows how best to use said pieces. You get two tourney players then it be hard fought. It's all part of the competative part.

Using your analogy, a pro football team isn't going to spend money on an underdeveloped high school player when he can get a primed college athelete who is stronger and faster.

Your whole argument is circular.


None of these scenarios to me is competitive. I’d even go so far as to say that actively engaging in these types of contests is NON-COMPETITIVE because the skill of the player is secondary to how well the deck can be stacked. While that may be fine in a deck game like Magic: The Gathering – in a game of war where one expects tactics and strategies to be tested this falls very very short.

Have you ever played Magic™? Because along with chess and WH40k I have, competitively, and 'stacking' the deck is ti get the strategy you have into your deck out and hope your opponents strategy doesn't stop you. And making it so you hedge luck out of the picture so that strategy comes into play.


To me – for 40k to be truly a competitive game, the balance in all of the factions needs seriously overhauled. Barring that, a solid comp system needs put in place to put more builds in viable standings.

Actually, for casual play this needs to happen, for competative play unbalance is fine because if someone were to win on an 'weak list' it would show their skill, on a 'net' list it would still show their skill because most in likely their opponent did the same.

[/QUOTE]Second, for 40k to be truly a competitive game, tournaments should deviate from every table being the same and having the same scraps of terrain on them. This enforces certain build types. A truly good player should be tested on different types of boards, with different types of terrain and cover available. Start showcasing tournaments where some tables are like city scapes where line of sight is not freely given to every model on the table, and you’ll start to see lists shifting to accommodate the fact that you won’t always get to play on planet bowling ball and do nothing but shoot.[/QUOTE]

This I'll pseudo agree with, but that's the American meta. The euro/uk meta has a ton of terrain (hence a slow shift happening right now in American meta as they are struggling on the world competitions) and a decent amount of it sight blocking.


Third – for 40k to truly be a competitive game, the designers need to lessen or eliminate the ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS aspect of the game. This has always existed, from the time I started playing in third edition, to today.

Rock, paper, scissors is pretty competative in my family. If you choose wrong you get slugged in the arm. And believe it or not, heavy meta in that too, lol


That really summarizes competitive 40k to me. I am not a great player. When you kick my crutches out from under me, I win as much as I lose, and I certainly would never have been able to win a tournament without a list that took advantage of no cover, and a meta which was dominated by blood angels players with a smattering of space wolf players.

I wanted to focus on this part of the story, that's what pro teams do. They take advantage of a disadvantage and play their strengths to it. You QB has a strong arm and and the opponent is weak against the pass, throw bombs. If they are super strong against the pass, you hedge your bet and run the ball.


The thing was, I was the 270 lb heavy weight fighter fighting 125 lb high school kids. I was the New England Patriots playing football games against Springfield High. There was nothing competitive about it. When I tried playing lists that did not exploit whatever was broken at the time, I didn’t do nearly as well. That to me again speaks volumes about competitive 40k..

And that's why you see a lot of the same players at top, the 125# people fall to the wayside and the 270# people end up during it out


It never has been competitive while the army rules are as imbalanced as they have always been and sadly has never really been a test of player skill or strategy so much as it has been a test with how good one is with rudimentary math and effective spreadsheet skills.

Being so many different pieces, nothing rudimentary math, much like a poker player, they are playing odds (another highly competative game by the way). And speaking of that math competitions are a thing too, and that is truly who is better at math. Tell one of those kids they are unskilled and aren't competative

[Charon]

That to me is not competitive. That's letting your army list do the work for you. When I was fielding my "competitive list" i didn't have to really have any skill. I just had to understand target priority and roll a lot of dice.

The point is: you can't let the list do "your work" if both lists are equally maxed out. Just does not work because the othr guys list is also "doing his work".
This can only work if one list is maxed out and the other is not.

Also this one:

I can guarantee you that blood angels rhino rush lists in 3rd edition were anything but casual lists. The reason they didn't fare well against eldar starcannon spam had nothing to do with them not being internet bad-*** enough, but entirely because tournament tables had little terrain and they were a shooting gallery.

You talk about past occurances, times changed and tables got a healthy amount of terrain nowadays.
But even if not: If you KNOW you are going to play on a billard table it is YOUR FAULT bringing an army that is disadvantaged by the lack of terrain. Thats part of the preperation. If you play to win, then you play to win and not "play to try to win with X when you know that your chances are better with Y".

[sparti67]

40k is all about the flavor of the month, or codex when it comes to competitive gaming. It happens every year. What is most frustrating is we the people suffer. There are so many folks who would play in tournaments but do not because their favorite army just doesn't have a death star to compete.

Since day one GW has been notorious for not making models for armies or writing rules for existing models that are absolutely useless in a competitive setting. I waited years for Dark Elf executioners. What about giving ballistic skills to fantasy chaos warriors and then telling people you can't use that skill?

The sports analogy works for me. In fantasy I would field a dragon or a blood thirster and my opponent had no answer. At the time very few units could hope to take on either model, they were some of the first "death stars" imo. Sure we had the same amount of points to work with, but if you didn't have a comparable unit to take the dragon on it was like the majors playing the minors. And at that time most people didn't invest money into the big creatures (at least in my area).

The only way to fix this problem is coming up with a universal set of house rules. That means limiting some units, not allowing certain formations and as was mentioned change up the scenarios/terrain. IMO tournaments are very vanilla. There are so many opportunities to bring flavor to your average and larger tournaments. Some creative thinking and outside the box ideas could bring in new gamers and have old gamers dust off some of those armies they never thought would see a table edge again. We need some good GM's for 40k

[HERO]

If you go in with a competitive mind set and face opponents that aren't competitive, of course you'll feel hollow about your win.

Bingo. Ding ding ding.

That describes exactly what I have right now. I'm a competitive player, playing against non-competitive people, and I cannot get the satisfaction or challenge that I need. It's important to find likeminded players, or else you're both wasting your time before you even put models on the table.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

It's important to find likeminded players, or else you're both wasting your time before you even put models on the table.

This is the core of it all, I think. It's a collaborative activity. You have to be on the same page with the people you're playing the game with to get the most out of it. I wouldn't say it's always a "waste of time", but you won't get the best experience out of it that you could.

[Popsical]

Ok read this and see if you can guess the player who wins more than 50 percent of the games played.
My little group of 4 players have been gaming 40k for 12 years.
All of us are fundamentally different in our style of gaming.

Player1's armies are made to fit the fluff of armies he likes in the books he reads. Always painted.

Player2's armies are made of models he likes only. Mostly painted.

Player3's armies are made of the latest models released and never the same ever. Half painted.

Player4's armies are made of the same optimum units in every game and seldom painted.

Go on have a guess who wins amost every time.

Also which one of us would you say was the most competitive?

[lantzkev]

let me guess player 2? I like monsterous creatures and they seem fairly in vogue.

[StingrayP226]

Bingo. Ding ding ding.

That describes exactly what I have right now. I'm a competitive player, playing against non-competitive people, and I cannot get the satisfaction or challenge that I need. It's important to find likeminded players, or else you're both wasting your time before you even put models on the table.

Actually you can challenge yourself if you put down that deathstar/spam list, and try a fluffy/odd list where you have to fight to overcome your own weaknesses.

Back when Mechwarrior clicks was hot I was the dominate player in my area for a while. I always played faction pure but even then I could create powerful faction lists that dominated the field as my oppenants were less skilled.

One solution was to build joke lists that just had some silly theme or strange combo of units. Then I tried to win... Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't... to this day my best memories was my "Farmer's revolt" list that was purely agromechs, unarmored infantry, and some not MBT vees. It was a challenge to me as I had to build a list with heavy restrictions that took away my favored options and forced me to play something I was not comfortable with... and I had a blast!

[Popsical]

let me guess player 2? I like monsterous creatures and they seem fairly in vogue.

Player 4 wins the most as you'd expect.

The only player who isn't competitive is player 2.

I am player 1 and i play to win every game, the problem is that my armies MUST be fluffy or i have no interest in them and thus don't care about them and they get sold or never finished. I also will never spam units as i find duplication boring.

Player 2 almost never wins a game, but he just likes to play the game, so he is generally happy to plod along. He is just not a competitive gamer and so wont push to win. This is not good if your in a team with him tho lol.

Player 3 has zero attention span by his own admission and cant focus for more than a week on any one army, thus he loses big when he loses. He is competitive like me, and his constant buying of the newest and best units/ codex's allows him some wins from time to time.

Player 4 almost never paints his models, doesn't give a rats bottom what they look like (they sometimes are not even built totally). He also only uses the best units in each army EVERY time and his army build for each army remains static for years on end. This combination of repeated use of an army that doesn't change (means refined tactics), and the best optimum unit configurations, allows him to win big style lots. He either gets tabled or does the tabling.

From this you can see that being a "competitive" gamer means little, its how far you take the construction of your army that can make or break the game. GW simply doesn't care so the gamer's themselves have too. This is'nt going to change anytime soon.
We deal with it and i dare say other groups do too. We cant change ourselves or player 4's style, we just begrudgingly accept it and move on to the next game.

[Auticus]

Actually you can challenge yourself if you put down that deathstar/spam list, and try a fluffy/odd list where you have to fight to overcome your own weaknesses.

Back when Mechwarrior clicks was hot I was the dominate player in my area for a while. I always played faction pure but even then I could create powerful faction lists that dominated the field as my oppenants were less skilled.

One solution was to build joke lists that just had some silly theme or strange combo of units. Then I tried to win... Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't... to this day my best memories was my "Farmer's revolt" list that was purely agromechs, unarmored infantry, and some not MBT vees. It was a challenge to me as I had to build a list with heavy restrictions that took away my favored options and forced me to play something I was not comfortable with... and I had a blast!

I agree. This is something I started doing years ago and it made my games more challenging, more fun for the challenge, and my games less lopsided. The downside is that against other people rocking min/max lists that I have little chance of having a good game but in the non tournament world you can choose to not play against those types of things.

[lantzkev]

I'm sorry you have an area so one dimensional that player 2-3 can't ever beat 4.

It'd odd though, when I build my 2k list for a local tournament, I use the best units or go buy them... and then I paint them. My list hasn't been static, because the best has changed, and the rules have changed and impacted the best.12924

That is my 2k list, you'll notice three forgeworld models, yvarna, rvarna, and r'lai. I use the sensor towers with them magnetized to represent a void shield relay (but with a tau look), and as shields go down I pop off a sensor, or put em up as they come back up.

[Popsical]

I'm sorry you have an area so one dimensional that player 2-3 can't ever beat 4.

It'd odd though, when I build my 2k list for a local tournament, I use the best units or go buy them... and then I paint them. My list hasn't been static, because the best has changed, and the rules have changed and impacted the best.12924

That is my 2k list, you'll notice three forgeworld models, yvarna, rvarna, and r'lai. I use the sensor towers with them magnetized to represent a void shield relay (but with a tau look), and as shields go down I pop off a sensor, or put em up as they come back up.

You read my posts thoroughly then? Nope. I did write that player 4 wins over 50%. You state "cant beat ever".

[HERO]

Actually you can challenge yourself if you put down that deathstar/spam list, and try a fluffy/odd list where you have to fight to overcome your own weaknesses.

Back when Mechwarrior clicks was hot I was the dominate player in my area for a while. I always played faction pure but even then I could create powerful faction lists that dominated the field as my oppenants were less skilled.

One solution was to build joke lists that just had some silly theme or strange combo of units. Then I tried to win... Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't... to this day my best memories was my "Farmer's revolt" list that was purely agromechs, unarmored infantry, and some not MBT vees. It was a challenge to me as I had to build a list with heavy restrictions that took away my favored options and forced me to play something I was not comfortable with... and I had a blast!

Except I don't see imbalanced matchups as a challenge... hence why there's better games to play if I truly want to be competitive.

[Auticus]

Except I don't see imbalanced matchups as a challenge... hence why there's better games to play if I truly want to be competitive.

This is precisely why I feel 40k has never been a game meant to be played "competitively".

[lantzkev]

it's called exaggeration for effect, you've got a terrible argument and I did read it, it's pretty easy to thoroughly read a 12 sentence paragraph. My point is this, that army is "all the new stuff" it's well painted, it's fluffy, I enjoy playing the game...

Trying to paint with broad strokes your picture of how the world is, is ridiculous. People can be all of those things at once if they are inclined, and even change depending on the format.

with friends and casual games with nothing on the line? Fluff bunny have fun don't care.
in a league? competitive, but I adjust for who I'm playing with.
in a tournament with prize support? WAAC hardcore buy what I need to make it win... but I'll paint it all up and make it look great at the same time.


From this you can see that being a "competitive" gamer means little, its how far you take the construction of your army that can make or break the game.
No from that all I can see is that some work harder at their army and winning than others. A competitive player, and all warhammer 40k players that go to tournaments and want to win, know list construction is the first step to victory. The second, third, fourth etc, are how you play it and set it up.

If you don't like a game with the variables this game has, that's fine, but it doesn't mean it's not competitive.

You argument is bad, and you should feel bad.

[Popsical]

You miss my point completely. My point is that it IS competitive, but that there are so many types of player with so many variables involved that its pretty impossible not to have balance issues and thus problems. Very few players of any game dont play to win, so how could it not be competitive.
Im interested to hear how a player can be of a "must be painted" and a "hardly ever painted" at the same time etc.
Player 1 and player 4 are at total opposites of the wargaming spectrum in almost every respect.

[Path Walker]

I'm sorry you have an area so one dimensional that player 2-3 can't ever beat 4.

It'd odd though, when I build my 2k list for a local tournament, I use the best units or go buy them... and then I paint them. My list hasn't been static, because the best has changed, and the rules have changed and impacted the best.12924

That is my 2k list, you'll notice three forgeworld models, yvarna, rvarna, and r'lai. I use the sensor towers with them magnetized to represent a void shield relay (but with a tau look), and as shields go down I pop off a sensor, or put em up as they come back up.

Well done, I bet you're great fun to play against

[Popsical]

I like the way "I should feel bad", why?
I wont spend an endless stream of cash just to keep winning by buying the best to be the best?

[lantzkev]

I like the way "I should feel bad", why?
I wont spend an endless stream of cash just to keep winning by buying the best to be the best?

Because your argument is incredibly flawed in the light of "competition" fluff bunnies are by their nature not competitive, the guy who buys only what he'll think win can still be fluffy, and the notion that only some of them can be fun to play against is ridiculous and again not the point of "competitive." You're mixing arguments for different arguments into one ill conceived idea.

[Popsical]

In your posts youve assumed my opinions about much and got alot wrong. Youve stated sweeping generalizations of what ive written, by your own admission exagerated to prove your own opinion right, and yet my posts are flawed? Any one can be a "fluff bunny" as you put it, in their own mind. Just as anyone can be competitive. 40k has always been competitive and all games are at their root. Even childrens games in the school yard are competitive, its human nature. Sure some folk play less hard, but why play if you dont care at all.

[Moriar52]

so by this logic the person with the most money would win more often than not. this would mean that the game is decided before it starts which is the issue most people have with the state of the game. might as well just put the army lists on the table work out the percentages on a calculator and go home.

[lantzkev]

in a tournament with prize support? WAAC hardcore buy what I need to make it win... ]

so by this logic the person with the most money would win more often than not. this would mean that the game is decided before it starts which is the issue most people have with the state of the game. might as well just put the army lists on the table work out the percentages on a calculator and go home.


That is not by that logic at all, it's saying if I need an 80$ model to make my list the most comeptitive it can be, I'll buy it and get it going and not just say "gee I can't win because I don't want to buy/run that model"

I've found more often than not, there are multiple answers to any particular problem in 40k in most army lists, and if there's not the answer lies in an ally.

WAAC is often a considered a negative thing, but in a tournament setting, it's what I call a competitive mindset. Buying the latest/greatest doesn't mean you'll win, but it does help stack the odds in your favor.

[Charon]

in a tournament with prize support? WAAC hardcore buy what I need to make it win... ]

so by this logic the person with the most money would win more often than not. this would mean that the game is decided before it starts which is the issue most people have with the state of the game. might as well just put the army lists on the table work out the percentages on a calculator and go home.

According to the rant in this thread it would not matter anyways and you could also do this in your game at home.
Some armies are STRICTLY BETTER than others NO MATTER WHICH UNITS YOU CHOOSE (or how fluffy you play). Why not tell you opponent which army you gonna play shake hands and collect your default win by playing a superior race?

[Path Walker]

If winnings a game is more important than the fluff or what models you buy, why the heck would you even play 40k?

Winning at any cost is against the spirit of the game, the same spirit of the rules that's encouraged by the rules, winning at any cost is therefore not playing 40k

[Popsical]

Ive often wondered if GW produced this model next which you could only use if it was the official limited edition GW version, how many people would huy it? The Nurgle Turd of Ultimate Destruction. Ws 10 Bs 10 S 10 T 10 W10 I 10 A 10 Ld 10 2+ 2++ eternal warrior it will not die immune to psychology monstrous creature
Aura of Poo 48" S 10 Ap 1 7" blast assault 3 ignores cover 200pts
This model is literally a dog turd like Mr Hankey from south park but grim dark.

How many WAACs would turn up to tournies with one?
Bet it would sell out, and prove some of these guys just dont give a rats what models look like as long as they win.

Games are played to be enjoyed and to be won, in most cases "if possible", in very sad cases "at all costs".

[Mr Mystery]

Yep.

Those who wish to WAAC, and turn the game into 'victory to he with the deepest pockets' very, very welcome to that. That's their hobby, and their motivation.

But it's not what the game was built for. Nobody likes to be kerbstomped, let alone by some grinning goon who has netlisted their way to an undeserved victory. Happened to me the other night. Was playing Magic The Gathering in the pub (because I'm that cool, yo). Most of my decks are knocking on a bit, but still fairly potent. Guy I played against? All brand new, every card individually ordered. He didn't out play me, but he beat me. I had sneaky tricks up my sleeve, and all my decks can work in three, maybe four ways to secure a victory. But not this guy. Oh no. All about the showboating. Considering my land was misbehaving, and I had no beasties out, he should have won fairly early on. But no. He didn't want to win. He wanted to showboat. Dragged out what was already a fairly one sided affair just so he could do his combo of dull. Second game? I smashed him utterly. Didn't see my combos coming, because all he has ever done is netlist, netlist, netlist some more, with a side order of netlist. If it's not a netlist, he doesn't know how to beat it. Also worth noting he asked what colour I was playing (Green Treefolk), before selecting a deck. And that deck, untouched all evening, just happened to give him the best possible opening hand and follow up. Funny that

That's the MTG equivalent of writing your list to beat your opponents in my eyes. You've put your own precious win over the fun of the game. If my Trees aren't coming out to play, because I can't get the right Mana, then just kick my teeth out fast as you can. It's what I'd do to you if the roles were reversed. Enjoy your win by all means, but don't enjoy my defeat, because simply put, I won't give you another game, and all those hundreds of pounds spent on a killer deck won't be diddly when nobody else will play you.

[lantzkev]

Yep.

Those who wish to WAAC, and turn the game into 'victory to he with the deepest pockets' very, very welcome to that. That's their hobby, and their motivation.

But it's not what the game was built for. Nobody likes to be kerbstomped, let alone by some grinning goon who has netlisted their way to an undeserved victory. Happened to me the other night. Was playing Magic The Gathering in the pub (because I'm that cool, yo). Most of my decks are knocking on a bit, but still fairly potent. Guy I played against? All brand new, every card individually ordered. He didn't out play me, but he beat me. I had sneaky tricks up my sleeve, and all my decks can work in three, maybe four ways to secure a victory. But not this guy. Oh no. All about the showboating. Considering my land was misbehaving, and I had no beasties out, he should have won fairly early on. But no. He didn't want to win. He wanted to showboat. Dragged out what was already a fairly one sided affair just so he could do his combo of dull. Second game? I smashed him utterly. Didn't see my combos coming, because all he has ever done is netlist, netlist, netlist some more, with a side order of netlist. If it's not a netlist, he doesn't know how to beat it. Also worth noting he asked what colour I was playing (Green Treefolk), before selecting a deck. And that deck, untouched all evening, just happened to give him the best possible opening hand and follow up. Funny that

That's the MTG equivalent of writing your list to beat your opponents in my eyes. You've put your own precious win over the fun of the game. If my Trees aren't coming out to play, because I can't get the right Mana, then just kick my teeth out fast as you can. It's what I'd do to you if the roles were reversed. Enjoy your win by all means, but don't enjoy my defeat, because simply put, I won't give you another game, and all those hundreds of pounds spent on a killer deck won't be diddly when nobody else will play you.

I'm not sure what you're doing there except ranting about another game in a forum not about that game.

I'm sure when you made that magic deck though you didn't make it to be fluffy and just have fun, you made it to win right?

[Mr Mystery]

It's a themed deck.

I tend to buy Magic by the booster box - you make a good saving, and typically end up with most, if not all of the cards you were wanting.

That done, I then see which art and creature type tickles my fancy, and knock a deck together.

But my point here is about the attitude of the player, and how that has a massive impact on the enjoyment of the game.

Someone who flattens your army is one thing. Someone who flattens your army with beardy units, dodgy rules interpretations and a 'compared to me you are nothing, I don't know why you bother to play, I AM THE MESSIAH' type attitude is quite, quite another.

You can get knacked by sheer, dumb luck in most non-Chess games. The cards just don't come up. The dice get into their tiny minds to gang up on you. You can get knacked by a better a player, one who really knows how to stacks the odds against you. And that's all hunky-dorey and makes you a better player overall, because you learn something.

But a showboating WAAC cretin? All I learn is that they're a bit of a Richard, and probably not someone I'd care to play again. It's not even worth playing them to beat them - because they suck all joy out of the victory with meaningless terms like 'you diced me' and other ways to detract from your skill as a player - because in their pathetic little mindset, nobody but the gods of fate can possibly usurp them.

[lantzkev]

It's a themed deck.

I tend to buy Magic by the booster box - you make a good saving, and typically end up with most, if not all of the cards you were wanting.

That done, I then see which art and creature type tickles my fancy, and knock a deck together.

But my point here is about the attitude of the player, and how that has a massive impact on the enjoyment of the game.

Someone who flattens your army is one thing. Someone who flattens your army with beardy units, dodgy rules interpretations and a 'compared to me you are nothing, I don't know why you bother to play, I AM THE MESSIAH' type attitude is quite, quite another.

You can get knacked by sheer, dumb luck in most non-Chess games. The cards just don't come up. The dice get into their tiny minds to gang up on you. You can get knacked by a better a player, one who really knows how to stacks the odds against you. And that's all hunky-dorey and makes you a better player overall, because you learn something.

But a showboating WAAC cretin? All I learn is that they're a bit of a Richard, and probably not someone I'd care to play again. It's not even worth playing them to beat them - because they suck all joy out of the victory with meaningless terms like 'you diced me' and other ways to detract from your skill as a player - because in their pathetic little mindset, nobody but the gods of fate can possibly usurp them.

So are we talking about competitive games still ie tournaments, or casual games without much in the way of stakes?

[Mr Mystery]

Both, to be honest.

Casual games are my preference - if I go to an organised event, it's to freshen up my gaming experience by taking on new opponents.

In either scenario, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by being an unpleasant opponent, win or lose. The important thing to remember is that whilst some are there to win the trophy, everyone is there to enjoy themselves. Even a hardcore tournament goer with their own WAAC list won't enjoy a game against a showboater. Doesn't matter which game you happen to be playing. Get in, get the job done as swiftly and competently as you can. If I end up with my bahookie on a silver platter in double quick time, I don't care. If it's clear my bahookie is platter bound from the third turn, but you delay the coup de grace so you can pull off your double hard combo? What's the point. Doesn't increase your win points. Just makes you an unpleasant opponent.

The sole exception to this is of course educational games. If you're showing someone the ropes, regardless of their age, don't just go for the throat. They're interested in learning the mechanics of the game, not how to use said mechanics to beat someone's deck or army senseless in double quick time. This is what put me right off Warmachine - the people I learned to play against were all about the win. They didn't see me as a potential future opponent who needed a guiding hand. Oh no. I was just a NooB punchbag who must be shown the error of not being an experienced player. Suffice to say I sold off what I had very shortly afterwards.

[daboarder]

The question is irrelevant, "is" or "was" is besides the point, its a two player game, it SHOULD be as balanced and therefore as "competitive" as it is possible for the game designers to make it, a sentiment clearly not shared by GW

[Popsical]

Ive been playing GW games since 1988, 40k has never been balanced in all that time, so over 25 years later why the smeg would anyone with any experience of it expect it to be balanced now? Its like saying ive bought this same cake for 30 years and it tastes like crap, i think i will get it again because its bound to taste great today!
Before the interwebz made the whole thing transparent globally, no one gave a poop. Now its a point of frustration for quite a few people that really should know better. It always has been a fluff driven system with pretty models. The problem is that lots of people think its an olympic sport alot of the time.
If i run a WAAC tournament for WAAC players and advertise it as such, it will attract those kind of folk and they will have a blast.
If i run a fluff tournament for fluff players and advertise it as such, it will be won by some total tit who turns up with a stilton cheese fest list that kerb stomps everyone there because he/she is so bloody great at 40k. The rest of the players will be chatting about "that" guy/girl in a less than complimentary way, because they would have had a better blast if "that" guy/girl had stayed at home and masturbated their ego alone.

My advice to any newbie, if asked if 40k is the game for them, would always be "if you want to have fun".
If they want to play a balanced competitve game or sport, find something else 40k aint for you.

[Brother Claudio]

I grow weary whenever I see an article or forum topic with this heading. Because in my eyes, and this is only my opinion, this tells me players just want to win. And secondly that they want to moan about losing.

Competition does seek to find the best overall player. But to go on moaning about the game not being fair or certain lists being unbalanced is absolute idiocy. If you want a balanced game where it is literally the wits and tactics of the person in charge that wins, then play chess. But I bet you don't want to play chess because well 40k is cooler and funner, in my opinion.

To say that list building to make a uber power list is like being handed a pro football team in a high school league is ridiculous and here's why. First off I will talk about actual football (soccer). In England we have several pro leagues. The premier league is filled with the best teams determined through relegation of the worst teams every year and promotion for the best teams in the league below. 40k is not a league system. It's a cup! A tournament! So its not like Man Utd playing in division 2 or the Patriots playing a high school team on a regular basis at all. Because you don't play these people every week. If you did in a league system and kept losing you'd be relegated or they would be promoted and hence you wouldn't play them anymore.

In England we have the League cup which all teams go into. From the premier league, championship, league 1 and league 2.
This is more like 40k. And guess what. Yes it's unlikely a league 2 team will win the tourney/cup. But there's every chance. Players build good lists and what's the problem with that? Manchester City have the most money in England so they buy the best players. But do other teams moan that they've got one of the best teams/lists...no. They get on with it. They play and see what happens.

I agree that terrain should vary in a tournament. For me the way around that is to have a home and away roll. The players pick a table each. The player who wins can pick the table they play on. If you play away though you get more points, like away goals in the champions league . Ye it's more difficult cuz most people would pick a table that suits their army but so what. That's the essence of competition. Little advantages and big ones here and there.

Competition feeds people looking to win. That's the point! You want to win. But if you lose. Take away positives and look at why you lost. But do not blame the game, yes it has its pitfalls, but it's still perfectly fine.

The biggest problem for me is people want 40k to be something it isn't. So in that sense either play with people of like mindedness or stop moaning.

[lantzkev]

Both, to be honest.

Casual games are my preference - if I go to an organised event, it's to freshen up my gaming experience by taking on new opponents.

In either scenario, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by being an unpleasant opponent, win or lose. The important thing to remember is that whilst some are there to win the trophy, everyone is there to enjoy themselves. Even a hardcore tournament goer with their own WAAC list won't enjoy a game against a showboater. Doesn't matter which game you happen to be playing. Get in, get the job done as swiftly and competently as you can. If I end up with my bahookie on a silver platter in double quick time, I don't care. If it's clear my bahookie is platter bound from the third turn, but you delay the coup de grace so you can pull off your double hard combo? What's the point. Doesn't increase your win points. Just makes you an unpleasant opponent.

The sole exception to this is of course educational games. If you're showing someone the ropes, regardless of their age, don't just go for the throat. They're interested in learning the mechanics of the game, not how to use said mechanics to beat someone's deck or army senseless in double quick time. This is what put me right off Warmachine - the people I learned to play against were all about the win. They didn't see me as a potential future opponent who needed a guiding hand. Oh no. I was just a NooB punchbag who must be shown the error of not being an experienced player. Suffice to say I sold off what I had very shortly afterwards.


So your whole problem has nothing to do with competitive gaming, and with sports manship, an unrelated issue to the topic at hand, gotcha.