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Narrative campaigns are all very well, but don't you want your own army to win them? More information on the campaign would be nice, but from what I can see, you can still have fun, narrative battles while bringing a hard-as-nails list.

What are your own objective you play? Perhaps that's the problem?

Why do some people equate fluffy =\= competitive? An army can and should be both. This kind of thinking reminds me of very much of the story about the comp onion.

G

Comp onion? Linkies?

@Pika yeah while i'm actually playing i'm not just standing there doing stupid things like throwing units away, tryin to kill a dread with combat knives "cause it would be cool" but equally I don't sit there writing a list going "Ooh that unit can crush his Unit X, and this one can crush his Unit Y", we all just take what we like the most, and what we think fits the army theme, then we try to win with that, but none of us really gives a damn about the outcome once the game is done. We play to relax and enjoy ourselves. If something cool happens we'll remember/talk about it but we don't go on about how we won.

And objectives wise we tend to get inspiration from all sorts of places (rulebooks tho in 4th we all decided escalation was so we left that out, space hulk/crusade, a good scene in a film someone saw the night before).

That's the right sort of attitude to have towards a game,at least in terms of how you remember it. For example, I can still remember a time a lone berserker blew up a dread with a krak grenade by rolling three sixes in a row, but the victor of that game is all but forgotten.

List tailoring is a no-no and is considered poor sportsmanship. You should bring a hard-as-nails list, but not one created to beat your opponent's list. So while taking a mismatched list of a rhino, a drop pod, a dread, a few footslogging squads, an assault marine unit and LotD is a bad idea, tailoring the list to specifically counter the enemy's is being a poor sport. Ideally you should take a list that works well together and counters all threats.

The time that sticks with me was when we did Space hulk with 40k rules just after the ass-can became 4 shots (a while back i know) and i had a termi sgt with lightning claws hold back 9 stealers on his own for 6 turns, killing 2 or 3 a turn but they got reinforcements. He died but he died well.

OT On the list making front the best example of how we do it I can give is If i'm using grimnar i'll use grey hunters and wolf guard and long fangs (tho no relentless multimelta cheese), cause i think it fits while if I use blackmane i take Claws of all kinds.

I personally like to make characters, with a sensible build but then I think I'm the only person to field a captain with 2 thunder hammers "just cause he looks awesome" .

I'm thinking of trying to make him think by changing our gameboard to have more LOS blocking terrain, because at the mo none of our armies (barring termi lists but we dont use them in many games) can take 4 turns of 14 ML shots and have enough fight left to deal with the master crafted hammernators. (i realise pods and transports would help here but I cant afford enough for all my squads and by god do i hate proxying it just feels wrong)

That may be the problem. Terrain can easily skew the match in someone's favour. If you find getting terrain difficult, do the easy thing and drape a green rug over some books to make hills.

Current project is a ruined cityscape so maybe that will help. I know its a bit of a cliche but he likes horror so I was thinking maybe a zombie narrative game or similar might help demonstrate the fun in a game thats not just a straight battle to beat the other player.

I know someone like this. =p

He spends countless hours crafting an army list tailored specifically to one person's army / style so that he can crush them. If he loses a couple of times, he e-bays his army and starts with something new because his obviously wasn't powerful enough. =p

When my friends and I get together outside of a tournament setting for a game to play 40k and catch up on life and everything else (like we will be doing this Saturday), those custom-tailored WAAC lists don't really belong. What I've done off to the side is have a separate game with this guy, with small stakes...if I'm playing to win, I want there to be a reason for it. IE, loser buys lunch for the winner. Or a soda from the FLGS if they sell one. Something small. I bring a *very* mean list - not tailored against him because there's no knowing what he's going to put together..and we battle it out.

We play, I win, he buys me lunch, and I talk about the difference between a 40k tournament and a 40k friends get together.

Excellent work, Dash!


If you play a game, play to win, obviously. I don't think the problem is that this guy wants to play hard-as-nails, is the attitude he has after the game, and some false sense of self-superiority he's getting from bragging about it. Maybe he just needs a girlfriend?

Sportsmanship means being a good looser AND a good winner. Bragging is poor sportsmanship in the first place. If everyone is cool with it, then fine, but as soon as people start getting sore about it, it's time to cut it out. Assuming you ever want to get a game with those folks again.....

GeneralRetreat wrote:
Maybe he just needs a girlfriend?

Something's trying to force its way into my brain something about a nail and its head

This guy likes the way he plays, and you're not going to change him by talking.

Sounds like you have two choices and little middle ground.

1) Play his way. Tool up a list specifically designed to crush him. Tweak the terrain you're using if that might help.
Pros: He may get a humbling, you might get a bit of competetive practice, and maybe he'll be more receptive to playing your way some time.
Cons: You may not enjoy the game as much. It may turn out that he's a much better WAAC player and you may get stomped, giving him more reason to gloat.

2) Kick him out. Either by ceasing to play with him, or actually kicking him out.
Pro's: No more feeling like you have to play games you don't want to and putting up with someone you don't like
Cons: Hurt feelings, possible inter-group tension if some of the players don't want to give him the full boot.

Best of luck whatever you decide.

mindfield wrote:There are guys not getting the fun side of WH, their point being that the game is expensive enough to take seriously. Me and a friend also play for fun, I would bring an IG list that has inquisitor and assasins on it,plenty of Russes and we play with boom sounds! Hehehe
But also remember that playing for fun requires non-squareheaded boring people,maybe that is essentially the issue here,it's not the game it's the person. Talking to him about the 'fun' of it might help,but there might also be some deeper reason why he acts so competitive.

Yes and no

People have fun in different ways. For me I love being challenged tactically by an equal or better opponent, and trying hammer the hell out of each other, while I know playing in fluff based games is pointless for me since I know what will be most effective for the job and to me seems like a waste of time just pussy-footing around.

That and I believe every army can be fluffy, its a big universe, and just because it is peaked for efficency doesnt mean there isnt a story behind it. To each their own.

So if someone shows up to your club with a fully mechanized Steel Legion list and beats all your faces, that's fine because it's fluffy, but if someone is using completely viable (and sub-par) choices from the Space Marine codex it's not?

You said you really like the "feel" of Ragnar and friends rushing across the table to fight in close combat.

Maybe he really likes the "feel" of shooting things to pieces with missile launchers, while maintaining a strong core of counter-assault.

Neither theme is actually more "fluffy" except for how you and your group define it.

Thats pretty much it, its just how we each want the game to be to us.

I have fun in fierce close call games with 2 armies that run a peak. I also write fluff for my "cheese" lists, so it's kind of hard to be in the wrong other then not having fun in someone elses way.

Its basically FAAC vs WAAC, power fluffers hate it take options that they personally disagree with. I had a guy once bomb my scores because he felt my farseer shouldnt have killed his land raider with a singing spear!

Generally the only time I have problem with fluffers is when they start making up rules, like a group of FAACers here ignore wound allocation because its "too gamey" and just throw in rules whenever they feel it needed, which is often since they dont really know the rules that well.

While I would say it’s immature to ridicule armies and not simply suggest ways to help, some people are immature.

I personally play to be competitive; it is what I like most in the hobby. It’s not even about winning, it’s just mentally engaging in way that I really enjoy and don’t get a lot of other places. And a lot of people are like that, I think it’s good. If that isn’t what the rest of the group is about, and he is being that disruptive I say don’t invite him back.

We had almost the exact opposite problem in our group. We all hit tournaments pretty regularly and when we play we want to be practicing for tournaments. We invited a guy who was more interested in fluff and chatting about the world. It wasn’t working for anyone, we didn’t like playing him and he didn’t like playing us so we stopped inviting him. It may seem mean I guess but we all have things to do, no point in spending 3 hours doing something you aren’t enjoying.

He's playing competitively, and has a competitive list to match - he enjoys playing games in the traditional sense. This is the way I and my friends play, and there is absolutly nothing wrong with that.

You and your friends however, enjoy using the mechanics of 40k to play out a story, or to play out a 'historic' scenario, to see how events transpire when you and your friends reinact it. This is also a completely valid way of playing, but you have all decided to impose additional and unwritten restrictions on what you are allowed to field, but are somehow shocked that he hasn't happily done the same.

But really, is his army that unfluffy? It sounds like he's fielding a Devistator detachment with scout support, but being so close to the front line and bring under threat from a close quater assault, the elite 1st company has teleported in to counter attack. This is a much more realistic or fluffy than what you'd call a "balanced" army - and it's clear that the crime-fighting Chapter Master duo was not the only beef you had...

So, fluff is not the issue here. Your issue is that your friend is fielding a min/maxed army; this wouldn't normally work, but since I can guess that your objectives aren't requiring much of a troop commitment, and a lack of terrain is favouring his extreme use of heavy weapon squads.

If you want him to play in line, then you really have two options:
1) Adjust your objectives to force him to balance his army with a much larger ratio of troop choices if he is to stand a chance of winning, and increase the amount of LOS blocking terrain on the board for more balanced protection against heavy weapons.
2) Actually put to paper what restrictions you and your friends apply - do you go for 50% of points on troops? Only special characters can be used if they were present during the battle your reinacting, or perhaps you model your armies from what you read (though you mentioned you had no issues fielding units you thought were 'cool'). Bare in mind, if you can't articulate the restrictions you all place on your armylists on paper, how can you expect your friend to adhear to them?

Here is the story about the  comp onion:

Johnny loved to play his Space Marines while Tommy loved to play his orks. Johnny decided to add a second whirlwind to his army and started winning all his games versus Tommy's orks. Tommy was very unhappy and did not want to make any changes to his ork army. They continued to play and Tommy became even more angry as he was still losing every game.

Finally Tommy had an idea. He went to the hobby store and told everyone there that Johnny was not fun to play against because he fielded whirlwinds in his Space Marine army. Tommy said that whirlwinds were broken and should not be allowed. Tommy complained about Johnny's whirlwinds a lot and some of the other gamers finally started to agree with him. They tried their best to make Johnny feel bad and unwelcome at the store. Finally Johnny told everyone he would no longer play Space Marines. A few weeks went by and Johnny stopped playing at the store. Then one day Johnny showed up again with his brand new Imperial Guard that had lots and lots of ordnance.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Here is the story about the  comp onion:

Johnny loved to play his Space Marines while Tommy loved to play his orks. Johnny decided to add a second whirlwind to his army and started winning all his games versus Tommy's orks. Tommy was very unhappy and did not want to make any changes to his ork army. They continued to play and Tommy became even more angry as he was still losing every game.

Finally Tommy had an idea. He went to the hobby store and told everyone there that Johnny was not fun to play against because he fielded whirlwinds in his Space Marine army. Tommy said that whirlwinds were broken and should not be allowed. Tommy complained about Johnny's whirlwinds a lot and some of the other gamers finally started to agree with him. They tried their best to make Johnny feel bad and unwelcome at the store. Finally Johnny told everyone he would no longer play Space Marines. A few weeks went by and Johnny stopped playing at the store. Then one day Johnny showed up again with his brand new Imperial Guard that had lots and lots of ordnance.

G

So what's the Onion part of the Comp Onion?

EDIT: Found the perfect explanation.

http://p196.ezboard.com/feasterniowagameclubfrm2.showPrevMessage?topicID=259.topic

I do think someone needs to have a talk with him about his bragging...

Ergo: Show him this thread, it beats any talking face to face.

Personally I think every army has ways to defeat every army. They are all balanced. If he plays hardball I think you should go through your codex every night for an hour or every time you take a dump read your codex. Design a way to smash him. Then you can play "fluffy" with your other friends and stomp him. Then he will eventually be forced to experiment for different army builds/tactics.

I consider myself a very competitive player. I dont like to lose, and I love to table opponents. With that said I try to be as friendly as possible, and generally have a laugh with my opponent, whether I am smashing their head in or not.

If this guy is being a bad sportsman thats one thing, and tell him he is. But if hes just winning games then who cares.

2 5 man scout squads and 3 10 man ML Dev squads Calgar and Vulkan and 3 hammernator squads,

sounds like a terrible terrible army. I cant see that winning more then 1 game at any tournament around here. Kill the 10 scouts and hide the rest of the game. I know my eldar would shitstomp this list.

Just sit him down and be like look dude its not fun to play against you because all you do is brag, are immature etc. On the other hand make sure you have the right reasons. If that list is brow beating you then you must be using some really bad stuff. Two characters 3 walking hammernator squads 3 dev squads and the scouts is terrible, and he should lose for running it. Its the attitude that makes the game, not the win or loss.

With that said if you are losing to that then you have no right to complain, as you have to be going out of your way to use no tactics or army composition.

Maybe he deepstrikes them?

and yeah, it needs more troops regardless.


Also I enjoy both aspects, but would prefer to keep the competitiveness in the tournaments.

When your just playing friendly games, fluff lists are best, unless you both have competitive lists you want to try out or test.


Also, is he really getting all up your face about it? This is the perfect time for me give an example.

This guy I commonly play with is pretty cool most of the time, unless he loses, to me that is.

Every game i've seen him play against other people had nothing wrong, just a good friendly game. But for whatever reason, he thinks I think I'm the best or something, which i've never really said. I beat him once, didn't say much, just commented on the game, and what I liked about my army. You know, just saying what I though was good and what was bad, which lots of players do after a game, they assess their army. He then went off on how a lot of people he knows would hate people who always say how great they are.

What? I never said anything about myself. I can't say what armies and even particular units I like without this. When I played my Deathwing army for the first time and managed to win I mentioned how I really liked them. He then started up on how I was apparently bragging about them and myself, when all I really did was state my opinion on them.

The first time he actually didn't lose to me (It was a draw) was with his SM vs.my SW. Capture and control and i had 2 guys left contesting the objective for a draw. Yet again, I said how cool it was that those 2 Space wolves charged into full squads and lived. You can guess the rest. In a way, I have the exact opposite problem.



Now if 3 Battlewagons in a 1000 point list is cheesy, maybe... but he uses 2 vindicators, a whirlwind, and doesn't even shoot with them very often. The most they do is contest objective late game. So I still doubt he's justified.