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One problem with wanting to play only with "soft" or "fluffy" or "non-power gamer" lists is that nobody can articulate how to construct one.

Is it powergaming to include any long fangs? Three maxed squads with missiles? What about a single squad with two plasma cannons and three lascannons?

There is no really reliable "hardness" rating, and while this is a gross generalization, it's been my experience that people will pick out the hard parts of enemy lists while having a milllion excuses why their lists aren't power.

Everyone hate coming up against a list that seems impossible to beat, however the reality is that nothing is impossible to beat, at the end of the day the dice decide the game and if it's your turn to lose then it's your turn to lose.

However i'll second the idea that you need to find a group of like minded gamers who want to play games for fun and aren't out to waac, that's what i've got with my mates from work....sure i lose most of the time but we all have fun doing it and in the end that's what matters.

I wish I played more power gamers.

Since moving to Phoenix I have not met many, and my 40k skills have atrophied and I am not as good of a player as I once was.

When you go up against better players with better armies you become a better player because you have to learn to do more with less, and to develop new tactics and strategy.

Dash: I know you hate Space Wolves, but you will get over it someday. I swear that I'm watching Pinky and Brain........Today I will rule the world Pinky......but first I have to get rid of those fleas bitten puppies you call the Space Wolves.

Element206 wrote:Personally there is nothing fun about a boring list that wins all the time. Come up with your own army you unoriginal bastards.

There's nothing fun because it doesn't exist. Even the top lists take constant good decision to win consitently. A strong list give you an edge. But to win consistently with anything it takes knowing what to do in a variety of situations and being able to execute time and time again.

This myth that if you just build X army this way you'll win all the time is what is tiring.

For me it comes down to a simple question:

Did both myself and the other guy have fun?

If the answer is yes then who gives a rip who won? It was fun , which is the point in playing a GAME. Winning at all costs is the point of playing a SPORT.

I have a regular opponent who runs space wolves. He makes lists based on what he thinks is cool, and is pretty new to the game. Some of this lists are also hard to beat as you can't make the usual assumptions about SW lists.

Does he lose a lot against me?

Often, but not always.

Does we both enjoy the hell out of every game we play?

Yup! He loves my random wacky orks, and we both enjoy it when his wolf lord rules my warboss, or vice versa.

We both get a kick out of the times when his Mark of the Wulfen psychopath plows into a weak unit (like grots) and then gets owned by them, or wipes the whole unit by himself..

Many of the folk at the FLGS consider winning to be the be all and end all of wargaming. I think they're missing out, but i'm not about to force my opinion down their throats. If i can give them a few laughs and distract them from their math-hammer for an hour or two, all the better...

And occasionally, they get owned too

ghargatuloth wrote:Leaf Blower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

How are you going to play a game and not try to win? That is what you are doing when you say I don't want to play a powergamer list.

Any game where you control what pieces you bring to the game will have a environment of min/maxing and with the advent of the internet, "power" lists. Why is because no one, unless they are dense, likes to lose.

Do you think the Cleveland Cavaliers said it's ok that we lost Lebron now we are playing a more fluffy, fun line up. Nope it hurt their morale and hurt their game. IF they could they'd Clone 3 of him and sign them to multi-year contracts just as long as they keep winning.

Your example deals with a sport, not a game I consider them similar but distinct activities.

You can play a game and try to win, while still having a good time, and with the other guy having a good time too.

The difference is when you start arguing over the metapysical meaning of the word 'and' in a codex entry, or using the word RAW a little too much.

Basically is winning or having a good time more important to you? I try to win, and i'm not about to throw my game, but as long as the guy i'm playing isn't one of those Intense WAAC types with the loophole arguments underlined and cross referenced in their books and the same list as everyone else playing the same army at the place i'm probably going to still have fun, even if i lose.

Losing isn't that big a deal. It's nice to win, not mandatory. If you can't handle losing with good humor then why play?

It's got to the point where you can go to a tournament (granted, the likelyhood of uber-competitive players is way higher there), glance at the codex they're reading and list off what they'll be fielding without seeing their entry, with about a 90% accuracy rate.

Tournaments are less 40K the Game, more 40K the Sport, and that's expected when you participate. Pickup games don't necessarily have that expectation, and having your new army (lets say someone who has been playing a few weeks) curbstomped by a must-win person tends to put you off, or try to become just like the guy who stomped you, as he has the god-codex of stomping..

Fighting the same army again and again with a different selection of RAW arguments and mariginally different cheating techniques is very instructive, but not all that fun.


*edited for spelling*

Recently returning to the game, I'm starting to remember some of the reasons I left.

There isn't a middle ground for games, at least not an obvious one. The "most fair" method would seem to be to bring as nasty a list as you can legally make and hope that GW did their homework and balanced them. But they haven't. If the codices were balanced, there wouldn't be units that nobody takes. There would be a reason, or *gasp*, even an advantage for bringing a mix of units rather than picking just a few of them and then bringing lots of those.

Take the lovely Ravager, for example, or the ML Longfangs. Why is it that everyone and their brother have figured out that the most competitive lists are going to include 3x of those instead of one of those and some other choices, but GW couldn't figure that out during their playtesting? I've read that part of the problem is the way we Americans play, that supposedly the Brits are much more laid back about it and not so completely cutthroat. I don't know if it's true, but if it isn't I'm baffled.

Maybe for friendly games, a relatively easy solution is to set limits on the number of a particular unit? Or to just have an honest conversation with an opponent about particularly unbalanced units or characters? I'm personally tempted to only play games that don't include special characters, since GW seems to make most of them overly powerful for the points cost, in a clear effort to sell more models.

knowman wrote:I've read that part of the problem is the way we Americans play, that supposedly the Brits are much more laid back about it and not so completely cutthroat. I don't know if it's true, but if it isn't I'm baffled.

Actually its the complete opposite, since GW's HQ is in England, all the serious tournament players and competitors are located there. I could be wrong though.

UsdiThunder wrote:
Do you think the Cleveland Cavaliers said it's ok that we lost Lebron now we are playing a more fluffy, fun line up. Nope it hurt their morale and hurt their game. IF they could they'd Clone 3 of him and sign them to multi-year contracts just as long as they keep winning.

You haven't been watching the Heat, have you?

'Actually its the complete opposite, since GW's HQ is in England, all the serious tournament players and competitors are located there. I could be wrong though. '

The HQ is there, and a lot of the big tournaments, but the mentality is different.

I've played on both sides of the pond at tournaments and casually. Comments are from my experience.

In England the focus tends to be on having a good time. Even at the tournaments the feeling is the generation of a collective good time. The lists may be competitive, but the players are way more relaxed and a lot less TFG/WAAC.

As a connected point, if you yell WAAAAGH!!!! at a tourney in England non-ork players will generally join in. If you do so in America (to my experience anyway) people will look at you like a diseased criminal pervert with touretts (sp?)...

Americans seem to be more inclined to treat the game as a competitive sport, with Winners and Looooosers, probably because the sports culture in the US from kindergarten on reinforces this. Everything seems to take a backseat to sports in school and after.

Again, the comment isn't intended as a blanket statement covering all play in the US, just what I've experienced.

I yell WAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!! all the time and I live in the States and people always yell with me AND give me strange looks so I get the best of both worlds.