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I put "Yes, casual and tournaments" but in retrospect that was probably a mistake.
I don't play in tournaments (actually am pulling out of the NOVA GT in favor of the AOS narrative; I'd do the 40k narrative, but it isn't actually 40k related at all, so my Slaanesh Daemons are going to play fantasy!). I played in the NOVA GT last year and went 4-4 and had fun, but this year the vitriol about bringing a fluffy list (see blackmage's post above) has driven me to Narrative. And like I said, the 40k Narrative actually has nothing to do with 40k, so...

...I guess this is how people get into Sigmar lol.

I like tournaments because you can wrek your opponent without having a bad feeling about it.
I also like to meet up and play with random guys.
Also sometimes there is this little "presentation" faktor that i like. Seeing the dopest armys on one tournament, beastmen demons 1-2 years befor the new thousand sons demon troop.
Sometimes its unfunny because of the stress/time faktor.
But its allways fun to see how the 40k groups in diffrent cities plays and work together.
Sometimes there a really nice guys and then there are this needy guys, or just random nice guys with absolut hellish armys. I like it , if i only got more time i would visit al tournaments to meet up and play with all the dudes.

I started going to tournaments again a little over a year ago.
Mostly only to play AoS. The local group is friendly and these tournaments have brought in players from out of town.
I think I have played one or two 40K tournaments in total since I started going again. I stopped some time in 5th edition when I hit 40K burn out. The tournaments back then became really unfun for me. I used to do fairly well placing in the top 5 or top 10 depending on the size of the event. But the army list people would bring were a lot of times far more competitive and strange than I was use to at the time. I was into tournaments from 3rd edition on to 5th so I had a lot of old habits. I think I have taken over all just one tournament ever.
I stopped playing until maybe 6 months before 7th edition came out. I think I played all of 5 games of 6th edition.
I played in zero tournaments during 7th. 8th has for me been a refreshing thing. It's a game where I don't look at my faction, Orks, and think why bother. Unfortunately I don't play even enough games to get good and stay good. If I could play twice a month I think I would be interested in going to more tournaments for 40K.
AoS on the other hand, I did something I never do. I didn't play a single game until I had my whole army completely painted and ready to take out to the shop. I then played 4 or 5 games and went to a team tournament with a good friend.
I think I have attended 2 or 3 AoS tournaments in total.
I have trouble finding the time and I have a lot of back pain from standing all day at these events and to top off my list of excuses I have to drive an hour forty just to get there. (one way.) But it is what it is. Casual games have the same conditions depending on where I go, the shop or another friends house..who lives even further away or home games when a friend comes down to give my Orks a kicking.

I spend most of my hobby time painting.

I prefer playing casual narrative style games as this generally affords you a much wider selection of your chosen army. More units get played (perhaps the ones that you started the army for in the first place) because you are not limiting yourself to only the optimal ones in the codex.
I keep saying that I might attend a tournament in the future, but if past experiences are to be taken into account, I expect I'll play about 80% great players and 20% douchebags, maybe only 10%. The trouble is often that the latter tends to overwhelm the memories of the former. In addition, observing local tournament players play their practice games, it often looks to be that they don't look like they are enjoying themselves (obviously they must be) as they are under a time constraint, whereas I like a little bit of banter and fun in a game.
I certainly don't judge players who play in tournaments, people should enjoy the hobby the way they want to, God knows they've probably spent enough money to deserve that. One day I will give it another try, just not sure when.

I answered 'no' - but I haven't been able to find casual games for months either. Every '40k day' at local shops are dominated by leagues and theres a tourney nearly every weekend at one shop or another.

I'm one of the local turny orginaziers actually.... What do I put in?

I support my FLGS Tournaments, but nothing Major.

I also play pretty bad lists so...

Meeting people with similar hobby's is great and the west coast of America has quite nice liberal laws.

So i now try to make it to BOA and LVO each year.

LVO is great and i cant recommend it enough, the narrative games are great and the atmosphere there is great.

So be social and throw some dice people.

 Elbows wrote:

 blackmage wrote:

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

they perhaps "hate" something they aren't unable to have success with, so they must find any kind of excuse to give tournaments/tournaments players bad name (not because tournaments are really evil, just cause anytime they play with their garagehammer list they are kicked in the nuts, hilarious)

You do understand the shocking amount of irony in a response like this, correct?

so many years i play... seldom i found the irony you are talking about, most of times they would like we think is irony but mostly is not, regards.

I did through three editions. I don't keep current now, and play Classichammer with 3rd Ed. 40K, and I don't see that getting a tournament organized anytime soon.

I won't travel more than about maybe 3-4 hours for a tournament, but I enjoy going to them.

I play dumb lists with stuff I like, so I'm not expecting to ever get to the top tables, but It's nice to get out, play some 40k somewhere new, and meet some new people.

On the weekends, I'll totally watch a tournament on Twitch.

Its funny that M:TG tourneys aired on ESPN2 (I believe, may have been ESPN proper) yet we've never had a GW tourney shown.

I don't have cable, but I've heard they've done League of Legends on ESPN as well.

 Just Tony wrote:
Its funny that M:TG tourneys aired on ESPN2 (I believe, may have been ESPN proper) yet we've never had a GW tourney shown.

Not really surprising. MTG has vastly more players than 40k does, and is a vastly more tournament focused scene thanks in no small part to consistent WotC support for tournaments over decades of MTG.

I'm more into casual play and I don't have any desire to join a tourney. However, I love reading up on the lists competitive players make and the results of their games.

Any wargame I play, I tend to attend tournaments. I just find that I understand the game so much better when I do, and get to see what people are playing, learn new tricks, meet like minded people, play all day and collapse afterwards. What's not to like?

Sure, you sometimes meet an a$$hole, but that's good practice for your character. Don't lower yourself to their level, and prove to yourself that you can be who you want to be, even when in the presence of a poophead.

Voted Tournament and Casual. I don't get to go to as many tournaments as I'd like due to having a wife and kids but the ones in my area are on the whole incredibly enjoyable.

However - I do totally understand the view from people who don't regularly go to them that they are full of "donkey caves" who are only interested in stomping you. I get the fear and before I played in them, I had the same thing. Will I be good enough?

So (plug time) I have decided to try and give back to the local community in a small way by setting up my own "Casually Competitive with a focus on painting" tournament... which is heavily inspired by the awesome No Retreat tournament that SN Battle Reports run every year in Gibraltar.

My tournament pack has a much tighter set of army comp guidelines to discourage lists which min-max and and encourage you to NOT bring a meta-list but to bring your "look at my beautiful mono-codex army that looks like a proper army" kind of list.

For example, although there is a "Best General" award, they are not the top awards and won't give the best prizes... they go to the more "Renaissance Man" style awards which will be a combo of paint, tournament and sportsmanship scores.

I am really hoping that I can entice the more casual and painterly people who aren't into meta chasing to come and have fun, and to make it so that perhaps a pure Necrons or pure Primaris Marines list stands more of a chance of having a fun time rather than being roflstomped.

I don't see the point, myself. I've been to a few tournaments for other games (Warmachine, mostly, and a Hell Dorado and an AT-43 tournament), and they were ... OK, but I came away feeling I could have spent a Saturday afternoon more enjoyably doing something else.

Wargaming is something to do with friends. While I've mostly played against decent people in tournaments, it's just not as fun without the banter. I also find I don't enjoy playing against unpainted armies or on crap terrain. I also don't enjoy the rush - hammering through a game to get it finished within the time limit (or the opposite - getting thrashed in turn 1 and then hanging around for a couple of hours waiting for the next game. I never understood why being able to end a game of Warmachine so quickly was considered a good thing).

If you enjoy that sort of thing, then good for you - it's a broad church. However, it's not for me, and I don't think it's a good idea for that sort of thiking to be the main driver behind the game development.

If I wanted to do something just to win, I'd pick something easier to get into than wargaming - Chess, for example; no need to paint miniatures for that.

(I can "be who I want to be", and what I want to be is someone who didn't waste an afternoon in the presence of a dill weed. )

Tournaments and casual - but only local tournaments which tend to be pretty casual anyway.

As a caveat: at the risk of sounding like a madman, I miss single elimination tournaments.

Tournament implies competitive while casual implies non-competitive, which neither is completely correct.

I don't play tournaments because I like too many of our house rules to play 8th Ed., but my group is both narrative and competitive. So I didn't vote.

No. I actually like playing games that require tactics and skill, which the 40k tournament scene is the opposite of. It's complete trash where every match is essentially decided by comparing lists, which generally consist of the same 3 netlists. Tourney players are afraid of competition, they're afraid of having to rely on their wits and tactics. I get it, you're there to win not to play so having as little competition as possible is the goal of tournament play. But I'd rather not face 12 armies that are all cadian cp battery + blood angel capitals, dark reaper spam, or mortarian + magnusson + cultists. I like to actually roll dice and move dudes on a board instead of compare cheese lists and know the winner before the game even starts.

I used to tournament. Back in the day when 4th ed. 40k was a thing, I played my tau. I was also heavily into the tournament scene for warmachine/hordes for a few years in mk2. Im certainly nowhere near a 'name', but did decently well to the extent in local tournaments that I have a few second and third place shiny medals and can claim a couple of 'scalps' of folks who later went on to win national masters.

That said, I've not properly tournamented in a few years now. Just kinda lost interest, and these days I have too many other life commitments to be able to give the time to tournament play to 'git gud'. I'm not even sure I want to anyway. These days, I much rather a more casual game, and definitely prefer a 'narrative'/'collaborative' game rather than a blind match based pick-up-game up in a store. Nothing wrong with the latter mind, just not what I want.

I was considering a tourney. I went to watch one. The rushed half painted models...the loud grunts from the players...the cramped spaces....the same army lists....the time limit....basically made sure I wont ever go to one.

I prefer a game at my house or a buddies with a few beers, chairs, no time limit, and people I know and I like.

We get competitive but also laugh and have fun. Done 2v2 1v1 1v1v1 2v1 etc etc .

To this day I still don't see the appeal of 40k tourney play with randoms in a store vs hanging out with friends and chilling with some 40k.

I wear all the hats. Narrative, apoc, tourney, judging... it’s just a fun game all ‘round.

Most games are great in all categories. I have found that the “TFG” behavior, when it does rarely show up, counter-intuitively seems to come more from the purely casual crowd.

Danny slag wrote:
No. I actually like playing games that require tactics and skill, which the 40k tournament scene is the opposite of. It's complete trash where every match is essentially decided by comparing lists, which generally consist of the same 3 netlists. Tourney players are afraid of competition, they're afraid of having to rely on their wits and tactics. I get it, you're there to win not to play so having as little competition as possible is the goal of tournament play. But I'd rather not face 12 armies that are all cadian cp battery + blood angel capitals, dark reaper spam, or mortarian + magnusson + cultists. I like to actually roll dice and move dudes on a board instead of compare cheese lists and know the winner before the game even starts.

So damn true.
I can already feel the hate