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You're effectively working as an unpaid, freelance rules writer for GW. Why not just play a different game with more complete rules?

Speaking as the author of azyr comp - because there is no fantasy game on the market today that appeals to me.

7th edition - busted daemon codex aside, was too sterile
8th edition - i stopped liking it a few years ago.
Kings of War - to me is garbage.
9th age - too sterile.
LOTR/Hobbit - no players though I like it.

I do like games like Saga but there is nothing out there that really appeals to me. AoS was the closest thing. So I put the time in to make it work.


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Why is it either or? What prevents a Type A player from doing that, and being able to bring out the hardcore cutthroat lists against like-minded players, and tone it down/try odd combinations in a more casual setting?

From my own experience, because that would mean I wasn't trying my hardest and when I was that player A, I wanted a test of skill at all times. If either side is gimping themselves, I'm not getting what I want. I'm not testing my skill.

If you aren't bringing the "A" lists then to me you weren't trying hard, or you just didn't care about winning and I had no fun stomping you to death with my tournament list if you weren't trying to smack me back (and non tournament lists were not able to do that)

I didn't want to have to tone it down. That was stupid to me (but that was also because in my younger days I couldn't see past my own wants and things that attracted me, so anything that I didn't want or was antithesis to me was "wrong")

I will say I have seen many competitive players in person and on these forums and other forums tell other players to "sack up" and "learn to play". "Learn to play" was the warseer mantra for a while, as those threads were everywhere.

I do really like the point that Type A players are pretty much always spoiled for choice for events, and Type B players are not. I think that plays a role for sure in the animosity you see.

I know in my own area that getting competitive guys to not bring tournament lists to open game night is an exercise in frustration, which bleeds into the casual guys' games because the competitive guys won't ever bring something that isn't designed to outright emasculate their opponent (because they want competitive cut throat games).

Casuals don't go to tournaments usually and if they do they understand the groin stomping about to befall them, but there are no "casual nights" for them to fall back to. Even campaigns tend to be very competitive, I've found.

When you have no outlet really to explore, things can get heated. We saw that with AOS not catering to competitive gamers and the liquid white hot magma of rage that followed because of it. Without an outlet for a play style, people get disenfranchised, frustrated, annoyed, and angry.

Deadnight wrote:
Why does the competition have to dominate?

Well, duh. Competitive gamers are the one true stewards of miniature gaming and without their support, the games would die.




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 auticus wrote:
I didn't want to have to tone it down. That was stupid to me (but that was also because in my younger days I couldn't see past my own wants and things that attracted me, so anything that I didn't want or was antithesis to me was "wrong")

That attitude is what I don't understand. I throw games all the time. When I play games with my kids, I have to play at a much lower level than I am capable of - but I still have fun.

That attitude is what I don't understand. I throw games all the time. When I play games with my kids, I have to play at a much lower level than I am capable of - but I still have fun.

Different approaches, different desires. Competitive players are all about competition. Playing at a lower level is not competition to them, barring intro games with new players.

Its like playing on a soccer team or football team or whatever and not trying your best to them.

To player A - warhammer is a sport and is played like a sport.

To player B - warhammer is a recreational fun casual game.

When you mix the players its like having a saturday afternoon pickup soccer game at the park and everyone is for the most part just playing for fun but that one or two guys that play for the pro team show up and trounce everyone.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Why does the competition have to dominate?

Well, duh. Competitive gamers are the one true stewards of miniature gaming and without their support, the games would die.

Hmm, as well, I think it's a bit of a gamer thing too. A lot of gamers have attitudes that stink of entitlement. That they're 'owed' something. And shouldn't have to do anything themselves, or for anyone else. The fact that a small subset of players online generates such a massive volume in proportion to their numbers doesn't really help matters. It skews the narrative (hey! Pun!) in an unhealthy direction.

I was more commenting on the viewthat since something has a winner and a loser, then that somehow needs to define it absolutely and completely. I just see them as aspects of a greater whole, not the whole.

Here's the other thing. How often does a Type A player get completely steamrolled and tabled? How often do they feel like they had absolutely little or no chance to win? Usually since Type A players are expecting the "filth" lists, they are usually prepared for it already (e.g. think to themselves before the event "How do I deal with X" where X is specific filth list) so I think it's pretty rare for a Type A player to just get completely crushed in a onesided game, and when it happens it's usually because they happened to get very unlucky and come up against the "perfect counter" to their own brand of cheese.

How how common is it for a Type B player to get absolutely steamrolled with little or no chance at resistance? Pretty common, I'd wager, doubly so against a Type A player. A Type B player goes into the game expecting a balanced, fun, enjoyable game. A Type A player goes in expecting a cutthroat game, which to them is often enjoyable and fun, but has completely different expectations out of it. Also very few Type A players want to just obliterate an opponent that has no chance against them (and the ones that do are often also the Donkey-caves), they want a cutthroat game but a hard fought one. Besides, is it not the epitome of skill to win with "subpar" choices, to prove that it's the player not the army?

This is why I feel more of the responsibility has to be on the Type A player, because they often have less to lose. A crushing defeat for a highly competitive player is often not taken as badly (barring the occasional Type A Donkey-cave who is a sore loser and throws a tantrum), and typically just approached as something to watch out for (e.g. totally did not expect X Y and Z in that combination, but wow it was brutal, better keep it in mind for next time) but for a Type B player it's often completely demoralizing and soul-crushing because they aren't even in the same league; it's akin to a soapbox derby racer going against a NASCAR driver.

Besides, is it not the epitome of skill to win with "subpar" choices, to prove that it's the player not the army?

That tends to be where I come from as well. I wonder whether it due to coming from a wider wargame background first; mainly historical where it was probably a given you were exposed to one sided fights balanced by victory conditions, because that is what actually happened and it was about doing better than history.

I never grasped the idea that to show you 'wanted to win' or that you are the 'uber skillz player' you had to have some uber power list. You can be just as keen to win and show your ability by playing the Cooks and Lorry drivers of the logistics company as they try to fend off the armored spearhead that broke through. Set the win condition accordingly, so the armored spearhead is expected to quickly overrun with zero loss, anything less is an embarrassing 'defeat'. Equally your full time cooks and lorry drivers may find themselves facing the hastily raised raw recruits of the enemy in a somewhat more balanced game, but nether player has the uber list.

I think it comes down to the difference between seeing list building as pat of the game, or not. I see the game as starting on turn 1 and have never really seen list building as part of the game. Not to say it can't be interesting doing the theory hammer, and I often even write simulators to help work out a variety of stuff and discuss such, but I never really see it as part of the actual game.

Not that I'm into them nowadays, but going back to some of the earlier MMOs there was often these discussions as well - class/race X is overpowered, or another is the Gimp. MMOs have to be the ultimate non-competitive game that you can't win or lose as such (even death nowadays is nothing), yet it was (is?) still full of the uber competive players who seemed to want to make max level ASAP and refuse to team up with anyone playing certain classes for reasons of being 'sub-optimal'. For the most part I usually went for the classes rated as the worst, as presumably they would be where the interest and challenge was.

Still I find it amusing that GW consistently shows that points aren't needed. Their battle reports often kind of just agree what looks good and would make for a fair fight; see the September White Dwarf's AOS battle report (they chose about 10 units and 4-5 heroes each) and even this months' for 40k with Deathwatch vs. Genestealer Cults, they:

Before the game we didn't agree on a points limit, but assembled armies that we'd like to field, both of us picking three Formations from our respective Codex, plus a few extra units and heroes. As you can see [over the page], our army lists ended up pretty balanced anyway, a good sign that we'd be in for a fair fight.

That seems like the intended way for Warhammer to be played, not worrying about specific points but actually talking with your opponent to see what you field makes for a fun game.

You know they replay battle reports until they get the result they want right?

As in until the new army wins.

That's right. It's rumored they'll play hundreds of games until the new army finally wins. They then quickly snap some photos and write it up as though it were the first game played.

One hopes they've never thought of writing up whatever game they're playing with the result they want OR not even playing a game at all and just taking photos and "forging" a narrative by writing up a battle report that never even occurred.

hobojebus wrote:
You know they replay battle reports until they get the result they want right?

As in until the new army wins.

Funny because that's basically been proven to be BS. Like this month, Genestealers lost. It was close, but they didn't win.

I also hear they use multiple types of loaded dice to get the exact result they want and then they burn the dice to make sure no evidence is left behind of their heinous acts.

@Wayniac, I really like that they embrace that sort of attitude. I think players respecting eachother and the hobby is the best way to put the fun back into the hobby and what allows the models to be so unique unlike 9th and KoW's method of balance which waters them down into fancy chess pieces.

In response to why not use a weaker list to prove your skill:

Its about maximizing return while putting in little effort. If my primary goal is to win, then fielding a weaker list makes the odds of that happening smaller. I am farther away from my goal.

It isn't really about proving overall skill as much as it is proving high score. High score is what one is after.

Yes absolutely a person that gets high score with a "C" or "B" list is definitely more skilled than a person that gets high score with an "A+" list that takes advantage of bad points balance.

However at the end of the day, much like in professional sports, a "W" in the result column is really all that matters, and in an event winning the trophy with a "C" list is for all intents and purposes seen as the same as winning the trophy with an "A" list.

Its boiled down to just plain old winning period. You do everything you can to maximize wins which maximizes the cost of money and time you put into the event.

The game and everything else is second in priority.

Thats why you see people fold early on in games when they don't think they can win any longer. To them there's no point in continuing since the game is secondary to the end result, so to maximize return on cost, they'd rather reset a new game instead of play out what would be to them a loss.

To a competitive player, the "W" is the end result and the thing that matters most. (so long as you follow the rules, we're not talking WAAC cheating or anything like that)

Wayniac wrote:
Still I find it amusing that GW consistently shows that points aren't needed. Their battle reports often kind of just agree what looks good and would make for a fair fight; see the September White Dwarf's AOS battle report (they chose about 10 units and 4-5 heroes each) and even this months' for 40k with Deathwatch vs. Genestealer Cults, they:

Before the game we didn't agree on a points limit, but assembled armies that we'd like to field, both of us picking three Formations from our respective Codex, plus a few extra units and heroes. As you can see [over the page], our army lists ended up pretty balanced anyway, a good sign that we'd be in for a fair fight.

That seems like the intended way for Warhammer to be played, not worrying about specific points but actually talking with your opponent to see what you field makes for a fun game.

WD battle reports are known to be fake. They re-roll anything that doesn't produce a "fun" result, or even outright fake the results of the game by lining up models in a way that looks interesting and taking some pictures. And no, this isn't some tinfoil hat theory, it's just basic game journalism. You don't publish the boring one-sided games where nothing interesting happened, you post some idealized version of what a fun game in your system looks like. People want to read a story about heroic deeds, glorious comebacks, etc, even if it isn't 100% accurate by the rules. But holding up a WD battle report as an example of a successful no-points game is really not convincing.

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Still I find it amusing that GW consistently shows that points aren't needed. Their battle reports often kind of just agree what looks good and would make for a fair fight; see the September White Dwarf's AOS battle report (they chose about 10 units and 4-5 heroes each) and even this months' for 40k with Deathwatch vs. Genestealer Cults, they:

Before the game we didn't agree on a points limit, but assembled armies that we'd like to field, both of us picking three Formations from our respective Codex, plus a few extra units and heroes. As you can see [over the page], our army lists ended up pretty balanced anyway, a good sign that we'd be in for a fair fight.

That seems like the intended way for Warhammer to be played, not worrying about specific points but actually talking with your opponent to see what you field makes for a fun game.

WD battle reports are known to be fake. They re-roll anything that doesn't produce a "fun" result, or even outright fake the results of the game by lining up models in a way that looks interesting and taking some pictures. And no, this isn't some tinfoil hat theory, it's just basic game journalism. You don't publish the boring one-sided games where nothing interesting happened, you post some idealized version of what a fun game in your system looks like. People want to read a story about heroic deeds, glorious comebacks, etc, even if it isn't 100% accurate by the rules. But holding up a WD battle report as an example of a successful no-points game is really not convincing.

TLR It's tinfoil hat theory.

 Peregrine wrote:


WD battle reports are known to be fake. They re-roll anything that doesn't produce a "fun" result, or even outright fake the results of the game by lining up models in a way that looks interesting and taking some pictures. And no, this isn't some tinfoil hat theory, it's just basic game journalism.

Here's the thing.

I have taken part in one of the White Dwarf battle reports. My photo is in the magazine and everything.

You are talking complete rubbish. Utter rubbish.

MongooseMatt wrote:
Here's the thing.

I have taken part in one of the White Dwarf battle reports. My photo is in the magazine and everything.

You are talking complete rubbish. Utter rubbish.

So, let me get this straight: if you had won the game on the first turn (through sheer dice luck, failed leadership tests, etc) in the most one-sided massacre ever they would have published the battle report exactly as it happened on the table, without any changes at all to make it more interesting? I find this hard to believe.

 Peregrine wrote:


So, let me get this straight: if you had won the game on the first turn (through sheer dice luck, failed leadership tests, etc) in the most one-sided massacre ever they would have published the battle report exactly as it happened on the table, without any changes at all to make it more interesting? I find this hard to believe.

I imagine there is a great deal you find hard to believe.

Why are you so angry?

MongooseMatt wrote:
Why are you so angry?

I'm not. I'm just skeptical that GW would be the lone exception to what most companies would do with a battle report, in contrast to all of the other stories over the years of GW "enhancing" the games to make them more interesting for the magazine article.

 Peregrine wrote:


I'm not. I'm just skeptical that GW would be the lone exception to what most companies would do with a battle report, in contrast to all of the other stories over the years of GW "enhancing" the games to make them more interesting for the magazine article.

Well... my company has never done that with a battle report...

I suppose people also think newspapers and channels don't ever put spin and bias on stories.

Every word Fox news and cnbc report has never had conservative or liberal bias right?

The whole point is to sell toys so of course they fudge battle reports so the new shiny army doesn't get destroyed.

Employ a little sceptical thinking to everything.

First off, MongooseMatt you're awesome.

Secondly, what companies do you know that change up battle reports in their gaming magazines, Peregrine? You make it sound like common practice.

hobojebus wrote:

Employ a little sceptical thinking to everything.

I was there. I have actually done one of these things,

Baron Klatz wrote:
Secondly, what companies do you know that change up battle reports in their gaming magazines, Peregrine? You make it sound like common practice.

I don't know any specifically, but it's just such an incredibly obvious thing to do that I'm extremely skeptical of any claim otherwise. The goal of a battle report in a magazine is to be entertaining, whether by telling an interesting story, demonstrating and discussing a strategy idea, etc. If the battle report is not interesting, as many games tend to be, you don't print it unless you want your magazine to be the kind of garbage that nobody bothers to read. So you either play lots of games and only publish the one that was interesting, or you "enhance" the results to remove stupid mistakes, fluke dice leading to boring outcomes, etc. There is no way that anyone is getting magazine-worthy battle reports every time on the first try without having to play the game again and/or fudge the actual events a bit.

hobojebus wrote:
I suppose people also think newspapers and channels don't ever put spin and bias on stories.

Every word Fox news and cnbc report has never had conservative or liberal bias right?

The whole point is to sell toys so of course they fudge battle reports so the new shiny army doesn't get destroyed.

Employ a little sceptical thinking to everything.

Or instead of trying to wake up the genie, listen to people who've made batreps for White Dwarf. I mean, I was there too and the closest thing to dice-fudging we did was when I re-rolled a dice after it falled down the table (and to me if it doesn't fall in the table, it doesn't count.)

Lord Kragan wrote:
Or instead of trying to wake up the genie, listen to people who've made batreps for White Dwarf. I mean, I was there too and the closest thing to dice-fudging we did was when I re-rolled a dice after it falled down the table (and to me if it doesn't fall in the table, it doesn't count.)

So if you won the game at the start of turn 1, before your opponent even got a turn, because of fluke dice and a bunch of failed leadership tests too close to the table edge you honestly think that would have been published in WD? That they wouldn't have said "you know, this is going to suck to read, let's pretend that didn't happen"? You know just as well as I do that they would discard that game and print something more interesting instead.

@Peregrine, Sooo assumption and baseless speculation is the reason to call foul on GW...

I mean, I can easily see them redoing one bad game like the one you described to Kragon but you're piggybacking the claims that they constantly change results and that their games are unable to have a good first playthrough.

@Lord Kragon, I think he needs to listen to Wayniac first since he just disproved his "shiny new army always wins" theory.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Or instead of trying to wake up the genie, listen to people who've made batreps for White Dwarf. I mean, I was there too and the closest thing to dice-fudging we did was when I re-rolled a dice after it falled down the table (and to me if it doesn't fall in the table, it doesn't count.)

So if you won the game at the start of turn 1, before your opponent even got a turn, because of fluke dice and a bunch of failed leadership tests too close to the table edge you honestly think that would have been published in WD? That they wouldn't have said "you know, this is going to suck to read, let's pretend that didn't happen"? You know just as well as I do that they would discard that game and print something more interesting instead.

Peregrine, how many games you've seen that end on turn 1? Like seriously, aside from facing an A+ list with a VERY bad list I can't imagine such one sided massacre that would need a turn. But hey, keep with the dream!

Lord Kragan wrote:

Or instead of trying to wake up the genie, listen to people who've made batreps for White Dwarf. I mean, I was there too

Hey Kragan, which one were you involved in? Mine was a match up against Andy Chambers, Black Templars vs. Orks after Ghazghkull ran from Aramgeddon...

I've heard of one turn victories happening.

Once in 8th when a Bretonnian lord killing blowed a Slann that the opponent put all of his points into beefing up with some skinks on the side.

The other time is more dubious since it was a quick AoS story of one fellow's general being sniped with the "kill enemy general" objective. Though that was likely due to incompetent placing since they were both using large armies and he never described the set-up or why his general was so close as to be killed that quick..

Baron Klatz wrote:
@Peregrine, Sooo assumption and baseless speculation is the reason to call foul on GW...

It's not "calling foul" because I'm not saying there's anything wrong with editing the outcome of the game to make it more interesting. It's the obvious thing to do to make your magazine article entertaining enough that people want to read it, and GW would be pretty stupid if they don't edit anything. My point is only that "it worked in a WD battle report" is not a very convincing argument that no-points AoS can work because GW is never going to publish a battle report where no-points AoS leads to a one-sided massacre. Aside from making their product look bad it just isn't going to be entertaining to read it.


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Lord Kragan wrote:
Peregrine, how many games you've seen that end on turn 1? Like seriously, aside from facing an A+ list with a VERY bad list I can't imagine such one sided massacre that would need a turn. But hey, keep with the dream!

Not many, but it's possible. For example, it can happen in 40k if a reserves-heavy army (such as an IG air cavalry list with lots of units in Valkyries) loses the token units it has on the table on turn 1 (something that is very possible if the dice go badly enough against you), which results in the player losing the game immediately under the "no units on the table at the end of a turn" rule. And, for a less extreme example, it's certainly possible for the first turn to be such a one-sided massacre that the game is effectively over by then even if it takes a few more turns for the winner to mop up the last remaining survivors and officially win.