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Are you all for ultra competitiveness or do you prefer to just play with what you like and have fun! It's only a game right?...

We all, The Kimzi, like to play for fun. It's only a game to us. But we always lose, so maybe we need to revise our strategies...
We also like the word competitiveness, and are very proud of ourselves for spelling it correctly without the help of a spell checker.

Always for fun. I find the process in which people dissect a new codex / army book for the most competitive units and disregard the rest as a bit soul destroying and I didn't even write them.

The games are about tactics of course, but IMHO armies shouldn't be selected with tactics in mind. Strategy begins when you deploy your army and you make the best of whatever men/orcs/skeletons/elves/dwarves you have at your disposal.

Oh and those armies should look like armies, not a collection of wizard lords and monsters, but ranks and ranks of infantry... with the odd bit of insanity to add some character.

I play for fun as well but when you read all the articles on here you can't help but sucked in and before you realize it you're using your favourite guys because the latest thing is to use something else and I feel like a tit for it. So then I use the guys I want and I feel good again.

I think this topic comes up pretty regularly. I am of the opinion that the two do not need to be mutually exclusive, but if you want to have fun you have to learn to have fun (or find a way to make it work) both when you win or lose. It's not just about being ultra-competetive OR fun, it's about do you have fun being competitive or do you feel you need to play a different way to have fun. Just remember that your fun isn't the only fun that matters

I won't intentionally gimp myself but I'm not into the hypercompetitive stuff. If I'm at a tournament I'll bring a tougher list, but it's just a game about rolling dice and pushing toys around with your buddies.

Flashman wrote:Strategy begins when you deploy your army and you make the best with whatever men/orcs/skeletons/elves/dwarves you have at your disposal.

This.
We always pick whatever army/models we find prettiest and then try to make the best of things. It doesn't always work out but that's where the fun is.

I suppose I count as competitive, though I really don't care about tournaments much -I go to maybe one a year. I savor a hard-fought battle that comes down to the wire more than an easy victory.
I owe it to my opponent to do my best and give 100% to every game. That doesn't mean I need to be cutthroat or have a bad attitude, simply that I respect my opponents and recognize a one-on-one format as an inherently competitive one. If you and your opponents are equally skilled, you'll both lose half the time,(or tie the vast majority if your game has ties).

Relaxed fun with narrative preferably. Though I do like the odd competitive game as well.

I gave up on strategy a long time ago and just play purely for fun. If I think it would be amusing to send X unit against Y just to see how it goes, or decide to fixate on one rule I like and try it out... currently I'm trying to hunt down daemon princes with a big group of Hellions plus a stunclaw... I'll just go with that. Winning is okay but I just don't find it important at all, heck loosing in an amusing way... like abyssmal dice rolls... can have me amused for ages.

That said I do make sure my opponents know I play this way well in advance... I know a few who hate my playstyle and quite frankly I don't really like playing against ultra competative types... though that may just be the bad attitude shown by those I have met. I am almost stubbornly non-competitive though, so going to a tournament would be a big no for me. Some people like to play for the win and its not for me to say thats wrong... because frankly it isn't... I just don't play that way!

If it's anything other than a tournament with a prize, I'm an easy-going kind of guy. Even in a tournament, I'm only competitive against people I don't know.

fun > win any day of the week. if i get stomped into the ground/ocean/ether and it was a fun/funny/entertaining battle, it was infinitely more enjoyable than me having to purposely blow one of my own guys up to catch the enemy general in a blast because i couldn't get the general myself. Stuff like that.

Fun FTW?

I like to play for fun, but i'm firm with the rules, if it's a tiny thing like forgetting to shoot a squad and it's only his assault phase then thats ok.

At tourneys go for fun mostly and to experience other peoples take on the hobby, seeing many great armies is the best part about tourneys IMO.

Both, of course. No question about it.
I happen to have the most fun when playing all-out with someone of equal or greater skill who's also playing all-out, with well-loved armies that have personality and presence.
I'm a glutton, I want it all: A fun and casual hardcore-competitive game with a narrative to go alongside it.
A good general plays like his men on the table were real, and like his own life and livelihood depends upon his victory. A good player is someone who you feel glad to have been across the table against regardless of the results. A person who is both will give the enemy 100%, and still not be a jerk about it. And that's what I strive to be, and what I ask in my opponents.
I see little reason to choose in what is ultimately a false dichotomy.

I prefer to play for fun, but right now I only have time to play in competitive tournaments

Hi all.
It totaly depends on the game system we are playing.

Narrative co operative games are played as such.(Senarios and lots of narrative fun.)

If we use a rule set developed for ballanced compatative play.(The games systems that have provable levels of game ballance.)

Then we sometimes arrange a 'competative' game, to see how our strategc and tactical acumen has developed, since last time...

As long as the players agree on how they want to play the game , they can have fun.

deathstreak2000 wrote:Are you all for ultra competitiveness or do you prefer to just play with what you like and have fun! It's only a game right?...

I am equal amounts of both. I certainly recognize there is a place for both competitive and fluff gaming. I enjoy tournaments and playing at the highest level I am capable but I also enjoy playing story line driven league games and huge Apoc games. The key with story line driven and Apoc gaming is to be able to turn of the rules lawyering side of you who wants to break the missions and rules and gain an advantage and just have fun. Especially since Apoc/Planetstrike and most home/FLGS brewed theme leagues have a much better chance of rules lawyering your way into a win by shutting down a mechanic that should work but as written it doesn't.

That was me rambling, my apologies, I will summarize. I like both but the key is to be able to turn your two gaming personalities on and off; which isn't something we are all capable of.

Fun, fun, fun! I love the game, always play with friends and love the fun of it!
I have a buddy whom I always call to shout my WHAAAGHs! even if he is my enemy.
He just has the character...
So yes, it's all for fun.

I play for fun.

I will take what units i please, regardless of how 'optimal' they are , and take a huge dose of pleasure in downing an optimised list with 'garbage' units

Home games- fun all the way, with wierd house rules, talking in the general's voice on occasion and way way too much caffiene and sugar.

Tournaments - less wacky lists, but i'll still put my favorite units in if i like them better than the 'best unit' in that slot, and will usually run a themed list rather than a math-hammered one

I play for fun, can't play competively and if my opponent is competative or a power gamer just practicing on me I do little annoying things to get a little victory (hum an annoying tune like battle hymn of the republic, point out they're pathetic power gamers for playing me, fire jelly beans from my big proxy hellcannon at them lol)

Also in a tournament I play even less competively I just can't play competively lol. And i don't do any of the above in a tournament because my opponent is being so competative that me being laid back and having fun seems to annoy them more XD

I only play for fun, which to me means 100% full out competative games. I don't really enjoy games where people use models based on some internal aesthetic judgement that, with respect to balanced play, might as well have been random.

Beerhammer is the best hammer. Always play for fun.

Oh God... so we’ve replaced ‘I don’t play to win! ’ with ‘I only play for fun’, have we?

Both of these are utterly meaningless statements because the logical opposite of each statement (‘I play to lose’ and ‘I don’t play for fun’) don’t make any sense! Of course you all play for fun – no one plays to not have fun just as no one plays to lose.

Competitive gaming and ‘having fun’ are not mutually exclusive, and the more time we spend attempting to separate the two (and feel smug for not being a competitive gamer) is time spent making an ‘us and them’ mentality. I am not a competitive gamer (at least, not any more). The desire to build ultra-tweaked super-competitive lists left me over an edition ago. I only like making forces that have a story behind them, with my own characters to lead them (one of the reasons why I dislike 40K’s current emphasis on special characters), and playing scenarios that makes sense rather than having arbitrary win conditions (kill points... *groan*).

But I’m not going to denigrate those that want to play competitively, nor make meaningless statements like “I only play for fun and the power of friendship!”.

How about:

I only like to use an army and units because they look and/or the fluff is cool and it makes no odds being competitive any way cos I be Colonel Crud at army stuff but some people like being competitive and that is fine too

I think you can play the game any way you like so... mitigate any angry and ignorant posts referenceing my opinion by this fact.

For me ULTRA competative play makes the game less fun. for one, many of the codex are totaly unbalanced with each other. In fact i would go so far as to say that the only balance game of 40k is one in which you are facing your own codex, and even then the units that you select will have a major impact since some units are clearly not balanced when compared to other units in the dex. Therefore you can end up facing someone with no hope of winning and it would be less of an excersize in frustration to just pick up your stuff and walk away.

I also feel that since the game is not balanced nor is it desiigned to be a fair test of skiill etc. that the game should not be played as such. Its more about having fun with your freinds. Since placing an emphasis on winning leads to win at all cost attitudes, it can also lead to a more stressful gaming environment. which is not why i seek out a game of 40k.

For these and other reasons i dont believe in playing hyper competative games. Its more fun to play matches where your opponent and you are both cheering each other and really immersed in the game with less of a fixation on winning and more on the fun aspect.

One of my best recent games was in a tourni agaisnt a double lash DP list. My foe cheered and high fived me after a scout held his own agains a DP and a berserker killing both after three rounds of melee and winning the game for me. How cool is it that my foe cheered me like that. I gave him the highest marks as a foe durning that tourni because it was more like a fun game with a freind than a stessful beatdown.

Flashman wrote:Oh and those armies should look like armies, not a collection of wizard lords and monsters, but ranks and ranks of infantry... with the odd bit of insanity to add some character.

If that's how the game should be played then GW should make those armies good, so people will play them. But they make powerful characters and new, big monsters because they want to sell those expensive models, so as long as they're doing that then don't count on it.

Personally I disagree with what everyone else thinks armies "should" look like. It's a Fantasy game, if you didn't want to play with wizards and monsters then why did you buy the game? Aren't there historical games that would better suit your tastes?

When I play, I usually take the units I like and stick with it.

There's no reason that competitive can't be fun, and vice-versa. I don't always play to smash the opposition, but I don't take armies that gimp myself.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Oh God... so we’ve replaced ‘I don’t play to win! ’ with ‘I only play for fun’, have we?

Both of these are utterly meaningless statements because the logical opposite of each statement (‘I play to lose’ and ‘I don’t play for fun’) don’t make any sense! Of course you all play for fun – no one plays to not have fun just as no one plays to lose.

Ah, but that is not true.

Just because you "don't play to win" does not mean that you "play to lose". There are other possible goals of playing a miniatures wargame than to win or to lose, surely you know this?

H.B.M.C. wrote:and playing scenarios that makes sense rather than having arbitrary win conditions (kill points... *groan*).

I hate the new mission system so much. The old style with distinct missions (Take and Hold, Strongpoint attack, the original Spearhead, Cleanse and Burn, etc) made for much more fun games. My friend and I basically ran our own campaign using those missions before they released that campaign addon by picking the missions that made sense as we went.

I might have to figure out how to showhorn them into 5th edition.

The new system is (probably) better for compatitive play, since it mostly still just boils down to killing the other army while maybe getting a troop unit to a particular spot. But games lost their, I don't know, character?

I play for fun.
My ego doesn't require that I win at the wardollies.

My (little) brother was an over-competitive little tw*t and probably pushed me in the opposite direction as a result.

I take the units and models that I like the look of, regardless of how effective (or not) they might be.

I don't win many games, but I DO draw a lot of them - and to me, a tight game is a good game.

If someone hands you a win, it's no fun (unless you were the kind to take the lunch money from first year students) - and it's certainly not a lot of fun from the losing side, either (when their army is stomped).