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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






 Gert wrote:
Firstly you've taken the "buys more stuff" part out of context. A SM player will need fewer minis than a Nid or Guard player but because the Nid/Guard player bought more miniatures then by your logic it must be PTW. What my point actually said was spending more time playing games and money on a greater selection of units will give you a greater understanding of it than someone who's only bought a Starter set or SC box.

Buying into a "hot right now" faction doesn't give you auto wins, you still need to understand and learn to play the army. For example, I started Deathwatch when 9th came out and despite them being a top-tier winner army, I've yet to win a game because my opponent understands his army better than I understand mine. He plays T'au.


We are not saying it makes you auto win, we are saying from a casual PoV for most you are see as "that guy" move.

   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






As someone who considers themself a filthy casual, I think people need to not judge people based on the armies they play but how they play them. I'm building two companies of Deathwatch, one Primaris, and one Firstborn, not because it gives me tactical flexibility or meta gaming units but because it looks cool.
A "That Guy" move would be starting DW and only bringing tournament winning lists to a pick-up game at a local store while leaving all the models unpainted because the 10pts for painting them is inconsequential. Then a month later starting the next top tier army with tournament winning lists and unpainted models. Then doing it again and again and again.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/13 00:47:02


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






 Gert wrote:
As someone who considers themself a filthy casual, I think people need to not judge people based on the armies they play but how they play them. I'm building two companies of Deathwatch, one Primaris, and one Firstborn, not because it gives me tactical flexibility or meta gaming units but because it looks cool.
A "That Guy" move would be starting DW and only bringing tournament winning lists to a pick-up game at a local store while leaving all the models unpainted because the 10pts for painting them is inconsequential. Then a month later starting the next top tier army with tournament winning lists and unpainted models. Then doing it again and again and again.


Which is what i was saying. Some people see meta buying units all the time as "that guy" but not everyone is "that guy" b.c they buy a lot of models I was trying to tell the person above there is a difference in buying all options out of your book and buying meta units/lists.

   
Made in us
Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan




Mexico

Even if 40k was well balanced, the whale will always have an inherent advantage over the casual, if only because they have more miniatures to tailor their list to the meta or even to each opponent.
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






"Person who does thing more has advantage over person who does it less."
Well, yeah.
So that's why non-comp players tend to lean into the narrative or "the real treasure was the friends we made along the way" camps.
I'm not advocating that everyone should have an equal chance at winning a game. That's boring. If I only had a 50/50 chance of winning every single game then what's the point. Flip a coin.
GW isn't some super-villain, laughing maniacally because it got another player to buy into a top-tier army. They give you tools to play whatever way you want and it's up to you how to use them. Don't like the new Primary/Secondary objectives system? Don't use it. Don't like CP and Strats? Don't use them. What you see as unbalanced might not be the same as someone else. The most important rule is to have fun and GW encourages the use of house-ruling if you disagree or dislike the rules they produce.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







Believe it or not writing your own game because GW's doesn't work (or fixing theirs because it doesn't work) isn't a particularly 'casual' thing to do either. It's a lot of work.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




Tardy to the conversation, but I would say casual play isn't discussed much because there isn't much to talk about it. In my opinion, ''casual play'' is just playing for fun (so very low stakes) in company of friends or acquaintances. What is there to discuss about? Funny thematic list? Maybe. Anecdotes like that time, back in 3rd edition days when Kharn charged three guardsmen only to slaughter his entire unit of berserker and then got killed by the three guardsmen in a stroke of luck so epic, 20 years later, I'm still telling it. Sure we could do that, but that sort of great anecdote can happen in highly competitive games too. The unremarkable doesn't lead to much discussion. That's probably why the pretty average faction don't get as much press as the very powerful or very weak one. Same thing for average units. They are meh, so they receive a meh treatment.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







 Gert wrote:
...I'm not advocating that everyone should have an equal chance at winning a game. That's boring. If I only had a 50/50 chance of winning every single game then what's the point. Flip a coin...


I want to call this out as a moronic thing to say. Nobody in the world has ever advocated for a game to have a perfect 50/50 winrate independent of anything anyone does.

Occasionally people advocate for better balance because more balanced armies means that you actually have to play out the game instead of just reading lists and saying "okay, great, you win, you bought better minis" or "okay, I guess I've lost this game of rock-paper-scissors, same time next week?"

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/13 02:11:24


Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






 AnomanderRake wrote:
Believe it or not writing your own game because GW's doesn't work (or fixing theirs because it doesn't work) isn't a particularly 'casual' thing to do either. It's a lot of work.

Yeah because one or two house rules is writing an entire game. Wanna know how "casual" it is to house rule something? "Man this is a bit rubbish, let's not use it." "Ok."
Again conflating "casual" with "not making any effort".

Also the whole "read an army list and immediately give up" thing is so unbelievably rare, in fact, I cannot remember a time where I've done that or even seen it done IRL.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/13 02:34:20


 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







 Gert wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
Believe it or not writing your own game because GW's doesn't work (or fixing theirs because it doesn't work) isn't a particularly 'casual' thing to do either. It's a lot of work.

Yeah because one or two house rules is writing an entire game. Wanna know how "casual" it is to house rule something? "Man this is a bit rubbish, let's not use it." "Ok."
Again conflating "casual" with "not making any effort".

Also the whole "read an army list and immediately give up" thing is so unbelievably rare, in fact, I cannot remember a time where I've done that or even seen it done IRL.


"Let's not use stratagems." "But I like this one!" "Okay, you can use that one." "Wait, why does he get a stratagem and we don't?" Trying to propagate changes to the rules on the scale of "no stratagems" requires loads of work.

"Read an army list and give up" is hyperbole. Walk away from the table thinking "I/they should have given up after reading that army list" is about 80% of my experience of 8th and 100% of my experience of 9th.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
Made in us
Master Engineer with a Brace of Pistols





washington state USA

 Gert wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
Believe it or not writing your own game because GW's doesn't work (or fixing theirs because it doesn't work) isn't a particularly 'casual' thing to do either. It's a lot of work.

Yeah because one or two house rules is writing an entire game. Wanna know how "casual" it is to house rule something? "Man this is a bit rubbish, let's not use it." "Ok."
Again conflating "casual" with "not making any effort".

Also the whole "read an army list and immediately give up" thing is so unbelievably rare, in fact, I cannot remember a time where I've done that or even seen it done IRL.


Oh i have

If somebody dropped the 7th ed terminator/librarian deathstar on the table i would just put away my stuff and walk away. there is no point wasting my time playing against that.

I have also watched people refuse to play the all bike custodes list in 8th. especially after they experienced it once.

I ran into a WAAC player at my FLGS back in early 4th for a friendly pick up game. didn't know he was "that guy". he tailored a list on the spot specifically to defeat my army. the game was over on turn 1. I never played him again.

That is not to say i won't fight silly lists to see what happens at least once, but there is no malice in those games. i know ahead of time what i am going up against and that it is a gag list for funsies to see how stupid it is.

My goal is to have a fun time playing the game, winning is just a bonus if it happens.





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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

 AnomanderRake wrote:

"Let's not use stratagems." "But I like this one!" "Okay, you can use that one." "Wait, why does he get a stratagem and we don't?" Trying to propagate changes to the rules on the scale of "no stratagems" requires loads of work.


No it doesn't. Just a casual conversation with those you play with. I can easily imagine the group I play with most often discussing it & coming up with something that suits us all as we're setting up the terrain. Yes, literally minutes before the dice start rolling.
In fact we've had more in depth discussions concerning where to order food from week to week. Delivery/pick up? Who wants what on the pizza. How many pizzas & of what sizes we need to accommodate that mix of toppings? Ooh, can we add an order of_____? How we're splitting the bill this time. THESE are the complex questions that matter come game time. And we routinely resolve them.....




   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

ccs wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:

"Let's not use stratagems." "But I like this one!" "Okay, you can use that one." "Wait, why does he get a stratagem and we don't?" Trying to propagate changes to the rules on the scale of "no stratagems" requires loads of work.


No it doesn't. Just a casual conversation with those you play with. I can easily imagine the group I play with most often discussing it & coming up with something that suits us all as we're setting up the terrain. Yes, literally minutes before the dice start rolling.
In fact we've had more in depth discussions concerning where to order food from week to week. Delivery/pick up? Who wants what on the pizza. How many pizzas & of what sizes we need to accommodate that mix of toppings? Ooh, can we add an order of_____? How we're splitting the bill this time. THESE are the complex questions that matter come game time. And we routinely resolve them.....





Soooooo true....
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Canadian 5th 798035 11122567 wrote:
Why should the player who gets into the hobby on the cheap have a drastically worse play experience than the whale who buys $500 worth of models every month?


Loaded question. It depends on how you play. Your expectations need to be realistic.

I mean someone with stuff like Karols in a group like ours won't have anywhere near the issues they'd have in an extremely competitive group like yours (note: not a slur), or a highly toxic group like his (and I've read enough of his anecdotes to regard his local scene as pure poison).

Expectations need to be realistic understandings need to be grounded. One approach in all likelihood won't lead to a dramatically worse experience, the other probably will.

Now to the crux of the point -
Someone who invests more (in terms of time, effort, money, etc) will go further than someone who invests less. Even on the level of 'I have more stuff, therefore I can field a greater variety of lists, which keeps my interest longer.

It's as true for sports and real life. Why should someone who trains half as hard as everyone else and never invests in decent gear expect to do as well as someone who does? And I don't say this as a slur to either party.
I've ran several marathons and cracked a decent time of under 4 hours. My wife's bestie is a sub-3 hour runner. Top twenty female in a big marathon a few years back. Shes quite extraordinary. And fair play. I put a lot of miles into my times ntil injuries kept me away, and I'm proud of them, but she puts so much more into her running. I don't think it's fair for me to expect to do as well as she does when I'm "in on the cheap' in comparison to her. Now in terms of having a 'dramatically worse experience', I had and have different expectations and desires so no,my experience wasn't 'worse'. If I wanted to do as well as her with half the effort, is that a fair or realistic expectation on my part? At the end of the day, she runs faster than me, but I can deadlift a hell of a lot more than she can. And I can enjoy a kfc and a beer.

And that's the thing with the meta chasing competitive 40k scene. It's pure churn. Its like Magic. It's £££. You're constantly buying new stuff to keep up with the new meta. You want to play at that level, the reality is your expectations for what you'll need to invest need to allign with the reality. Its called chasing the dragon for a reason.Will you have a 'dramatically worse experience' if you try this on the cheap/zero investment? I think its unrealistic to expect otherwise.

And here's the thing with karol. He's a teenager. A school kid. When I was his age I had no money either. It was the bank of mum and dad, and things were tight in Ireland in the 80s and 90s. Xmas and birthdays. In my case in secondary school if I got good grades I'd get something too. Other than that, for most kids you're talking about communion and confirmation if your country is Catholic.

Karol is just unfortunately at the intersection of a lot of rubbish situations.

One argument that's fair is his army doesn't work well and gw dropped the ball. The other side is he got conned into a buy by a predatory and toxic local scene and the local.scene that he is aware of shows zero sense of community spirit or community building and is basically just toxic as hell. Karols own diagnosis and the fact he doesn't enjoy other aspects of the hobby doesn't help. Gw can't write for that! The other side is unlike us grown-ups who can easily sell something online, he's a kid who probsbly doesn't have a bank account or PayPal, so he'll have to wait a year or two before he can move it online, unless he can sell locally. At least here, 'It'll get better when your older' has some truth, even if it's not very comforting now.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/13 07:37:24


greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in ca
Stubborn Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant




Vancouver, BC

Deadnight wrote:
Canadian 5th 798035 11122567 wrote:
Why should the player who gets into the hobby on the cheap have a drastically worse play experience than the whale who buys $500 worth of models every month?


Loaded question. It depends on how you play. Your expectations need to be realistic.

I mean someone with stuff like Karols in a group like ours won't have anywhere near the issues they'd have in an extremely competitive group like yours (note: not a slur), or a highly toxic group like his (and I've read enough of his anecdotes to regard his local scene as pure poison).

Karol would do fine in my old group. We'd let him proxy whatever he wanted and encourage him to test out other armies entirely to see if any of them play better for him. Just because I prefer to play hard, doesn't mean I don't also want you to have fun.

Expectations need to be realistic understandings need to be grounded. One approach in all likelihood won't lead to a dramatically worse experience, the other probably will.

Now to the crux of the point -
Someone who invests more (in terms of time, effort, money, etc) will go further than someone who invests less. Even on the level of 'I have more stuff, therefore I can field a greater variety of lists, which keeps my interest longer.

The issue with 40k is that you can invest as much time and effort as you please into it and it'll all be for nothing if you don't buy the right bits of plastic. These right bits of plastic may not even be the most expensive ones, or the ones that were right for that army (let alone the game as a whole) as little as 3 months ago. Few other games have this level of churn as even TCGs often let staples last for at least 18 months and in MtG some staples move on to eternal formats allowing them to hold value even longer.

My group has stopped spending money on MtG by just proxying all of our cards over sleeved lands. I couldn't play my decks in a tournament, not that Commander is a tournament format to start with, but that doesn't matter because removing the financial aspect from the game has let my group explore lists that we'd never have purchased if we'd just stuck to a pool of cards we actually owned.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Canadian 5th wrote:

Karol would do fine in my old group. We'd let him proxy whatever he wanted and encourage him to test out other armies entirely to see if any of them play better for him. Just because I prefer to play hard, doesn't mean I don't also want you to have fun.


Apologies, I wasn't meaning to project negatively- truth be told I wasn't even considering use of proxies in my thoughts. I'm personally wary of proxies but I can appreciate the gesture. We'd probably do something similar, but probably lean towards trying to field opposing lists that are relatively equal in power.

And remember, according to some, any kind of accomodations on your part make you a white knight/beaten spouse and co-responsible for all the bad things in the hobby and isn't something you should do. *rolls eyes*


 Canadian 5th wrote:

The issue with 40k is that you can invest as much time and effort as you please into it and it'll all be for nothing if you don't buy the right bits of plastic.


It depends on how you play though. You're letting your conpetitive streak cloud your perspective. Plenty of the types of lists and models we build and use would be rubbish in your meta, they're absolutely fine in ours.

In any case as someone who loves the hobby aspect, even if they're crap on the board, if I enjoyed painting them, I still consider that a 'win'.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Few other games have this level of churn as even TCGs often let staples last for at least 18 months and in MtG some staples move on to eternal formats allowing them to hold value even longer.


Oh I don't deny the churn. I just refuse to chase it. That style of play is self destructive, I ain't got time for that! Its just not worth it. 40k and the specialist games are better in the grass leagues in my mind.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/13 08:28:44


greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Canadian 5th wrote:

The issue with 40k is that you can invest as much time and effort as you please into it and it'll all be for nothing if you don't buy the right bits of plastic. These right bits of plastic may not even be the most expensive ones, or the ones that were right for that army (let alone the game as a whole) as little as 3 months ago.


Exactly. I don't think anyone's saying someone who invests just enough to have a 2k army should get the same experience and results as someone with more choice of models. There's some minimum amount of choice/spend that it's probably reasonable to expect before you have a "good" experience. I think the problem is when people think it's OK for that spend to be higher than it has any reason to be, either because of high prices in general or because of atrocious balance and churn.

The two biggest problems we see in 40k, IMO, are the price and the balance. I've seen first-hand how the two combine to turn people away from the game. I've seen people invest money in Tau because they love the aesthetic of Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits, then get really disheartened when the models they've spent money and time on turn out to be terrible because GW suck at balance. These aren't ultra-competitive players either. They're just people who want to feel like they have some chance of competing with what should be a reasonable army. Other games manage to achieve much better balance and avoid the churn, usually because they're much better-designed games where skill matters more than how much you spend and how quickly you can put the new brokenness on the table. There's some minimum investment required to start but they don't usually end up with players having to spend large amounts of money to keep up and there are many, many fewer bad options that result in wasted money.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/13 08:31:52


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




So much of the GW ballance issues would be fixed if they let there game design staff have a bit of freedom.
With this new no model no rules, it really means the game has to warp around some poor fitting miniatures, and some get left in limbo probably selling badly as they needed miniature support for the rules to ever really be in a playable state.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Slipspace wrote:


The two biggest problems we see in 40k, IMO, are the price and the balance.


You Make some very valid points and you’re not wrong, but you’re also ignoring the third of the three biggest problems we see in 40k, with the third being the community itself, with its differing expectations and incompatible approaches, and more specifically, you often find the balance vampires of the communitys who are more than happy and willing to feed off of the imbalance and bludgeon others with it,which only exacerbates the issues. These are Not always bad things or deliberately malicious thinga done by bad peopleeither though sometimes they are. You might not be intending it, but not including community here is basically just a handwaiving away of our own responsibilities and contributions to the issues we all face.


Slipspace wrote:

I've seen first-hand how the two combine to turn people away from the game. I've seen people invest money in Tau because they love the aesthetic of Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits, then get really disheartened when the models they've spent money and time on turn out to be terrible because GW suck at balance. These aren't ultra-competitive players either..


I don’t deny this is a thing – gw drop the ball and they don't care. I’ve seen it myself. I’ve done this! Hell, I ultimately walked away from 4th and 5th ed 40k because my tau, despite how much I loved the look, simply could not compete on the level of some of the other codices at the time. But let’s turn this point on its head and look at it from another perspective. The players in your anecdote might not be ultra competitive players, but is it fair to suggest they might have run up against ultra competitive players or even WAAC types who ruined the experience? I did. It’s exactly what happened to me. Sadly, it only takes one WAAC player to poison a community and while anecdotes are not data, there’s enough anecdotes of this exact issue that you cant just ignore it either.

You can turn it around again and say those types wouldn’t be able to do what they do if the game was balanced, and you’d not be wrong, however I’d turn it around again and say it wouldn’t be an issue if they didn’t abuse the hell out of the sharp edges of a game - I’ve yet to find a game that couldn’t be gamed and was proof against these types of players – it goes back to the notion that a good group can work around bad rules, a dodgy group will abuse bad rules. Frankly, at the end of the day, I’d have lasted a lot longer in 40k if I’d ended up playing against more casual players than the hardcore iron warriors spamming tourney players of my group.

In my mind, and I stress this -you are not wrong in what you say, and I don't disagree, its just would add that I think your point is a little bit incomplete - in my mind, players and rules are different sides of the exact same coin, they can’t be separated and this needs to be acknowledged. Ultimately, ‘play with like minded players’ goes a long way.

Slipspace wrote:


They're just people who want to feel like they have some chance of competing with what should be a reasonable army.


All well and good, and again, you are not wrong, but are they going up against what can be considered a ‘reasonable’ army in the first place? Or are they being bludgeoned by bleeding edge tourney lists?

Slipspace wrote:


Other games manage to achieve much better balance and avoid the churn, usually because they're much better-designed games where skill matters more than how much you spend and how quickly you can put the new brokenness on the table.


Theres games that are ‘better’, for sure, but in some ways this is academic. ‘better’ is relative. I’ve yet to find a game that was proof against WAAC, or where net-listing and ‘crutch’ options wasn’t an aspect of the game or where the new hotness completely overrode the meta. You won’t need to look longer than 10 minutes online to find guides stating ‘take these, spam those, leave them at home, build your list like XYZ not ABC’. And ultimately, even if a game has ‘fewer’ issues, the nature of competitive play will always zoom in on those outliers at the expense of everything else. WMH was a far better balanced game, but it sure as hell didn’t stop epic haley, epic gaspy or Harbinger being a negative play experience for a hell of a lot of people. And churn was definitely a thing – my khador lists early in Mk2 looked totally different to those in end-era Mk2 or mk3.

Disheartening for sure, but partially an unavoidable consequence of the nature of TTGs – they’re limited systems.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/05/13 11:08:44


greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






I reckon the reason "casual play" doesn't get discussed more on here is that every time it comes up it devolves into the sort of argument you get here where people railroad the conversation into being their own personal anti-GW axe-grinding session.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Nazrak wrote:
I reckon the reason "casual play" doesn't get discussed more on here is that every time it comes up it devolves into the sort of argument you get here where people railroad the conversation into being their own personal anti-GW axe-grinding session.


A lot of the big issues with the casual play Dilemma is GW created.

Others are not.
WAAC is a attitude problem and doesn’t really have anything to do with lists. But can be a huge issue with casual play vs none casual play.
Net listing is unfixable as any choice in any game will effect that game in some way. And players can reach the same conclusion completely unrelated to the internet. To fix it would be to remove what makes the games interesting.
You can mitigate its effect with good game design pushing new players to learn fundamentals of the gameplay and picking units that compliment each other within a faction.
This also ties into a meta and not designing meta breakers in isolation. >.<
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

Casual play is actually discussed a lot on dakkadakka. If you join any faction dedicated thread you'll see people discussing about their own personal experience about their own real local meta. How to improve or simply a feedback about specific interactions that happened in some of their games are the real goals of those threads, and several posters partetipate very frequently. The 9th ork thread alone is almost 150 pages now, for a faction that doesn't even have a 9th edition codex.

What we're discussing there it's not just a flat analys about data that come from tournaments played on the other side of the world . Just read an article from a site like Goonhammer for that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/13 11:02:32


 
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




ccs 798035 11122744 wrote:

No it doesn't. Just a casual conversation with those you play with. I can easily imagine the group I play with most often discussing it & coming up with something that suits us all as we're setting up the terrain. Yes, literally minutes before the dice start rolling.
In fact we've had more in depth discussions concerning where to order food from week to week. Delivery/pick up? Who wants what on the pizza. How many pizzas & of what sizes we need to accommodate that mix of toppings? Ooh, can we add an order of_____? How we're splitting the bill this time. THESE are the complex questions that matter come game time. And we routinely resolve them.....


But then it boils down to, if you play with people that like you, you can do what ever you want. Fixs nothing for people who are not in a situation like that.


It depends on how you play though. You're letting your conpetitive streak cloud your perspective. Plenty of the types of lists and models we build and use would be rubbish in your meta, they're absolutely fine in ours.

And the this way of playing only functions in a situation where it is impossible for people to get locked in to a bad army for a longer time. If people own multiple armies, or even play multiple games. The risk of buying a less efficient army is a lot smaller. If your GSC are bad at the moment, maybe it is time to play some AoS with an army which is good and fun to play right now. It is a huge problem if you are locked in to one army, specially if even buying more doesn't fix the army problem. If someone imperial knights right now, buying 2000pts more of knights won't change the fact the army is bad in 9th. This , because of how GW implements changes, means that people who are locked in to one army tend to buy in to the stuff that is the best for the money they have. Which then generates a meta where people to have fun playing more or less have to buy in to what is considered good, because A no one is going to invest money just for 1 person to have fun B the person that does end up buying the wrong things will probably just quit, and it is very hard to sell a bad army in a place were people focused on buying stuff that works in general.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Karol wrote:

But then it boils down to, if you play with people that like you, you can do what ever you want. Fixs nothing for people who are not in a situation like that.

Yeah but then *that* boils down to "why on earth are you spending a chunk of your limited time on this planet making yourself miserable by interacting with people who don't like you, when there is no actual imperative to do so?" From everything I've seen from you on here, I really think you need to, at the very least, have a break from the hobby for the good of your mental health. And please don't come back with some sunk-cost fallacy excuse for not doing so (in fact, I suggest you read up on the sunk-cost fallacy if it's a concept you're not already familiar with). You don't even have to get rid of your models if you don't feel like you're ready to; just stick them in a box for a while and try and find something less psychologically damaging to occupy yourself with for a while.
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




Funny thing about that, when I was thinking about starting w40k, me and my mom talked to my therapist and he decided that starting a hobby would be a great idea, because I would be around people and my life wouldn't be limited to school and training, and that this was suppose to help my mental health.

Plus there is no way for w40k to be less damaging to me. Each day I have to look at my sister having fun with her tablet, which she bought with her confirmation money. For that not to happen I would have to move out, and that is not going to work, not with avarge Pole living with his parents till 28.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Karol wrote:
Funny thing about that, when I was thinking about starting w40k, me and my mom talked to my therapist and he decided that starting a hobby would be a great idea, because I would be around people and my life wouldn't be limited to school and training, and that this was suppose to help my mental health.

Plus there is no way for w40k to be less damaging to me. Each day I have to look at my sister having fun with her tablet, which she bought with her confirmation money. For that not to happen I would have to move out, and that is not going to work, not with avarge Pole living with his parents till 28.

This is exactly why I think, if you're not in a position – for whatever reason – to be able to approach it in a way where you're actually *enjoying it*, the best thing is to just take a break from it, and to try not to dwell so much on what could have been. Sometimes you gotta let those hard-to-reach chips go.
   
Made in ca
Discriminating Deathmark Assassin





Stasis

Karol wrote:
Funny thing about that, when I was thinking about starting w40k, me and my mom talked to my therapist and he decided that starting a hobby would be a great idea, because I would be around people and my life wouldn't be limited to school and training, and that this was suppose to help my mental health.

Plus there is no way for w40k to be less damaging to me. Each day I have to look at my sister having fun with her tablet, which she bought with her confirmation money. For that not to happen I would have to move out, and that is not going to work, not with avarge Pole living with his parents till 28.


Try playing some small solo games, like, 500-750 points, use books/boxes/VHS tapes as terrain. You don't need much space for small games, heck you can play on a bed if need be, I have.

213PL 60PL 12PL 9-17PL
(she/her) 
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




 Nazrak wrote:

This is exactly why I think, if you're not in a position – for whatever reason – to be able to approach it in a way where you're actually *enjoying it*, the best thing is to just take a break from it, and to try not to dwell so much on what could have been. Sometimes you gotta let those hard-to-reach chips go.

I won't, I wasn't raised to quit anything. I may quit w40k if GW gives me a year or two of fun, and then I can sell mystuff and forget about it.



Try playing some small solo games, like, 500-750 points, use books/boxes/VHS tapes as terrain. You don't need much space for small games, heck you can play on a bed if need be, I have.

Right now I play at a store with good amount of terrain, before I played in my original first store, that had good tables too. Plus I don't think my step dad would be okey with me inviting a 20-30y old dude to play in room I share. I also don't think that other players would want to come to my home, in the first place, I only make trips to my new store, because the old store in my town went bankrupt because of covid. There is no way I would be able to covince an adult guy to to spend time and gas money to play 500 pts games at my home, when he can play normal games at the store.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in ca
Discriminating Deathmark Assassin





Stasis

Karol wrote:

Try playing some small solo games, like, 500-750 points, use books/boxes/VHS tapes as terrain. You don't need much space for small games, heck you can play on a bed if need be, I have.

Right now I play at a store with good amount of terrain, before I played in my original first store, that had good tables too. Plus I don't think my step dad would be okey with me inviting a 20-30y old dude to play in room I share. I also don't think that other players would want to come to my home, in the first place, I only make trips to my new store, because the old store in my town went bankrupt because of covid. There is no way I would be able to covince an adult guy to to spend time and gas money to play 500 pts games at my home, when he can play normal games at the store.


I was suggesting playing solo games. Play against yourself. It's a bit different,but I've found it really rewarding, considering COVID and such.

213PL 60PL 12PL 9-17PL
(she/her) 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

Karol wrote:
ccs 798035 11122744 wrote:

No it doesn't. Just a casual conversation with those you play with. I can easily imagine the group I play with most often discussing it & coming up with something that suits us all as we're setting up the terrain. Yes, literally minutes before the dice start rolling.
In fact we've had more in depth discussions concerning where to order food from week to week. Delivery/pick up? Who wants what on the pizza. How many pizzas & of what sizes we need to accommodate that mix of toppings? Ooh, can we add an order of_____? How we're splitting the bill this time. THESE are the complex questions that matter come game time. And we routinely resolve them.....


But then it boils down to, if you play with people that like you, you can do what ever you want. Fixs nothing for people who are not in a situation like that.


The "fix" to this is to make friends.
Or at least be on friendly terms & be be generally accepted at the shop. I mean, there's a # of people at the local shops that I wouldn't call friends. But we're not real life enemies or such. Some might become actual friends in time, others never will. Hopefully none move into the RL-foe category. For the most part though if we're not actual friends we're just people who enjoy these games & can have reasonable conversations about what'll make for a better/more interesting/challenging game.



Karol wrote:
And the this way of playing only functions in a situation where it is impossible for people to get locked in to a bad army for a longer time. If people own multiple armies, or even play multiple games. The risk of buying a less efficient army is a lot smaller. If your GSC are bad at the moment, maybe it is time to play some AoS with an army which is good and fun to play right now. It is a huge problem if you are locked in to one army, specially if even buying more doesn't fix the army problem. If someone imperial knights right now, buying 2000pts more of knights won't change the fact the army is bad in 9th. This , because of how GW implements changes, means that people who are locked in to one army tend to buy in to the stuff that is the best for the money they have. Which then generates a meta where people to have fun playing more or less have to buy in to what is considered good, because A no one is going to invest money just for 1 person to have fun B the person that does end up buying the wrong things will probably just quit, and it is very hard to sell a bad army in a place were people focused on buying stuff that works in general.


Again, this is why it's important to form friendships or at least be on friendly/acceptable terms with the people your playing with.
This lets you negotiate more enjoyable games.
Yes, you might have a bad army. You might not have the resources of the next guy. You might not have the means to change those things.
But the others? They have a choice in how they'll play games with you. They don't HAVE to hit you as hard as they would were it a tourney.
So why are they?

At the local shop? We've got a high school kid (16, going on 17) very much in your position. They're all kinds of eager to play 40k with us. But they're armed with a bit over 1k pts of AdMech, mostly from a start collecting box I think, the copter thing, and a pair of auto-cannon armigers. They got this stuff as Birthday/Christmas gifts. They've got no $ to improve their force (they are getting a job though!) And prior to coming to the shop? Their only play experience was vs their brothers very similarly limited SW force.
But as is? They are NOT a serious challenge for the rest of us. If I made the best Necron force I could out of my stuff & only matched them pts wise? I'd table them on turn 2 max & with minimal losses. It'd make clubbing baby seals look like a sport. And if we all did this to them week after week? We'd lose them as a player (and the store would lose a future customer).
So we play team games. We handicap ourselves pts wise. We set up missions/scenarios where their AdMech could actually succeed. Most importantly? We gear or lists down. This is the person I pull out the Ophidian Destroyers & such against.
(Now if I'm playing my buddy Joe? He's getting something stronger than a squad of Ophidians. And when I wup him he gets to pay for the pizza )
   
 
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