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Kirasu wrote:
As usual, it sounds like those who hate tournament players are the actual "toxic players'. I have rarely seen tournament players be so damn judgmental against players who prefer narrative games, yet the reverse is quite true in regards to those that hate tournament players for some bizarre reasons. I've always contended its because they hate losing and yet don't want to actually learn to play at the tournament level which is much more a WAAC mentality.

Kirasu wrote: I just have not seen a tournament player have spew such open vitriol at non-tournament players in the same way.

I'm sure there are as many reasons for disliking tournaments, and even tournament players as there are people who dislike tournaments and/or tournament players. I doubt it's as simplistic as 'they hate losing and don't want to l2p'. If one were to ask, the actual reasons (as oppose to projections) will probably range from polite disinterest in 'that kind of thing' from some towards full on 'nuke the site from orbit' from others. Don't be so quick as to throw about terms like 'hate' and 'toxic'. You're coming very close to 'other-ing'. With respect, while you probably don't mean it in this way, it's not helpful.

And with respect, it does go both ways. Maybe you've not seen it, but Keep an eye out, especially on the usual 'red button' threads like points versus power level etc., and you will see that it does happen - there are more than just a couple of posters who either denigrate or dismiss narrative games and gamers entirely, either dismissing their value by saying theyre just about pew pew noises or as dismissing them entirely as not being serious, or for serious people as well as posts that are incredibly judgemental and full of naked contempt against anything that isn't blind-match up/individual list-building-for-advantage, anything that isn't points-based, anything that questions points at all, anything that suggests or encourages a collaborative/cooperative instead of competitive-at-all-costs etc. Or that you should consider your opponent at all and should only be about winning, and screw them because despite this being a social hobby, their enjoyment/misery is not your problem.

Toxic players are toxic players. I've come across them both in 'casual' environments, and 'serious' environments. The trick is, regardless of where on the competitive/not competitive spectrum you are on, to try to avoid them.

 auticus wrote:

I dislike players that show up to campaign days knowing the game is narrative and casual and knowing that that is the type of list expected with their ATC/Adepticon/LVO list.

So, here's the challenge you're presenting these players. You're expecting them to come to play a game with the objective to win but not do too much to win but not have a clear definition of what too much is other than if they win all the games in which the objective is to win they probably did too much?

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth; more just expressing how the concept of a casual list comes across to competitive minded players. They're left in a weird gap where success breeds contempt which robs a lot of the motivation to participate.


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Deadnight wrote:

I'm sure there are as many reasons for disliking tournaments

For the record, I dislike tournaments. Being locked into play the same list multiple times in a row bores me, as I like to change it up a bit game to game.

Its an event specifically laid forth to bring casual for-fun lists.

Now over the years I have learned that I had to codify what that means.

It can be that just as tournaments are offputting to casual / narrative players that don't want to chase the meta, that casual / narrative events aren't really the thing for tournament players, and I think thats ok.

But beyond that, codifying what you mean (comp) goes a long way. For AOS that has meant that I have identified the two biggest things that blow casual lists out of the water and provide an alternate means of victory.

If they do too many mortal wounds or summon too many free models, the other player gets a sudden death victory condition because they see that they cannot achieve a nominal military victory against such a superior foe so they need to take their small victories (in the form of a sudden death victory) and run.

This has been immensely successful without telling people that they cannot take something.

It has also caused several people to have melt downs because the real game doesn't enforce something liike that (even though sudden death victory conditions are in fact part of the core rules for open play, which our events fall under open/narrative play)

Wayniac wrote:

And yes, the majority of tournament players do NOT do this. But it only takes one jackass doing it to completely kill off non-tournament games, at least from the public eye.

I'm not sure I understand your definition of a non-tournament game. I assume you're referring to games played with competitive lists outside of an event as tournament games still? If so, what about when two players with "casual" lists get paired up in a tournament?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I think I get your meaning, I just think the pursuit of "non-tournament" games ends up moving the goal posts. There's not exactly a utopia free of the tyranny of list building below the tournament meta; there's just a slightly weaker subset of overly strong options and Grey Knights that recreate the same divisions all over again.

 LunarSol wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

And yes, the majority of tournament players do NOT do this. But it only takes one jackass doing it to completely kill off non-tournament games, at least from the public eye.

I'm not sure I understand your definition of a non-tournament game. I assume you're referring to games played with competitive lists outside of an event as tournament games still? If so, what about when two players with "casual" lists get paired up in a tournament?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I think I get your meaning, I just think the pursuit of "non-tournament" games ends up moving the goal posts. There's not exactly a utopia free of the tyranny of list building below the tournament meta; there's just a slightly weaker subset of overly strong options and Grey Knights that recreate the same divisions all over again.

No, what I mean is that I (and auticus has seen this way more) have seen a casual/fun/non-competitive group be essentially devoured from the inside by one jackass competitive player going there and curbstomping people. It starts a chain reaction where everyone begins to abandon casual play to start bringing stronger and stronger lists so they don't get clubbed like a baby seal until eventually, no more casual games happen. It's the mindset shift. One guy brings Loyal 32 with a knight and 3 smash captains to "40k Friday" at the game store, and there's a chance that people are going to see that list absolutely crush poor Bob's fluffy Word Bearers chaos army and start a chain reaction of people bringing competitive lists so they don't end up like Bob.

That's what I mean. All it takes is one jackass to go to a campaign/narrative event/casual game night with a power list and utterly thrash someone for the entire casual meta to collapse as everyone starts an arms race in the vein of the old Looney Tunes cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd where they chase each other with bigger and bigger weapons)

no more casual games happen

More specifically, casual games will still happen. Its just that everyone in the store/group amplifies their lists so that everyone is running tournament-efficient lists, tournament or no.

Which for an optimizer is great, because now everyone is playing the same type of lists as they are and they don't have to deal with clubbing baby seals (being optimistic and not assuming this is a waac guy).

For narrative players, this sucks because the narrative builds are slowly removed out of the environment in lieu of the optimized builds, even though there is no tournament going on.

 auticus wrote:

no more casual games happen

More specifically, casual games will still happen. Its just that everyone in the store/group amplifies their lists so that everyone is running tournament-efficient lists, tournament or no.

Which for an optimizer is great, because now everyone is playing the same type of lists as they are and they don't have to deal with clubbing baby seals (being optimistic and not assuming this is a waac guy).

For narrative players, this sucks because the narrative builds are slowly removed out of the environment in lieu of the optimized builds, even though there is no tournament going on.

Yes, this is actually what I meant. You have "casual" games but they are all with optimized, quasi-tournament (if not full blown tournament) type lists. What dies is casual/non-competitive/non-optimized/fluffy/fun/narrative lists because inevitably those lists will get curbstomped by the people who are bringing the heavily optimized lists, and those people will either get frustrated and leave, or "git gud" and start bringing the optimized lists themselves to have a fighting chance.

The end result is you have a community that only plays tournament style games. Any new players are shown that everyone plays tournament style lists, so get into tournament style list building immediately.

That's essentially the physics in effect. You can attempt to find your own point where something is precariously balanced, but the physics of the system is working against you and all it takes is an outside force to bring it down.

In both cases though, you're looking to create an environment at equilibrium with itself. I guess I just don't understand the antagonism levied when that equilibrium is in line with what is essentially the game's natural state. I understand the desire for armies than are evocative of the fluff, but in the instance of 8th; the competitive meta is pretty fluffy; at least from how I've always perceived the world. I'm not sure what makes other lists narratively better and not just different.

Things like tactical marines and bog standard chaos marines being missing is one example.


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The next issue being once your entire area is chasing its tail then everyone has to burn and churn as new faqs are released, so if you love a faction, chances are its not in the top of the meta and you have to be ok with getting pounded.

This also shortens interest overall and you constantly need to recruit new people and say goodbye to those you enjoyed.

Is that any better than say, banning Knights across the board? You're still just removing something people love from the game. Standard Marines aren't really that bad and I'm not really sure how casual you have to get to make them appear. The things that bully them out of the game exist in the troop slots of about every army. There's no secret super powered model keeping them down. They work as a subpar troop choice still; you just can't take like 60 of them

That's actually part of the reason I'm really fond of soup. For the most part, its kept every faction at least playable as a part of an army somewhere. I love my Grey Knights and they're terrible, but a limited detachment can still be a lot of fun.

 LunarSol wrote:
I guess I just don't understand the antagonism levied when that equilibrium is in line with what is essentially the game's natural state. I understand the desire for armies than are evocative of the fluff, but in the instance of 8th; the competitive meta is pretty fluffy; at least from how I've always perceived the world. I'm not sure what makes other lists narratively better and not just different.

I think a lot of people simply don't share your perception. I don't know many players -- even of the competitive variety -- who would honestly call smash captains & scouts + loyal 32 + Imperial Knight a fluffy, representative 40K military force. Add some BA tacticals or other units and some IG tanks and support in place of the Knight, and opinions might shift as those elements start to feel fuller and more well-rounded...more like an 'army' or 'armies'. You obviously feel differently, but I legitimately have a hard time getting inside your headspace on this point.

Note that I'm not knocking competitive players for taking what's good. It's the system that rewards fielding cherry-picked, barebones mishmash combinations, and I think there are definitely players who are turned off by that.

 gorgon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I guess I just don't understand the antagonism levied when that equilibrium is in line with what is essentially the game's natural state. I understand the desire for armies than are evocative of the fluff, but in the instance of 8th; the competitive meta is pretty fluffy; at least from how I've always perceived the world. I'm not sure what makes other lists narratively better and not just different.

I think a lot of people simply don't share your perception. I don't know many players -- even of the competitive variety -- who would honestly call smash captains & scouts + loyal 32 + Imperial Knight a fluffy, representative 40K military force. Add some BA tacticals or other units and some IG tanks and support in place of the Knight, and opinions might shift as those elements start to feel fuller and more well-rounded...more like an 'army' or 'armies'. You obviously feel differently, but I legitimately have a hard time getting inside your headspace on this point.

Note that I'm not knocking competitive players for taking what's good. It's the system that rewards fielding cherry-picked, barebones mishmash combinations, and I think there are definitely players who are turned off by that.

The only reason you don't see the tacticals in that list is because scouts are a slightly more min-maxed option that fills the same role at a better price. It's a design space issue that comes down to FFG essentially making Tacs irrelevant in their own codex.

I get that my perspective is universal; I've just mostly experienced the 40k universe via videogames and books and such where the Imperium and Chaos and the like are more intermixed than what appears in codices. 17 tough guys behind 32 soft guys is the kind of ratio I expect (honestly, I'd expect fewer marines). I often feel like its mostly the result of GW selling players chunks of the Imperium as a "new army" to sell more kits over the years, because for some reason cultist/chaos marines is a much more accepted mix than guard/marines despite being more or less the same relationship in the fluff. Even a recent Frontline Gaming podcast lamented how cultists weren't a troop choice in the Chaos Knights codex because it broke their self imposed faction purity rules to mix them but it seemed really fluffy. Well, the official GW faction rules allow and encourage that mix because it IS really fluffy and I find that same mix equally how I've always experienced the Imperium as well.

Scouts are literally better than tactical marines though.... especially with blood angels. Scouts get a close combat weapon, so they can have 2 attacks each instead of the 1 each that a tac marine gets. Plus, they get the very nice ability to infiltrate anywhere on the board.

Tac marines pay more for less. It's terrible.

 Horst wrote:
Scouts are literally better than tactical marines though.... especially with blood angels. Scouts get a close combat weapon, so they can have 2 attacks each instead of the 1 each that a tac marine gets. Plus, they get the very nice ability to infiltrate anywhere on the board.

Tac marines pay more for less. It's terrible.

I've always kind of hated scouts. To me they fill the role that Guard should be filling in an imperium list. Unlike the way soup works though, because they fill the same slot in the same codex, the way they were designed just makes one replace the other completely with scouts generally taking the honors. They're pretty much my go to example of the problems 40k has with design space because they've essentially always been like this.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Scouts are literally better than tactical marines though.... especially with blood angels. Scouts get a close combat weapon, so they can have 2 attacks each instead of the 1 each that a tac marine gets. Plus, they get the very nice ability to infiltrate anywhere on the board.

Tac marines pay more for less. It's terrible.

I've always kind of hated scouts. To me they fill the role that Guard should be filling in an imperium list. Unlike the way soup works though, because they fill the same slot in the same codex, the way they were designed just makes one replace the other completely with scouts generally taking the honors. They're pretty much my go to example of the problems 40k has with design space because they've essentially always been like this.

Back in 2nd ed, Scouts had lower toughness and weaker armour. I never got why they changed that. But it does confirm the design space argument.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Scouts are literally better than tactical marines though.... especially with blood angels. Scouts get a close combat weapon, so they can have 2 attacks each instead of the 1 each that a tac marine gets. Plus, they get the very nice ability to infiltrate anywhere on the board.

Tac marines pay more for less. It's terrible.

I've always kind of hated scouts. To me they fill the role that Guard should be filling in an imperium list. Unlike the way soup works though, because they fill the same slot in the same codex, the way they were designed just makes one replace the other completely with scouts generally taking the honors. They're pretty much my go to example of the problems 40k has with design space because they've essentially always been like this.

See, this is something here.

Maybe for a "list" you are better off spamming cheap guarsdmen and tossing them into bushes,
but in an army, like space marines, these are a focused force, precise, hard and effective - different animal, theme, synergies,
and different ways to "win".

The best leader makes the most of what is given,
the worst, can't.
Simple.

This is to say also that I agree with a prior poster,
that scouts used to be more different, less hard than marines,
and so more clearly played a different role.
Also worthy of note is that cover and so on, line of sight and realism in general,
seemed to be more important aspects of the game back then, too.

With the way that so-called "competitive" play is set up,
it is not clear to me for which virtue the process is selecting.


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Snugiraffe wrote:

Back in 2nd ed, Scouts had lower toughness and weaker armour. I never got why they changed that. But it does confirm the design space argument.

And for me that the current iteration of the game is so broken
that I cannot bend my head enough to make it feel right.

We have a new Ward problem, imho, and it has infested the entire design team.
This is my only explanation for Girlyman and his flying tanks for extra tall beautiful people.

Unless of course the rumor is true,
that what the codexes represent
are simply the propaganda published by the Imperium
for meta-hobbyists to pretend is the truth.

Then, the explanation is that everything is a lie,
which is OK, sure, but that doesn't save the game.


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 auticus wrote:
Its an event specifically laid forth to bring casual for-fun lists.

Now over the years I have learned that I had to codify what that means.

It can be that just as tournaments are offputting to casual / narrative players that don't want to chase the meta, that casual / narrative events aren't really the thing for tournament players, and I think thats ok.

But beyond that, codifying what you mean (comp) goes a long way. For AOS that has meant that I have identified the two biggest things that blow casual lists out of the water and provide an alternate means of victory.

If they do too many mortal wounds or summon too many free models, the other player gets a sudden death victory condition because they see that they cannot achieve a nominal military victory against such a superior foe so they need to take their small victories (in the form of a sudden death victory) and run.

This has been immensely successful without telling people that they cannot take something.

It has also caused several people to have melt downs because the real game doesn't enforce something liike that (even though sudden death victory conditions are in fact part of the core rules for open play, which our events fall under open/narrative play)

This is necessary I think, a sort of handicapping system.
I am sure that math-hammerers can sort his out,
assigning certain units and combinations of units handicaps ...

I wouldn't blame all that much on the current team. Most of the issues are historical sins that get propagated because no one wants to squat models again. I pick on scouts simply because at some point someone thought Marines needed lesser humans that were already on the ground engaged in the fight and worse still, someone though Guard needed super soldiers that drop down in the middle of the fight and created Scions....

 LunarSol wrote:
I wouldn't blame all that much on the current team. Most of the issues are historical sins that get propagated because no one wants to squat models again. I pick on scouts simply because at some point someone thought Marines needed lesser humans that were already on the ground engaged in the fight and worse still, someone though Guard needed super soldiers that drop down in the middle of the fight and created Scions....

Why should models ever need squatting?
Dropping support for old stuff just because it is old is lame.

Scouts weren't finished, I think, they needed to run as scouts first
and then eventually could become full on weenies.

Wasn't this the original story about scouts?

And scions, I mean...
Shock troops are the lightly mailed fist of the ... well, Imperium in its local likely corrupted incarnation.
and useful. Important even.

Not exactly belonging to the same "list" from the start.

 Kirasu wrote:
I just have not seen a tournament player have spew such open vitriol at non-tournament players in the same way.

Really? I guess you missed the opening post, when it still had the facebook posts. Or, really, anything Peregrine has ever posted. Also, I'm sure, if you want, I could provide some links to some Warmachine discussions on playing nicely with new/casual players. Or, heck, what about the first year of posts surrounding Age of Sigmar.

I came to Dakka Dakka with the release of Age of Sigmar. It wasn't my first miniatures game, but after having kids, it had been about 10 years since I used to play Warmachine Mk1. I am not a casual gamer, but I mainly come from video games, and Age of Sigmar with, what we now call, Open Play was something of a revelation to me. I loved it. It was like playing Minecraft. If I felt like doing this, I could. If I felt like doing that, I could. It really allowed me to explore the game in whatever manner I felt. And let me tell you, coming in with no expectations, the dialogue surrounding Age of Sigmar in that first year was... well, let's go with "offputting". If you were there, you'd remember. If you weren't, you'd think my description of it was an exaggeration.

I was enjoying Age of Sigmar so much, I decided to join a local Warmachine group that my brother-in-law was in. The Press Ganger wouldn't play anyone without full tournament lists. One day, there was just the two of us there. I asked if he wanted to play a quick, small game (I only had a small army to play), and he said, let's wait for more people to show up before we start. After ten minutes of us just sitting there, staring off into space, someone showed up with a full tournament list and he played the press ganger while I sat there for another twenty minutes waiting for someone else to show up. There was no vitriol there, but boy did it make me feel like gak. And this was the press ganger - the person in charge of bringing new players into Warmachine!

And I know someone is going to come in and say, well, that guy was an donkey-cave. He wasn't really (though after that, I don't think we said more than 10 words to each other - our opportunity to socialize was basically destroyed). He was just rigid in how he wanted to play the game. And he wasn't the only one. I didn't quit playing Warmachine after that situation. It took more - a lot more - before I was finally like, "well, this just isn't working. I'll stick with Age of Sigmar and weather the insults for enjoying it".

But that rigidity is really the problem. Nobody has any problems with tournament players who can easily play casual or narrative games. The ones that take easy lists against new players, and make suboptimal moves to give them a fun first experience. People have problems with tournament players who can't turn it off. Who are all tournaments, all the time. The ones who look at a game without points and choose to insult the game and the people who enjoy it rather than simply going, "well, that game isn't for me, I'll go spend my efforts on games that are". The ones who go into non-tournament campaign games with a tournament mindset, and ruin the entire campaign for everyone involved. Nobody has a problem with playing tournament style, they have a problem with the rigidity of the tournament mindset.

It's just a question of design priorities and constraints. Dropping support for old stuff is lame, but so is not finding a useful place for things when you do updates. Everyone wants everything playable but when design gets spread too thin, you end up with huge backlogs of models with no real niche to fill.

I think a lot of those kind of redundant models can just share rules. If scouts went away and just became different models for Tacs? Doesn't bother me.

This whole thread is basically about people being upset that any random set of models doesn't necessarily form a competitive list. That's sort of an inevitable outcome when you have enough stuff in a single faction to fill out a 2000 point list 5 times over and only gets worse as more stuff gets added. Codices are like anything. You get what you need, you get some variety, and then you're just getting more stuff than you can use. Sooner or later you just need to get rid of some things or you're just hording.

I don't want a random set of models forming a competitive list.

I want the games that I play to reflect the narrative.

The game can reflect the narrative, but because of GW's poor design ethos, both players have to agree to do so.

If I were going to play competitively or at the tournament level, I wouldn't expect anything less of my opponent than to min/max to the best of their ability, because thats the point of playing that way.

40k and AOS are also the only games that I play where this is an issue.

I guess I don't see what doesn't reflect the narrative, at least any more than other games. What issues do you have with tournament lists that you don't see in the tournament lists for other systems?

Ive explained in depth over the course of several pages.

 auticus wrote:
I think its more they hate playing a one-sided game where the winner is already determined because their opponent won't tone the power of their list down, thrusting the complete onus on the narrative/casual player to collect and chase the power meta to have good games along with the tournament players that already gladly do this.

Which takes us down the road of GW and GW inept balancing is the root of the problem.

I don't hate tournament players.

I dislike players that show up to campaign days knowing the game is narrative and casual and knowing that that is the type of list expected with their ATC/Adepticon/LVO list.

I certainly don't hate tournament players going to tournaments and playing with tournament lists. That is expected.

If they're playing in a campaign... tell them to feth off.

 auticus wrote:
Ive explained in depth over the course of several pages.

I think its pretty clear GW would be happy to see marines placed with the truescale counterparts. I think that's likely how they'd like to see the fluff perceived going forward and are trying to do so without either forcing people to buy the new models or get away with not buying the new stuff. Next edition they'll give Tacs rules that only work while hopping on one foot or something until they can shame them out of everyone's collections.

The discussion in this thread has been excellent. Feel like I've learned something about how different kinds of players value different things and what that means for a game design. Thanks to everyone who's participated so far.

 Sqorgar wrote:
But that rigidity is really the problem. Nobody has any problems with tournament players who can easily play casual or narrative games. The ones that take easy lists against new players, and make suboptimal moves to give them a fun first experience. People have problems with tournament players who can't turn it off. Who are all tournaments, all the time. The ones who look at a game without points and choose to insult the game and the people who enjoy it rather than simply going, "well, that game isn't for me, I'll go spend my efforts on games that are". The ones who go into non-tournament campaign games with a tournament mindset, and ruin the entire campaign for everyone involved. Nobody has a problem with playing tournament style, they have a problem with the rigidity of the tournament mindset.

This right here, 100%. I notice a big difference culturally as well. The UK tournament guys (including the guys on the GW design team) seem to enjoy all aspects of the game, and can equally show up to club night with some unoptimized fluffy list that they think would be fun or a no-holds-barred tournament list tuned to win SCGT or whatever other big names UK/European tournament. They don't disparage others who dislike fluffy lists or optimization, and they don't disparage people who like Open Play or Power Level or picking what they think is cool. They can play both.

Compare that with the US mentality: It's usually playing to win, all the time. There is no "turn off". There is no "Maybe I won't min/max everything" although there are varying degrees of that (you have people who always bring their LVO list, and some who know when to tone it down a bit) but there is a very strong "This is how I enjoy the game, and this is the ONLY way I enjoy the game, so I will never deviate from it ever" that cause the issues even if they don't think they are.

That right there, I think, is the core of the issue. Some competitive players cannot ever do anything but competitive. They'll go to a campaign, or an escalation league, or a narrative event with a competitive army, stomp face and then wonder why they get gak for "ruining" the experience by bringing the optimal list. They'll go off on the idea that they shouldn't "dumb down" their list, everyone else should "git gud" and make better lists and have no concept of doing anything except building the best list. The sort of person who made up boogeymen during Open Play AOS about "10 Nagashes" or whatever horsegak as "proof" that Open Play was busted, because without rules to stop people from being donkey caves, they'll be donkey caves, and scoffs at the very idea of talking to your opponent before a game other than "2000 points, Eternal War?" as the most conversation.

 slave.entity wrote:
The discussion in this thread has been excellent. Feel like I've learned something about how different kinds of players value different things and what that means for a game design. Thanks to everyone who's participated so far.

Big fan of the civil differences of opinion.

Yeah this thread has surprised me. There have only been a few trolling attempts to get someone to emotionally go off, and those have been curtailed pretty well.

Those are the best discussions. Where we can all find at least perspective.

Compare that with the US mentality: It's usually playing to win, all the time. There is no "turn off". There is no "Maybe I won't min/max everything" although there are varying degrees of that (you have people who always bring their LVO list, and some who know when to tone it down a bit) but there is a very strong "This is how I enjoy the game, and this is the ONLY way I enjoy the game, so I will never deviate from it ever" that cause the issues even if they don't think they are.

That right there, I think, is the core of the issue. Some competitive players cannot ever do anything but competitive. They'll go to a campaign, or an escalation league, or a narrative event with a competitive army, stomp face and then wonder why they get gak for "ruining" the experience by bringing the optimal list. They'll go off on the idea that they shouldn't "dumb down" their list, everyone else should "git gud" and make better lists and have no concept of doing anything except building the best list. The sort of person who made up boogeymen during Open Play AOS about "10 Nagashes" or whatever horsegak as "proof" that Open Play was busted, because without rules to stop people from being donkey caves, they'll be donkey caves, and scoffs at the very idea of talking to your opponent before a game other than "2000 points, Eternal War?" as the most conversation.

I'll agree to that. I've been part of the competitive community for over 15 years but also a huge narrative person that creates my own fluff based campaigns. I certainly see a lot of tournament only players that simply play to win, which is astounding to me because 40k is a pretty awful competitively balanced game ;p If I didn't enjoy the painting and fluff aspect i don't know how I'd deal with the rules being always in shambles. On the flip side, over the decades I've seen the same type of mentality from non-tournament players who want to win but just can't for whatever reason.

I suppose the point of the matter is, there is a type of personality that I'm gonna guess is basically the same on each side of the coin. The inability to adapt their game play and an inflexible thinking pattern create poor gaming experiences.