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Like I always say in these threads...

Because I get to meet/socialize with lots of Lovely Ladies

Deffo for the bolter babes

Love the fluff it's a creative outlet it gets me away form the wife and kids for a while

I play to crush the hopes and dreams of people who think they are tacticians

To find my long lost father who was taken by the warp and sent to the 41st millenia. im going to keep killing warp spawns until the warp spits him out...

Well I started playing fantasy and quickly jumped into 40k. The background is awesome, the models are generally coolr and its just fun kicking the crap out of your friends!

And the trash talk, lets not forget the trash talk!

Wrote this back in March, but I didn't post it until today:

http://pokeminiatures.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-i-play.html


After a Warmachine tournament up in Madison, I was with one of my friends when he said something that made me pause and reflect.

"Felix," he said, "I don't get how you play."

According to him, I don't seem to get upset when I lose, and it just so happens that I lose a LOT.

So how do I play? Or why?



Well for starters, I just want to put it out there that I DO get upset after a loss. I get upset at the things that I have control over, such as knowing the rules or remembering that Bog Trogs can Ambush and kill the Hierarch Severius all on turn 2. However, a simple math mistake or bad dice? I can't get upset about that. You simply have to play past those things.

Secondly, any given game of Warmachine has two end-states: win or lose. Warmachine doesn't even allow for marginal victories or draws (in tournaments a draw after all tie breakers can be counted as a double loss). So any game that isn't fun to play to either conclusion is going to be not-fun 50% of the time. I highly doubt that so many people would play any game if winning were the only point to playing.

So where is the fun in losing?

German game designer Reiner Knizia often gets quoted about his game design philosophy, but I've never been able to track the source of one quote in particular, so I emailed his office. Karen Easteal, his personal assistant, responded with a quote that comes directly from the man himself and not any published source:

The object of the game is to win. However, in the end, winning is not important because in a good game the ‘losers’ also win.


How do losers win in Warmachine and games in general?

To answer this question, I turn to Mark Rosewater's three Magic player archetypes.

(Yes, that's Magic, as in, Magic: The Gathering.)

In his Making Magic series, Rosewater identifies "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike". Spike wants to win the game, Timmy loves the experience of playing the game, Johnny wants to express himself through the game. (These finer definitions of the three archetypes are covered in "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike revisisted") Based on these definitions, I definitely think I'm a Timmy/Johnny player.

How does this apply to Warmachine?

Warmachine's solid ruleset is based in a fantasy universe filled with tropes that many gamers are familiar with: Mining Dwarves, Imperialist nations, Secretive Elves, Religious fanaticism. In addition, many of these tropes are explored in different ways through the actual models. The religious faction, for example, has both lawful paladins AND secret church enforcers. Choosing to play means you are, on some level, role-playing as one of the game's factions.

In addition, the gameplay allows for different ways to approach each faction. Thus, if you want to collect and play the religious angle of burninating the countryside, there are models in the range that you can use to do so. If, however, you prefer running with an untrained mob of religious zealots, you simply select the models int he range that make it possible. Most of the lists that I plan out are based on the idea that you can select a list of crazy rule interactions that is a blast to play with on the table.

That doesn't mean I'm not trying to win. Winning and excellence are markers that I strive to reach. However, along the way I want to build, I want to explore, I want to play.

And that is why I play.

Originally it was for the wine and women.

Now it's to spend time with the resulting children