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WAAC/powergaming - they do it

Fair/In The Rules - I do it.

Actually. I am bemused. Because what akira did is actually what the first half of the thread calls COMPETITIVE. Create a list using legal rules, there is no rules lawyering or RAW fuckery needed to field that titan with reserves.

WAAC is a mindset and no LIST is WAAC unless the tactics that go with it ARE. Tailoring your list to face something you have preknowledge of facing however is WAAC because the tactic behind it is very clearly NOT to create a strong list that could do wel in a variety of games, but rather to create an unfair advantage against a single enemy you know you will face.. Trying to bend rules and ruleslawyer after a game to cover up your loss is the definition of WAAC. I couldn't win but i'll damn wel make sure you didnt either. And finally when your losing blatantly asking your opponent to throw the fight is beyond all semblance of playing a game for fun. At most tournaments you can't even concede a game to stop people from unjustifyingly placing higher because they were given perfect score they might not have gotten if the game was played out. Asking your opponent to take a loss because it will give you a winners place is un-sportsmanship like to the extreme.

WAAC is like pornography. You can't define it but you know it when you see it.

NickOnwezen wrote:
Actually. I am bemused. Because what akira did is actually what the first half of the thread calls COMPETITIVE. Create a list using legal rules, there is no rules lawyering or RAW fuckery needed to field that titan with reserves.

If you read the whole conversation you will see that Peregrine's issue isn't that Akira did something competitive, it's that he is whining about his opponent's doing the exact same thing as him (bring a competitive choice) and calling them cheaters and WAAC players, just because he is unhappy that they pulled the wool over his eyes when he clearly expected to do better. Simply put, Akira is being a hypocrite and Peregrine called him on it, and it's the right call IMO.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

NickOnwezen wrote:
Actually. I am bemused. Because what akira did is actually what the first half of the thread calls COMPETITIVE. Create a list using legal rules, there is no rules lawyering or RAW fuckery needed to field that titan with reserves.

If you read the whole conversation you will see that Peregrine's issue isn't that Akira did something competitive, it's that he is whining about his opponent's doing the exact same thing as him (bring a competitive choice) and calling them cheaters and WAAC players, just because he is unhappy that they pulled the wool over his eyes when he clearly expected to do better. Simply put, Akira is being a hypocrite and Peregrine called him on it, and it's the right call IMO.

He's not really a hypocrite here. Akira made a competitive list for the apocalypse tournament. His "friends" took list information from a discussion they had and tailored a list to beat it. The problem isn't that they made a competitive list (they should be it is a tournament). It is that they acted shady and betrayed his trust. Even that isn't really WAAC (he really shouldn't have told anybody his TOURNAMENT list), the WAAC part to me is in them trying to convince him to throw the game (they get the W) so that they can sneak into 3rd and a prize slot. And he did do better (2nd is pretty good IMO).

There's this guy at my FLGS that quits by turn two in almost any game you play if there is no way he thinks he can win. He tells me guard can have too many tanks, tomb kings are broken (he plays VC even), and my blood bowl gobbos are OP. I played a game of fantasy with him the other day and by turn two he was telling me that my chariots absolutely had to overrun when I killed his chaff in combat. I was skeptical, as I've only played ~10 games of fantasy, but I deferred to his "experience." He told me to do this because I would overrun into charge range of his zombie horde. During this game, he played until turn six because he was going to win. This kind of guy, while he sucks at tabletop games in general, is WAAC to me.

 ghastli wrote:
There's this guy at my FLGS that quits by turn two in almost any game you play if there is no way he thinks he can win. He tells me guard can have too many tanks, tomb kings are broken (he plays VC even), and my blood bowl gobbos are OP. I played a game of fantasy with him the other day and by turn two he was telling me that my chariots absolutely had to overrun when I killed his chaff in combat. I was skeptical, as I've only played ~10 games of fantasy, but I deferred to his "experience." He told me to do this because I would overrun into charge range of his zombie horde. During this game, he played until turn six because he was going to win. This kind of guy, while he sucks at tabletop games in general, is WAAC to me.

When in doubt check the rulebook. If he says anything just say that you are looking into it to better familiarize yourself and it will only talk a minute or 2. If time is an issue just let it go and check later. In the end, if you really don't like playing with him then just don't.

Like what ironwill said, what i read is that Akira STILL won against a list tailored spccifically to beat him. Infact I didn't see any whining going on and found his post to be a clear and concise diffrence between what is Competitive and WAAC. I simply felt bemused by the fact that people then attacked him for beeing WAAC for bringing the titan in the first place, when in my opinion your unit choices never make you a WAAC player, your actions do.

And what I am observing in the argument between them is that they are misreading eachothers intentions and comming away with a bad opinion of one another which i feel is not justified for either. Perhaps we should call this a classic case of not beeing able to see the intonation in which someone wrote their post in the same way as we can hear it when they speak?

WAAC players have basically made my area a GW ghost town a few years back.

The GW side of the wargaming hobby has always been a relaxing, loose rule based game for people to fart around. Power gaming on the customer's side has ruined GW gaming over the years.

Heck, remember my Dark Eldar thread I made here some years back? I made it clear up front that the point of my project was to play all the units and not be a competitive/waac player so that new dark eldar players can make purchasing decisions based on my experiences. What happened? The waac/competitive nut jobs here jumped in my thread and basically destroyed it. not to mention a certain someone who was jealous of my massive post count and did everything he could to derail the thread to get it locked. Arguing over the definition of a "line" for 4 - 5 pages, lol.

IF YOU ARE COMPETITIVE, BUT kNOW YOU AREN'T WAAC AND CONTRIBUTE POSITIVELY TO THE COMMUNITY, I AM NOT SPEAKING ABOUT YOU.

If you have the need to defend yourself in response to this post, then you are probably waac. You are the rotten core in the middle or wargaming that is ruining it for everyone else.

Thanks to the reasoned minds that see the real issue, as opposed to the people who think if I build, and use, and Imperator Titan I am WAAC.

"Whining' is a term used by those who have very little to contribute to a discussion, and intersperse the topic with descriptive adjectives they learned in primary school to fortify a weak position.

Luckily - all of the guys who I play with regularly know the truth, and Dakka is just a chatzone.

Haters gunna Hate..

But... Akira,

You got so upset you called Peregrin a troll and said bye...

Then you came right back and said something once he said something.

Then you carried on... As if you wanted to get the last word in...

As if you had to win the convo at all costs...

Hand making a Titan is WAAC behavior. It's not even a real model. You wanted to win... so you built the biggest silliest thing possible, probably at great expense.

My friend uses an Imperitor Titan (hand made), a few reavers and a few warhounds in his Apoc army.

He also uses the 4 FW greater daemons.

He could care less if he wins or if people list tailor. Even the one guy who dumped a fortune on Eldar superheavies to take the titans out.

He just like to build and paint things.

If you want to hand make titans and have a blast with painting a project that size, all the power to you.

But don't complain that your easy win button inspired others to try and destroy it.

"Hand making a Titan is WAAC behavior. It's not even a real model. " Lol.

Last word? x

 DeffDred wrote:
But... Akira,

You got so upset you called Peregrin a troll and said bye...

Then you came right back and said something once he said something.

Then you carried on... As if you wanted to get the last word in...

As if you had to win the convo at all costs...

Hand making a Titan is WAAC behavior. It's not even a real model. You wanted to win... so you built the biggest silliest thing possible, probably at great expense.

My friend uses an Imperitor Titan (hand made), a few reavers and a few warhounds in his Apoc army.

He also uses the 4 FW greater daemons.

He could care less if he wins or if people list tailor. Even the one guy who dumped a fortune on Eldar superheavies to take the titans out.

He just like to build and paint things.

If you want to hand make titans and have a blast with painting a project that size, all the power to you.

But don't complain that your easy win button inspired others to try and destroy it.

That's nonsense. He made a huge model from scratch and that is WAAC behavior? I can't even follow that logic.

Scratch building a large project is one thing.

Scratch building a huge death machine to bring to Apoc game with the intention of crushing thousands of points in a single blast is WAAC.

If you aren't trying to bring the heaviest firepower to bare then why waste time on building something like that. Just bring a real model. Or models.

"Just bring a real model. Or models." I assure you Sir, it is real.

How much can a Koala Bear?

I remember years ago when hand making stuff was revered in the GW side of hobby war gaming. Now it seems to be an insult?

I applaud your wonderful model!!!!

But, we need to be honest with ourselves here. If you want to bring a city leveling model, you are going to have to fight against something that makes the game fun for your opponent too. What he brings has to have the possibility of destroying that titan in combat, or do you expect the game to be you put one model on the table, while your opponent puts 300, just so you can sit back and remove his models wholesale?

I don't think, from this thread, that you nor your opponent's are WAAC players. You made a bad ass model, and your opponents need to have the ability to destroy it.

 akira5665 wrote:
"Just bring a real model. Or models." I assure you Sir, it is real.

How much can a Koala Bear?

Could you perhaps post a link to where on GW or FW I can buy one?

Sure.

www.youseemangryandneedtorelax.com

 DeffDred wrote:

 akira5665 wrote:
"Just bring a real model. Or models." I assure you Sir, it is real.

How much can a Koala Bear?

Could you perhaps post a link to where on GW or FW I can buy one?

Not a very good argument coming from someone with an Ork inspired name, given that Ork players had to scratchbuild or convert many of their models for years before GW finally released all the kits...

Deff dread. Again. Making a titan is not WAAC. Stop beeing the posterboy example of why we even need this thread in the first place. The acronym is self explanatory. Win at ALL costs. Merely bringing a model, no matter how good it is. is in and off itself NOT WAAC. Read his post again if you wil.

He says he spend a year and a half building that titan and took it to the tournament to showcase his hobby project. He didn't build it for the tournament nor did he make it spur of the moment because it was the current flavour of overpowered. Things that you pull out once in a blue moon fore the rare apocalypse games that do come around are the least likely things to be WAAC. Aopocalypse needs lots of space and in accordance planning. They are rare and just because of that your building a model thats a display piece for most of the year. A titan is ALWAYS build as a work of love because even a gakky titan takes time to make. Definiing a huge scratchbuild paperweight that sees action maybe once or twice a year is not fething WAAC no matter how bloody great it is in the game.

On the other hand his opponents are his 'FRIENDS'. Who deliberatedly took the knowledge of what he would bring to bring an army dedicated to sabotage his list and indeed him as a player in the game. Tried to exploit RAW loopholes to make the game go their way when they werent killing him as well as they planned. And then tried to get him to throw the game for a place on the winners podium they didn't deserve as he was winning a game stacked against him. Is just bringing a titan the same as ALL that. Really?

WAAC describes the personality of people who ruin games by the inabillity to have fun unless they are winning by a landslide and will do everything in their power to stack the rules in their favour no matter how morally questionable these actions may be. Please explain to me when and where you spotted akira beeing WAAC in the post he made. Because i don't see it. I just see people throwing the term WAAC around like candy against everything they find to be good. Heldrakes are WAAC, Vendettas are WAAC. Half the Cron DEX is WAAC. Nurgle oblits are WAAC. Wave Serpents are WAAC. Thats why there is even a need for this thread. People call everything WAAC at the slightest provocation and steer the arguments way ofcourse by calling people out on things that are absurd. Just picking a unit. IS. NOT. WAAC. Just making competitive combinations IS. NOT. WAAC. Beeing a poor sportsman that will continually bend the rules to the limits for every small advantage he can scrape together. THIS. IS. WAAC*.

*Insert obligatory punch to the face here.

That Titan is badass.

Sigh. This just keeps going, and people keep missing the point.

Building a titan and using it in the appropriate context (100k point Apocalypse games) is not WAAC.

Bringing a 4000 point titan (that should really cost 10,000+ points) to a 6000 point game and taking replacements to return it if it somehow dies is one of those well-known abusively overpowered things in Apocalypse. Yes, it is part of the rules, but if you do it you forfeit the right to complain when your opponents bring a counter for it so they don't just get wiped off the table.

Bringing a dedicated anti-titan list when your opponent is planning to bring a titan list that you have no chance against otherwise is no worse than bringing the titan in the first place. If the anti-titan list is WAAC then the titan is certainly WAAC.

Peregrine -Sigh. This just keeps going, and people keep missing the point.

Indeed.

NickOnwezen wrote:
He didn't build it for the tournament nor did he make it spur of the moment because it was the current flavour of overpowered.

Yeah, sure, it's entirely coincidence that he took the most overpowered possible asset to go with his titan. He wasn't at all trying to make the game as one-sided as possible...

On the other hand his opponents are his 'FRIENDS'. Who deliberatedly took the knowledge of what he would bring to bring an army dedicated to sabotage his list and indeed him as a player in the game.

You know why? Because emperor titan + replacements in a 6000 point game is so utterly broken that anything less than a dedicated anti-titan list is going to have no chance of competing. What were his friends supposed to do, just accept a one-sided massacre because building a titan entitles you to win effortlessly?

Tried to exploit RAW loopholes to make the game go their way when they werent killing him as well as they planned. And then tried to get him to throw the game for a place on the winners podium they didn't deserve as he was winning a game stacked against him. Is just bringing a titan the same as ALL that. Really?

What RAW loopholes did they try to exploit? Nothing in that story is even close to a RAW exploit.

And yes, they tried to rig the game. Welcome to tournaments where people will rig the game if it's to their mutual benefit. It's just like how in MTG you often see intentional draws because neither player wants to risk their prizes to play the game. This is the only thing that even comes close to WAAC behavior, and even then it's not like it would have cost him anything to accept.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 akira5665 wrote:

Peregrine -Sigh. This just keeps going, and people keep missing the point.

Indeed.

Hint: I'm talking about you.

Dude - I DID get beaten by a pair of VERY astute players who smashed me with ease with their IG/Vendetta skills. They used a smokescreen or something like that as a strategic reserve, and hid command squads in Ruins(I couldn't shoot at ruins ) they were brilliant - but not WAAC.

You seem to be looking for a win here - I am looking for one too - picking one of like 12 Strategic assets and using it? Maybe I should have gone for... um tunnels or something?

YES - it is a crazy ability - I have a 50% chance of having it walk on the board. I was playing for prizes and it was a substantial entry fee. NO - I will not take 'tunnels' or something to keep people like you happy. And NO - this does not make me WAAC.

 akira5665 wrote:
YES - it is a crazy ability - I have a 50% chance of having it walk on the board. I was playing for prizes and it was a substantial entry fee. NO - I will not take 'tunnels' or something to keep people like you happy. And NO - this does not make me WAAC.

A 50% chance of having it walk on the board that turn. Then a 50% chance next turn, a 50% chance the turn after that, and a 50% chance until you finally succeed and get it back. Don't misrepresent the abusively powerful combination you took.

And sure, you can declare that it's a competitive event and it's fair to do your best (within the rules) to get the prizes. But then you can't complain that your opponents are WAAC for doing the same.

Ok. Seeing as the points made by others seem to confuse you, I am done beating my head against this brick wall

It seems to me that the issue is that akira5665 is annoyed that his "friends" used the information he gave them as much as he used the information the TO gave him.

Which is to say that each assumed this idea would help them win, at the cost of playing nice.
At all costs. . .perhaps not. But certainly to the point where many folk would disagree with their assumptions.

Akira. First off, that is an amazing titan. Nice job. Second, I think you and peregrine have reached an impasse. You guys should just agree to disagree and end it because this will just continue to escalate. I am sorry your (former I guess) friends were distrustful with you. They made a competitive list (shadiness aside) and so did you. Asking you to throw the match to boost them to 3rd is in poor character is unacceptable under any circumstances.

 Maelstrom808 wrote:
Personally, my definitions are as follows:

Competitive - Knows the rules and knows how questionable issues are generally played (or will ask). Fluff means nothing when it comes to list construction and has no qualms about bringing the nastiest combos he/she can devise as long as it's within the generally accepted definition of the rules. Wants to win, but wants the win on equal terms in a fair game.

WAAC - As above but in any disagreement will push for his/her advantage, regardless of what is normally accepted or how they think the actual rule should be played. As long as it helps them win they argue for it. Slow plays when it suits them, purposefully distracts opponents to get them to forget rules or abilities, and plays other mind games just to try and gain an advantage. Very much in a grey area on rules, but doesn't quite step over the line to full on cheating. Doesn't care about equal terms, just wants the win, but doesn't cross the line.

Cheater - Flat out cheats. Either through fudging rules, points, dice rolls, measurements, movement, etc.

This may be the best post I've seen showing the gradients of WAAC, and defining them. Well Done!
I've got no time for WAAC players though I will tolerate competitive players if I know ahead of time what kind of game they want.

As others have mentioned, I would add "List tailoring" in the WAAC section, especially when it happens at the game table just before the game.

A buddy of mine showed up at store for a pick up game a few months back. It was one of his first 40k games (he told the opponent this) and he was eager to get his newly painted Dark Angels on the table. Other guy watches as he unpacks his case, then brings out a pen and proceeds to modfiy his list specifically to counter it. Pulls the necessary models from his large collection and tables my buddy. I had to explain to my buddy later that when that starts to happen it's best to either demand that the opponent play with the list he had originally or not play the game at all against such a d-bag.

Personally I believe (and I try to play against those who believe) that the best way to play is to honestly discuss with your opponent what kind of game you are looking for so that both sides have a good time. There's no shame in turning down a game with someone whose preferred game experience is completely different from yours. It's a big hobby with room for everyone.