Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

First off I know this type of subject in a forum can eventually lead to some really bad witch hunts. So, thank you to those who are constructive in their comments. If you can't be constructive or friendly in your response, I don't need to hear from you. move along we don't need a flame war.

Perceptions: There is body language and other thing that don't translate well when explaining what I observed. Along with my own bias of what happened, however I will attempt to be as neutral and unbiased as I can.

Who I am: I want everyone to bring thier A game when they play me if you want a toned down fight because you trying new things let me know. Othewise, I want to to bring it. when teaching newbies I tend to take mirror image stuff. (if you have 1 HQ and 2 Troop then thats what i'll play 1HQ 2 Troop) I not the type of super bubbly, always jumping around, fun to the max person, I'm a chess player at heart I'm quiet and calculating during the match. I will observe your hands and models as you move them and look you in the eye. I have notice with this new younger generation gets nervous when I do that. So, I keep it to a minimum. I'm not challenging you to a fight just, something I was taught. Look at a persons eyes when you talk to them.


My current gaming attitude: So, with the, IMHO, the crap rules for 40K and the possible impending doom of Fantasy. I find myself not caring to take them seriously any longer, but I still like to go to tournaments. Thus, I decided to use it as a pretext to lose my power gamer status. I'm not sure how I got this, since I refuse to play Meta lists. I've had Eldar since 3rd edition so is it really my fault they are hot now, is it?

My last team tourney list is below. My partner was Dark Eldar, but we didn't plan on teaming up, we both just didn't have partners when we showed up, and everyone else already teamed up.

Farseer on foot
warlock on foot
20 Guardians on foot with 2 brightlances
5 dire avengers in wave serpent
5 fire dragons in wave serpent

I was informed it was a Meta list....HUH! Other than the 2 wave serpents, exactly how many Guardian blob squads do you see at events? A week later a few whispers trickled back to me that is was cheesy list. Maybe it was the fact I used telepathy and got Invisibility? I don't know. Mind you the winners: dual flyrant with crone and some new giant monster nid that I can't remember, the partner alpha strike Grey Knights list.....W.T. !@%$. I was befuddled as to why I received this feedback and the winners where give a thumbs up on their list.


So I adjusted,

Last 40K event was singles so I rolled with a Choas Marines: no Hell Turkey's, no Mauler things, and no vehicles. Just 1000 points of 5 combi-termies, sorcerer lord, 3 oblits, 10 generic space marines, and one khorne unit of 10 troops not berserkers. I thought this was a fairly friendly list. I got rolled the first 2 rounds, but I won the 3rd against a Deathwing list. Each match I smiled and chatted as I got my face punched in by daemons and then Wave Serpents.

The Eldar player got upset when I forfeited on turn 4. I had only 4 terminators left with max shooting range 24, they had got misplaced on the deep strike. My opponent had 3 wave serpents. I looked at my opponent and told him 'dude you get a massacre either way'. 'I don't have a shot and you get to hit me from any distance you want'. 'Eventually I'll fail saves'. It was pointless for me to foot slog into him at this point, since I can't catch him. He grimaced and said he now felt bad. I guess, I made him feel bad because I forfeited. I certainly didn't take getting face pounded personally I expected it to happen against his list. I was just curious as to how I played that list in round 2 after being pummeled by daemons.

The Deathwing player was nice and polite but I could tell he didn't have fun, I'm not sure why. My results were luck, although a counter deep strike worked more in my favor than his. I suspect it may have been my stigma as a power gamer that affected this but I’m not sure.


I've tried to ask the other players about it but they don't want to comment.

So what do you all think?

EDIT: one unit was fire dragons

Your armies dont look nor sound cheesy.
Being brutal, is it your attitude? How do you communicate with opponents, whats your body language like, do you win graciously, do you try and bring a bit of fun or banter to the game, do you make comment unpleasantly or condescendingly to opponents, do you get a good sportsmanship score etc.

If your answers are on the negative side, then your lists aint the problem.

Perhaps is the way you play, do you bend the rules? Try to bring up rules that may benefit the opponent if they happens to forget or a noob. I know I would not have fun gaming with a rule lawyer.

Need more information on how you play, how you interact with others, how you carry yourself.

What else do you like about your armies? If you want to lose the power-gamer tag I suggest shifting the goalposts on what you consider a win.

For example, on a recent trip to Warhammer World I had a game with a friend and I played an all Lone Wolf list for fun and did the best I could with it. I lost by 1 or 2 points and had a fun game. I enjoyed the challenge of even trying to make it work, and I think my friend enjoyed the fact that he probably would never play a list like that again.

Restricting yourself like that is a great way to test your strategy in this game, which I think is more balanced than it is given credit for, especially as more and more books get updated from 6th.

With regards to the Eldar player, IMO it's anti-fun to call a game unless there are time restraints, but I can fully understand why you might want to make that call.

I find that
1) Dont get mad when things dont go your way.

Make jokes or a silly little short snips about wtf just happend. it breaks le ice.

2) Dont get overly concerned with rules. IF you are competitive in any way you should already know how all the rules should interact. but if you know there is a dodgy area, ether quickly 4+ it and move or concede and move on unless it involved the opponent cheating.

Ether way it rolls you should be good enough to win without that advantage or whatever

3) Avoid time wasting. Personally i find that i let my opponent count out units under templates and things like that so we do not aruge.

Basically if you are the kinda opponent you can get a quick fairly fair game in with no real snags people will keep playing with you.

If you sit there and make a fethin scene people will avoid you.

 Ratius wrote:
Your armies dont look nor sound cheesy.
Being brutal, is it your attitude? How do you communicate with opponents, whats your body language like, do you win graciously, do you try and bring a bit of fun or banter to the game, do you make comment unpleasantly or condescendingly to opponents, do you get a good sportsmanship score etc.

If your answers are on the negative side, then your lists aint the problem.

I had considered that. Too be honest I'm not sure how to answer any of them. I am normally a quiet person and breaking out of that habit is not easy. I do have a feeling my quiteness does make people uneasy. It tends make the games quiet and methodic. When I am engaged by and oppoenent I talk readily to them. I will admit I'm not an extrovert, I lean more towards being an introvert but I don't think I'm and extreme one.

I open a game with a introduction and handshake and win or lose I try to say good game and shake hands.


Last year at adepticon my second player really was not having fun. On turn 2 so I ask to go to the bathroom. I didn't need to go I just want to give him a few seconds so I grabbed 4 beers handed him 2 sat down. He said "thanks, your turn", I replied 'lets take a minute and just have a drink'. Halfway through his first beer he relaxed and opened up started talking. To be honest with my quiet nature either he would have to talk or noone would. ended up a pleasant match.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Mac wrote:
Perhaps is the way you play, do you bend the rules? Try to bring up rules that may benefit the opponent if they happens to forget or a noob. I know I would not have fun gaming with a rule lawyer.

Not a rules Lawyer, generally I hate them. As for noob's the owners of my FLGS put me on the top 3 list to play games with kids and newbies. As for forgotten rules or similar? depends on who I am playing: a vetern playing a hard core list I'm not as flexible with but with newbies I tend to move into coaching mode.

Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

It's sad news but once your labeled a power gamer by the group you play against you will always be the power gamer. It's just the way it works in society it's hard to lose a label once it's put onto you

Totally serious here, you might be generally nicer and more polite than most people, then since tabletop gamers can be somewhat introverted it leaves you feeling like that. We're not necissarily the shiny, happy people that one song is about. Most gamers I've met are nice people, but the stereotype of poor hygiene is a real one.

I have always assumed it must be my quiet, sotic attitude. Or some other attitude I don't see in myself. In all honesty, maybe I need to corner a friend and have him tell me, but I think they fear they'll hurt my feelings. lets face it many of you said you don't know enough about you to properly say.

If it were power cheese meta builds you would have said that already

Thanks for the info, I'll just do as I said corner a gamer friend and ask him to be brutal

 scuzz_bucket wrote:
but the stereotype of poor hygiene is a real one.

Lets not get this debate started here please. Hygene is a pet peeve for most.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

Attitude goes just as long a way as army build.
Do you watch your opponant measure and then re-measure yourself each and every time? Do you trash talk or use "mind games" to throw an opponent off their game?
Are you super strict in friendly games? (not tourney games as then it is expected)I mean RAW and willing to argue and fight because an opponent forgot to pivot his rhino before rolling the dice for psychic power points? RAW says he cant but most non-power gamers will say "sure, go ahead" in a friendly game where nothing is on the line. A power gamer might even see it and giggle to themselves and do a little victory dance as they say " HA! TOO LATE! NYA NYA NYA!".
There are other subtle things that CAN give the impression of being a power gamer whether you are or not which include having unpainted armies. Not all but many players will take that as a sign. Others include having a grasp of the background and fluff and an ability to discuss it.
"Power gamers" often have a reputation of not embracing the social aspect of a game (not saying it is true or untrue, just pointing out a comman conception) are you polite and social and have friendly banter? Body language and attitude go a long way and as someone else already said, once you have the title, its hard to get rid of it.

You need to care less about how the game turns out as win or loss. Just play and see what happens.

As for the forfeit, instead of up and quitting, start by telling your opponent what you see, and what you expect, and then ask if he will agree to a forfeit to save time.

Maybe being tactical is the "problem"? Winning more than loosing against the same person can cause problems.

However if your opponent wins but rolled more save dice than to hit dice he could of had a less than enjoyable game.

Tbh your situation is hard to judge. I near always am easy on model counting with templates/ blast, type of mission, night fighting, rules in general. Others who are stricter with it aren't overly friendly people.

2 of my recent tourny games were bad. One Nid who refused to play up to time due to me mentioning i was playing for end game tactic, it was only turn 3. Eldar Serpent semi-spam with loads of jetpack units didn't want any difficult terrain, reading the rule book later it was probably cause he would be taking dangerous terrain tests. Those kind of attitudes of certainess and not even offering a role off are bad.

If you've ever done that or don't openly offer your opponent to change his mistake (even in your turn), these are other bad traits. 40k is about fun, and while a tourny can be about winning, an unbalanced game such as this will always carry a hollow win despite any good tactics you've used.

Also fun can feed over to others, show some fun! Smile and laugh and applaud your opponent.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

That's an article in of itself, fluff reasons, Draigo, Nemesis weapons, the new book isn't 'quite as bad' but I miss the days when they were at most a single squad connected to ANOTHER imperial army, or tied to the hip of Inquisitors in Daemonhunters. But alas that's neither here nor there. Plus they are freakin' hard to kill. Not AS hard as Necrons but still. Annoying. And niegh unbeatable if a person IS power gaming.

Still the OP doesn't sound like a power gamer to me.

If you're consistent about forgotten rules against all opponents, it may change how others view you. You're not obligated to, but since you're trying to change perception... your opponent may and probably will return the favor. You may fall under WinAtAllCost type of player. There is nothing wrong with playing to win, as all players do, but how you win is important.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:

 scuzz_bucket wrote:
but the stereotype of poor hygiene is a real one.

Lets not get this debate started here please. Hygene is a pet peeve for most.

There it is, I was using wargamers lower standards of hygiene as an example of a less than favorable attitude encountered throughout our subculture. In the context of greater surrounding cultures, I'd say people maintaining poor hygiene is a pet peeve for most, not having to maintain it themselves.

In fact, better hygiene is just healthier and brings about less sickness. If you interpret hygiene as a pet peeve, there might be a few other outlooks preventing you from seeing eye to eye with those around you.

In reading your post, I don't know if I would describe you as a power gamer, and I think you need to provide some more information to establish how you are being called one.

For example, in your first post you make mention that people called your list cheesey and some of your opponents didn't appear to be having fun.

Are people refusing to play you? Do you have a disproportionate number of wins? Have you lorded your wins over people?

As a quick note, my own opinion is that both players need to take responsibility for the game. If it is a grudge match, then they should both play as such. If it is a friendly game, they should both play for fun. In any case, a mature individual will always be willing to decrease the intensity of the game to the level most comfortable to their opponent. This means that you can't make someone have fun, that's their business, but you can certainly ruin it for them. If you've had that effect on people, it will take more than just changing your play style and armies to rebuild those damaged friendships, and sometimes you just have to accept that some people will label you as a power gamer in order to feel better about themselves or fit into a group. Being open, and conveying warmth has a lot to do with those conversations that will need to take place away from the table in order to rebuild trust.

honestly you dont sound like a power player - people have become quite sensetive to wave serpents (me included) but i accept that you have to use troop transports sometimes and its the only one you have access to.
perhaps when you run that eldar list, try replacing one of the wave serpents+squad with a falcon and some swooping hawks - it forces the other players to consider the fact you only have one wave serpent while not leaving you footslogging.

so my advice on breaking the layer of tournament-tar you built up is a pretty counter-intuitive one; deliberately take lists which will lose. not because it wont work as a cohesive force, but ones made of units which 'arent worth taking';
pick a story or a character or an event and try to formulate your own little side-story for a small force and give them an original purpose; one which they could be carrying out when NOT in a combat environment and then try to come up with a narrative as to WHY you have met the species you have in the place your guys are.

The 'dark vengance' set had some missions in it which could act as a template?
patrol and recon missions are fun - your 'objective' is to draw line of sight to a terrain feature or move around the far side of something or stop for a turn of movement next to a computer terminal: and then escape from a randomly rolled board edge...
terrain helps a lot with missions like that.

my mates played a game against me once when i'd just finished my warhound 1000pts a side, three of us. the way that i could 'win' was by getting my warhound to the opposite corner of the table and clear the LZ. in the way were many peices of forrest which we agreed the warhound couldnt move through and only my warhound could take them out by completely covering the base of said piece of forrest with one of its primary weapons. so i could turn some ridiculous weaponry at the other armies and fry them, but then i'd never make the LZ in time. and i had to clear the LZ of trees too.
i lost that match when ghazgull thrakka charged the warhound and took it down during a WAAAAARGH!
look at me still talking about a game i lost...

so what i'm saying is; play games to create a short film in your head (complete with multi-billion pound special effects, epic last stands and going down fighting so hard you'd get spared a look from chuck norris AND bruce lee while doing it) - learn to enjoy losing in effect.

this is ONE way of losing that 'powergamer' accolade.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

Want a list?

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Lets not get this debate started here please. Hygene is a pet peeve for most.

Disusing hygiene or having to practice hygiene?

If you are going to tournaments there is no reason to be concerned about being a "power gamer" in regards to your list. In pickup games it's a little different, if you have a consistent group of people you play you can tone the list down a bit for the not-so-competitive ones. Since you haven't really told us why you're viewed as a "power gamer" I can only come to 2 conclusions: You are either paranoid, and don't need to worry about it or are not being honest with us and have some really bad gaming behaviors. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are a nice person though.

You will never make everyone happy. In the case of 40k, remember that stereotypes are sometimes true and there are disgruntled 12-year-olds, whiners, and smelly sexist neckbeards in our hobby. Those people hate losing and will probably accuse you of being a poor sport simply for beating them (If you don't believe those people exist/think like that go play an online shooter for a while, anonymity removes some of that personal filter). Don't worry about them, as I said you can't please everyone so just worry about the people who matter. And if everyone in your group is that way, find a new group.

I'll also throw in random advice: A big reason people get labeled as power gamers is because they are very "specific" on the rules. But the difference between being knowledgeable and a jerk is delivery, if you're constantly questioning your opponent due to poor knowledge (nuh uh I'm pretty sure he can't do that!) you're more likely to get labeled than if you know the rules and can point them out specifically (hey stomps only remove models on a 6). And of course, a certain amount of social grace is required, just like any other time you're talking to a person.

My only input here is to try being friendlier. You can argue back and forth for days and days about what armies are and aren't munchkinish (which is dependent on your local meta and not a useful argument to have), but I can tell you I enjoy losing to someone who's communicative (laughing, talking, joking, discussing what's going on, visibly having fun) vastly more than I do playing any kind of game with someone who sits back and says nothing more than is required.

Gameplay-wise the closer the game is the better, but that's not something you have easy control over.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

That's an article in of itself, fluff reasons, Draigo, Nemesis weapons, the new book isn't 'quite as bad' but I miss the days when they were at most a single squad connected to ANOTHER imperial army, or tied to the hip of Inquisitors in Daemonhunters. But alas that's neither here nor there. Plus they are freakin' hard to kill. Not AS hard as Necrons but still. Annoying. And niegh unbeatable if a person IS power gaming.

Still the OP doesn't sound like a power gamer to me.

an army of terminators being ahrd to kill? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

OP have you ever considered the option that you're not at fault?

I had a reputation of bringing very nasty, cheesy and even Dbag lists to my local GW. Thing is, for the first few months that I played, I only played my friends and we had fun in trying to bring the biggest Dbag list we could make.

After some time, I had more free time than my friends did so I started going on my own. I had a hard time finding people to play but that changed rather quickly because people noticed that my lists were seriously toned down.

Changing your image takes time. I think your attitude is not a problem. The way I read it, you're considerate of how other people feel during their games with you, and that's a good thing.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

I do! Their fluff is ridiculous and they are too powerful. It also doesn't help how most if the GK community seems to be power gamers who spam Dreadknights.

So, just a few things..

- This isn't chess. It's a game of toy soldiers and pew pew noises. Tactics are a part of it, but if you're cold - no one will want to be around you. "Bring their A game" is a joke dude. If you want to play with the kind of people who think like you, then you're going to quickly run out of people to play with.

- Body language. I'm 6'3" and 240lbs, muscular. I'm somewhat of an outsider when you think of the typical 40K player (or anyone else who is into these sorts of genera). I have to be *real* careful of how I present myself around anyone, let alone tabletop crowd. As such, I'm usually extremely laid back and constantly joking around - it puts people at ease. You need to be aware of how you are, and put on an act of sorts around certain groups. See the above about the "A game" mentality. Drop that gak right now and ease up, your body will follow suit. In addition, know your audience. That part just takes practice.

- Forfeit. Honestly, this is about the most dick/don't want to play you ever again move I can think of. Conceding due to time or external factors is one thing - but denying the last fight just because you know the outcome is a carryover from chess. This isn't chess. When you do gak like that, it just screams "sore looser" even if that wasn't your intention. Play the game, have fun, die gloriously.


tl'dr: Stop being a powergaming dick. This isn't chess. Go socialize more if you are unfamiliar with how to be laid back and approachable. This is tough love, not flame.

It is all relative.
What do your opponents do?
Fluff bunnies with gimped armies in the name of narrative?
What do you hear them chatter about with their buds?
You may just have a different focus that may be less compatible.
We all cannot get along with everyone, see how your gaming or personal style may be more "intense" than theirs.
Just having more variety of models and a good grasp of rules can be enough for the power gamer label.
Having 3 armies you rotate tend to throw off those who like to list tailor.
The Forgeworld Titan would show a strong financial commitment as a glory piece on it's own.
Basically, how vested you are in 40k just creates a prejudice by others.

SGTPozy wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Well you aren't playing 'Crons or Grey Knights so I'd say army wise not being 'broken'. Two Wave Serpents is hardly spam and your Chaos list sounds like you intentionally gimped yourself to see what you could do.

Personally IMHO most 'power gamers' either field stupid hard death stars, or spam stuff (riptides, wave serpents, wraithknights, etc. etc.) Or they field stupidly broken across the damn board Grey Knights or 'Crons. But hey I'm admittedly biased against those two. ^-^;;;

Why hates grey knights?

I do! Their fluff is ridiculous and they are too powerful. It also doesn't help how most if the GK community seems to be power gamers who spam Dreadknights.

I used to have a GK army, gave up after two editions of escalating ridiculousness in the lore and the complete neutering of the rules. It used to be an Inquisition army with GK as the elite melee unit, not a pure 'Grey Knights' army where they had to justify sticking a twenty-point guy with a power sword in as your basic Troops unit. Give me the 3e book back with some minor updates to make it compatible with the current rules and I'd be happy.