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This is a bit of a weird question, but one that's been bugging me. Let me start by saying that I normally consider myself in the context of Warhammer to be casual, sometimes dare I say it "casual at all costs". I love the rich background (yes, even for AOS) and the depth of the lore, and that's the main reason that I play/came back to Warhammer after 15 years away. I never considered myself to be competitive for Warhammer (I played other games when I wanted a more competitive focus). However, I am now at a dilemma: I hate to lose. Let me rephrase that, I hate losing when I feel I had no chance at all of winning. If I lose too often, it makes me not want to bother because I feel like I'm just throwing money away and not getting anywhere.

With that said, the problem I face now is the desire to say feth it, other people are going to try to win, why should I hold myself back, they treat it like a game I should too. For example, I played a game of AOS yesterday and had my Flesh-Eater Court totally wiped out by a Sylvaneth force where I could not do anything against their shooting; at no point in the game did I feel like I had any chance to win. It really made me rethink my approach to AOS where I was going into it as simply a fun thing to do and focus entirely on the fluff, because I know that deep down inside a few more games like that and I'm going to just not bother to want to play, because while losing a close fought game is one thing, losing all the time leads to burnout and giving up. That experience made me consider looking into a "power" army to avoid that feeling, but risk being the one who initiates the competitive-minded environment that I have railed against in so many other posts.

Or another example: I was (still am a little) interested in several 40k armies. Some, like Necrons, are very powerful and I would likely become "that guy" just for playing them, regardless of how I would do it (and I would, truth be told, jump into a Decurion because it's a fluffy way to play them). Or another idea is a Mechanicus + Marine force, with yet another being a converted "Just turned" Space Marine chapter using the base Marine book, and yet another that is an Eldar Craftworld similar to Iyanden with lots of wraith constructs. Some of these the reluctance is in how it would be perceived, despite the fluff (Necrons, Eldar) and some because the fluff purist in me doesn't want to contribute more to the Marine vs. Marine that dominates 40k (although the recent renegade idea would fit into this well). But the gamer in me says screw it, the people around me obviously don't care that much about the fluff behind anything, they just want to play, so am I arbitrarily limiting myself by constantly considering and reconsidering ideas because I feel "dirty" for considering something unfluffy?

Basically, at what point, if any point at all, do you look and say that I'm the lone voice doing this, if I keep it going I know I'll get burned out and want to stop playing, if I do a 180 I'll feel like I'm compromising my values for the sake of wanting to win games. Or to put it another way, what do you do when you have the choice of becoming a competitive, even WAAC player (although for me, I equate WAAC with not only being competitive but being a jerk about it), or risk losing interest in the game by not doing it?

I've always played to win and designed lists to be as competitive as possible within a particular theme I want. As an example, in 5th, I wanted to run foot/blob guard. Within the restriction of having all my troops be a platoon structure and on foot, I made my list as strong as possible and would always play to win.

I didn't win a lot with that list, but they were shockingly close matches more often than not, which is still fine by me, as some of the reasons behind the loss were my own mistakes.

Find a compromise I suppose is what I did. I love the fluff and enjoy making thematic armies. But thematic armies can also be quite strong and coherent, so find a theme you enjoy that you can include the right units to make a good go.

If course, some factions struggle with any selection of units, but we're still talking about GW here, so nothing new there.

Whilst going full on WAAC and TFG isn't to be recommend, I'd say try playing decently competitive lists for a month or two and then toning it down to something more fluffy, seems more viable than trying to upscale fluff.

Wargames work best when both sides are closely matched and balanced. GW has a bit of a problem with this, and that’s before players get into the mix. When I go to tournaments I will make more aggressive lists then I normally do for pick up games. Because I know that’s the level of games we are going to be playing that day. Trying to match you level to your opponent is a tricky game, and ideally requires buy-in from both sides.

Are there things you can do you make your army better without switching? Back when I played WHFB (5th) my concept for my army at the start was rot-free undead. Just skeletons, well preserved wights, and the odd wraith or two. No zombies, ghouls or the like. I had a problem facing war machines, as they would blow apart my army before I could get into range. A friend of mine for me a pair of carrion one year for my birthday. Flying, rotting bird things with little death spirits on top. Totally against the flavor of my army. But boy did they eat light skirmishes and gun crews. I’m not up on what’s available in AoS, but do you have access to fast moving or flanking units? It might be worth supplementing you primary force with an allied one if needed. But just a gentle adjustment to your amy, and not a hard shift to the power list, just to crush who oppose you.

There is one "workaround" to this problem, that is rarely mentioned (I think I saw it posted once here on dakka, but I don't remember who and when wrote it, sorry), but which allows me to deeply enjoy even long streaks of losing with fluffy/interesting builds. That is to make your own "moral winning conditions" which match the fluff of your list or theme and just "feel right". Just one example: when I play with my fluffy, Harlequins heavy Eldar list against homebrew Endless Swarm Tyranids (in my case they are houseruled to be tough as hell, not the current, crappy official silliness), I often loose in VPs but if I manage to achieve some of the harder objectives I feel good, as this entirely fits the Eldar lore of "snatch some vital objectives before inevitable defeat against endless Hive Fleet devours everything on it's path".

But this most certainly would not work against unpleasant WAAC TFGs who use stompy lists as a d...ck measuring devices

I always play to win yet am also always casual.

For whatever reason "casual" in 40k has come to mean "I'm putting on my clown shoes", but I take "casual" to mean laid back, easy going, friendly, not caring if I win or lose.... I can do all those things while still trying to win.

An interesting question and topic. I think blacksails has it about right. You need to play to win, as you noted there's not much of a point not to it just leads to the game being pointless. For all their crazy rules and all the noise from fans, GW games are at their core competitive war games between two players, full stop.

There are many games out there that offer cooperative or narrative rule sets, 40k and AoS are not among those.

The trick to enjoying GW tabletop pickup gaming for someone rather casual is to pick your army/theme/vision and then try your best to make a decent army with it. Sometimes that means making little tweaks to accommodate a particular unit or cutting something that just isn't working.

I've been there. When I first got into 40K I really wanted a particular type of marine army, in my case something resembling a standard chapter deployment as much as possible. I wanted a bunch of tactical squads, assault marines, devastators, and predator tanks. It all looked so cool and fluffy. I wanted a captain with a sword, because damnit it looked cool. I hated (still do) all the weird bike squads/characters running around purely because of the in game effects they provide.

The problem was at the time it didn't work too well as an army. Assault marines weren't very good. Command squads were incredibly inefficient unless you spammed special weapons or something like that. Auto cannon predator tanks are actually pretty useless in many games. The list goes on.

I had to really rethink my army and make some changes to it for the reasons you describe. I changed up the characters, changed out the assist marines for some sternguard, dropped a few devastators to let me upgrade my tanks, etc... It was all good, and I even started having fun at a few tournaments.

I didn't win every game, he'll I usually didn't win at all. But I had lots of close calls, and tight turns where the other player had to really dig deep to scrape an extra VP in the last turn to win. It was fun.

Then all these super heavies and monstrous creatures started popping up in every game and I realized there was little to nothing I could do to play the kind of army or game I wanted and still have fun at the table, so I decided to stop playing altogether for now. Was fun while it lasted, at least.

I hope you find that balance for yourself between "forging that narrative" in your mind with the realities of playing on the table.

I enjoy winning, but I'm not a WAAC kinda guy. I'll do things to give me an advantage ruleswise, like bringing two squads of grots just to unlock a second CAD, charge with a worthless unit to eat overwatch, etc., but I don't go full-on meta. I don't bring a FW stompa to every game I play. Hell, I don't think I even want a stompa, but at the same time, I want to challenge my opponent.

Basically, don't be toothless. I add some scary things to make my opponent think about, but I'll also bring whatever I feel like bringing, like killa kanz or deff dreads.

dosiere wrote:GW games are at their core competitive war games between two players, full stop.

There are many games out there that offer cooperative or narrative rule sets, 40k and AoS are not among those.

I will have to disagree with you there, but probably only on semantics.
By competitive I mean suitable (and intended for) "no holds barred" play in games that are rarely unlike one you would play at a tournament (i.e. competitive event), like chess or KoW. Warhammer was not made with this intention, but I think trying to force it into such lead to both Warhammers needing a reboot.
Just because the reason for moving the miniatures in game is to win does not make the game inherently competitive. What is required to win the game is not necessarily why people play. In all the AoS (also most of the 40k) I play actually winning the game is secondary to the experience, in a "journey, not the destination kind of way.

The trick to enjoying GW tabletop pickup gaming for someone rather casual is to pick your army/theme/vision and then try your best to make a decent army with it. Sometimes that means making little tweaks to accommodate a particular unit or cutting something that just isn't working.

...I didn't win every game, he'll I usually didn't win at all. But I had lots of close calls, and tight turns where the other player had to really dig deep to scrape an extra VP in the last turn to win. It was fun.

That sounds about right

I think both ways of play can be fun - but it's important that everyone knows what the setting is when making the lists. In tournaments, you can assume everyone is there to win, but if it's a random game, it's a good idea to confirm what the other guy is thinking. Worst case scenario would be casual vs. competitive list. If you are not sure how the matches are going to be, it might be a good idea to bring enough units for a couple of alternative builds, so you can scale the level depending on your opponent.

Of course it's possible to have a fun and amusing game, even if both players are playing 'no holds barred' - but you need to bring your sportsmanship to the table.

 DarkBlack wrote:
Warhammer was not made with this intention, but I think trying to force it into such lead to both Warhammers needing a reboot.

Well, Warhammer from 3rd Ed on had competitive events organized by GW, and the general design progression from 3rd to 5th was very inline with trying to streamline the game to be a smooth, competitive experience for a company level 28mm game. They failed, of course, because the balance was poor, but the general design philosophy was that of a tournament capable game.

Current Warhammer and original warhammer were not made with tournaments in mind, but for a good long chunk of its time it was very much designed with tournament play in mind, supported by GW.

Just because the reason for moving the miniatures in game is to win does not make the game inherently competitive. What is required to win the game is not necessarily why people play. In all the AoS (also most of the 40k) I play actually winning the game is secondary to the experience, in a "journey, not the destination kind of way.

If the goal is to win, and you're playing against another player, it is competitive. There really isn't another way around that, and as you said yourself, you'd be arguing semantics about feelings and minor details about individual priorities.

Even in a narrative game, the primary goal is to win, its just that the scenario given is unique to provide a specific experience with specific units on a specific terrain layout with a specific objective.

The goal is to win, the aim is to have fun. The two are not mutually exclusive or prioritized one over the other. Indeed, most of my favourite matches have been where I lost, but had a close match until the end.

Two things occur to me.
First, you seem to be at a mismatch with your play group. If that is the case, then you need to find a new playgroup (or adjust the settings of the playgroup that you are currently in). Basically, it sounds like you need to find the like-minded people in your group. Try organizing a small narrative campaign, and I'd bet that you will find the like-minded players. Be the change you want to see in the world.
The second has already been mentioned. Adjust your definition of victory. Some day I'll go to LVO or Adepticon or NOVA Open... and when I do I'll have a single goal. That will be to win my last game. I would have about 50/50 odds there. That is a reasonable goal for me, because I don't really get to play all that often. Maybe your goal is to go 2/1 at your local RTT, or beat 3-3 at a big GT.
Long and short of it... make the game fun and challenging for yourself. Against your list's hard counter, find other ways to define victory and organize the events that you'd want to go to.

Competitive all of the time. Casual opponent gets smashed, then they need to learn to man up and bring the fight.

Two concepts that seem to confuse people. "Having fun" and being "Competitive". Some people seem to only find "Fun" in being "Competitive" and winning.

Personally I dont. I went down that road with PC games. From MMO's to PFS's. It was all about template builds and min/max stat allocation. Kind of like WH in a lot of ways.

I realized after "Playing" a PC game for a while, that it was more like a grind to get the "besetest" stuff and character builds and that it became more of a chore and work than fun.

My outlook on WH40k is fun and fun only. Period. Build and army that I think looks cool and try to use those "cool" units in a fun way. Hate the way some uber units look, and wont use them because of that. Missing some huge advantage? Maybe. Who gives a dang?

Beating an opponent with a less than desirable army is even sweeter, IMO. And even if you dont go with the top tier army/build, there is enough options in the WH universe to be fluffy and a bit competitive.

At the end of the day its a "Game". Winning does not put food on the table, make you a better student, better parent, better citizen, or better spouse. It is a leisure past time activity. I would rather be competitive in real life and play a game to have fun.

Fun and competitive are not mutually exclusive. That concept seems to confuse you.

 Blacksails wrote:
Fun and competitive are not mutually exclusive. That concept seems to confuse you.

It seems people swing from one extreme to another in online discussions. Either it's fun vs competitive, or the idea that some people can only derive fun from being competitive.

Both of those extremes are whacky and (IMO) not how the vast majority of people operate so it seems strange that those extremes get disproportionately discussed.

In reality, I think most people are competitive in that they want to win and try to win and the game loses its spice if you completely throw competitiveness out the window, but they also don't cry over losing and aren't reliant on winning for their sole source of enjoyment.

If you're only on one end of the spectrum, deriving joy only from being competitive or alternatively are so adverse to competitiveness that it sounds like a dirty word that you don't want tarnishing your casualness... if you fall in to either of those categories I think you're probably a tiny minority of the general population.



As a tangent, personally one of the things I hate about 40k is the unbalance is so obvious that I have to actively suppress the analytical part of my brain to play certain armies or units. I'm not sitting down with a pen and paper trying to find the most optimum units, often it's just so blatant in it's unbalance that I'd have to beat my head against a rock and cause serious brain injury to not notice it.

For me a lot of times it's the same. For example, my local meta has a LOT of marines. Most games are Marine vs. Marine. It makes me feel, even if I wanted a marine army (Wolves let's say as I have a Start Collecting set), I shouldn't because diversity (the fluff player in me hates Marine vs. Marine outside of 30k)

or another example. I wanted to play Necrons at one point. I didn't because I felt that people would be like oh necrons OP and it would start a straight arms race if I brought them and were like "git gud scrubs" and played the old "But I like this army" card if called out.

Since we are giving local examples, I'll give mine.
The community in my local area collapsed about 2 years ago. This past summer, the owner of the new game store and I resuscitated the community... with almost all new blood. I play Necrons, but because I know the frustration of shooting almost all your army at something and not having it die I played Orks. Not just any orks, but I made a Dread Mob! Why? Because it was fun for me to build and since a lot of players were building Space Marines, there was plenty of Grav and Melta to handle the walkers.
Now that the community has grown, I'll have no problem pulling out my Necrons. I'm going with a Decurion +Flayed Ones build... not the Double Wraith star list that is popular.

 Blacksails wrote:
Fun and competitive are not mutually exclusive. That concept seems to confuse you.

If that was intended for me, I am not confused at all. In fact, I even said I agree they are not.

On the same note though, some people only have fun when they are winning and only using top tier means to do so.

Basically if you are a win no matter what type....in a game that doesn't mean jack in the grand scheme of things....then you only have fun when being competitive. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I find those people rather amusing. Same as the people chasing Steam Achievements, and equivalents on the Xbox and PS. So much epeen over something that does not even matter.

I just have a hard taking plastic models, paint, and rolling dice and moving "toys" across a board too serious. Fun? Yes! Serious bid-ness? Oh, Hell no. Anything over casual is just not for me.

Just an opinion, and just from once source. Nothing wrong with having a different view.

Why should it BE a compromise? What's wrong with doing both? Alternating competitive, narrative and whatever else floats your boat?

stroller wrote:
Why should it BE a compromise? What's wrong with doing both? Alternating competitive, narrative and whatever else floats your boat?

It's a compromise because I don't want to be the guy who starts the "competitive or get steamrolled" mentality by bringing some "overpowered" force, crushing some people, and having them in turn bring out the big guns. It's a compromise because I actually like the fluff (probably the main reason I played) and that makes it feel silly to, for example, have a Space Marine army when more than half the store also have Space Marines. It's a compromise because in Warhammer, playing casual often (not always) means you can easily have your force break down and lose, and I know for a fact if I am always losing, I'll just give up and stop playing.

Wayniac wrote:

stroller wrote:
Why should it BE a compromise? What's wrong with doing both? Alternating competitive, narrative and whatever else floats your boat?

It's a compromise because I don't want to be the guy who starts the "competitive or get steamrolled" mentality by bringing some "overpowered" force, crushing some people, and having them in turn bring out the big guns. It's a compromise because I actually like the fluff (probably the main reason I played) and that makes it feel silly to, for example, have a Space Marine army when more than half the store also have Space Marines. It's a compromise because in Warhammer, playing casual often (not always) means you can easily have your force break down and lose, and I know for a fact if I am always losing, I'll just give up and stop playing.

If you are having this dilemma, do you think the game might not be for you? I mean, if you will lose interest if you are not winning, yet don't want to be "that guy" with the top tier army, and cant find the right balance balance between the two....I am not sure what else can be done.

Unless you just have fun, and not really put much salt into the win/loss bracket, and just find it fun win or lose, you are kind of SoL.

dosiere wrote:
An interesting question and topic. I think blacksails has it about right. You need to play to win, as you noted there's not much of a point not to it just leads to the game being pointless. For all their crazy rules and all the noise from fans, GW games are at their core competitive war games between two players, full stop.

There are many games out there that offer cooperative or narrative rule sets, 40k and AoS are not among those.

...

Then all these super heavies and monstrous creatures started popping up in every game and I realized there was little to nothing I could do to play the kind of army or game I wanted and still have fun at the table, so I decided to stop playing altogether for now. Was fun while it lasted, at least.

This was a really nice summation of the issue. Well writ. This is something I've been struggling enormously, as I see now that my recent decision to get back into 40k was a mistake, and that I really don't enjoy playing the game with my own armies anymore. I wish I had realized this before I spent around 150 euros on new rulebooks and miniatures, but that's life.

I had fun back in the day, but if there's a way to get back there from where I am now, I cannot find it.

Vaxx wrote:
If you are having this dilemma, do you think the game might not be for you? I mean, if you will lose interest if you are not winning, yet don't want to be "that guy" with the top tier army, and cant find the right balance balance between the two....I am not sure what else can be done.

Unless you just have fun, and not really put much salt into the win/loss bracket, and just find it fun win or lose, you are kind of SoL.

Perhaps, I really do not know. I am so wishy-washy that I often never get anything done because I keep having ideas, and then rule them out for various reasons. I mean, I didn't play for some 16 years, and only rediscovered it recently. But yes, my main dilemma is do I play only fluff and risk losing so much that I just burn out and stop (because let's face it, nobody wants to lose all the time) or do I say screw it, and bring a competitive force and risk poisoning the entire community? I haven't found a balance between the two.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
For whatever reason "casual" in 40k has come to mean "I'm putting on my clown shoes", but I take "casual" to mean laid back, easy going, friendly, not caring if I win or lose.... I can do all those things while still trying to win.

This I can agree with. One thing I take from warmachine's page5 is ToView always bring your best game. To me though, I don't necessarily interpret 'best game' as optimum list with the perfectly executed power plays. I see your 'game' as being as much about the attitude you bring to a game and to your opponent. Casual is an attitude, not a list.

dosiere wrote:An interesting question and topic. I think blacksails has it about right. You need to play to win, as you noted there's not much of a point not to it just leads to the game being pointless. For all their crazy rules and all the noise from fans, GW games are at their core competitive war games between two players, full stop.
There are many games out there that offer cooperative or narrative rule sets, 40k and AoS are not among those.

That said, Cooperative/narrative and competitive are not necessarily mutually exclusive. These things are not binary. There is crossover. I play competitive. I play casual. I play narrative. I play cooperative And believe me, what matters more than the rules set is the attitude. Rules sets are just resolution methods, it's the 'game' you bring to the table that determines whether something is casual, cooperative or competitive. 'Rules' don't necessarily make something cooperative, or narrative. Being creative does. I have played competitive games cooperatively, and I've seen cooperative games played competitively There is also such a thing as 'game building' where you work with your opponent to build a fair, Interesting and/or themed match up. And then you go at it. Both players being responsible for the 'whole' of the game, rather than each responsible for just their own little half. That way can very easily lead to poor match ups and can be a very hazardous approach in other words, and in my opinion, There being a winner/loser may be an aspect of the game, but doesn't necessarily define a zero/sum approach.

Blacksails wrote:
Well, Warhammer from 3rd Ed on had competitive events organized by GW, and the general design progression from 3rd to 5th was very inline with trying to streamline the game to be a smooth, competitive experience for a company level 28mm game. They failed, of course, because the balance was poor, but the general design philosophy was that of a tournament capable game.

Just because they ran tournaments doesn't make it a tournament game. Tournaments were a good way of getting people out, buying armies and paying attendance fees which gw could line their pockets with. Gw also ran, and suggested many othe different approaches to the game as well as tournaments.

Wayniac wrote:
Perhaps, I really do not know. I am so wishy-washy that I often never get anything done because I keep having ideas, and then rule them out for various reasons. I mean, I didn't play for some 16 years, and only rediscovered it recently. But yes, my main dilemma is do I play only fluff and risk losing so much that I just burn out and stop (because let's face it, nobody wants to lose all the time) or do I say screw it, and bring a competitive force and risk poisoning the entire community? I haven't found a balance between the two.

All I see is someone who is severely over thinking things and tying themselves in knots as a result. You need to let go, and stop second guessing yourself. I think you're playing for the wrong reasons. And second guessing yourself over worse ones.

Best (helpful) advise I was ever told about me - 'get over yourself mate, stop obsessing and give yourself a break'. Maybe not entirely the same context, but these are words I often find myself going back to Wayne. Maybe they'd be of some use?

Deadnight wrote:

Just because they ran tournaments doesn't make it a tournament game. Tournaments were a good way of getting people out, buying armies and paying attendance fees which gw could line their pockets with. Gw also ran, and suggested many othe different approaches to the game as well as tournaments.

When the company making the game develops leagues and circuits that are officially endorsed with prize support, its essentially implied the game is on some level a tournament game. If it wasn't a tournament game, they couldn't have held tournaments because the ruleset would be lacking something that would enable it to perform as a tournament game.

40k 7th is still, fundamentally, the same game and therefore a tournament capable game, but one so poorly suited for it as to be hanging on by a thread. 40k 5th by comparison was much better balanced (still with glaring problems before someone jumps in), had much simpler rules, and had more balanced scenarios for tournament gameplay.

The fact that tournaments were also good for many side benefits only supports my claim, as GW knew full well what the benefits were from running organized tournaments and events. GW also ran more 'narrative' type games across the globe, but really, any wargame is a narrative game if you put any sort of effort into making a thematic army.

40k not being a good tournament game is entirely down to bad design. They built a game around the idea of a points limit, victory conditions and having a winner and a loser, that it doesn't work well shows they failed in design.

If they built a game that was clearly narrative and cooperative rather than competitive I could buy the "you're playing it wrong" argument, but I think reality is more like "they designed it wrong" or at worst "they are marketing it deceptively".

But as far as 40k never being a good tournament game, it's always been a bit unbalanced but I don't think it's been as bad as it currently is since 2nd edition.

I play to win but i suck, so i use the "I play for fun excuse"

Blacksails wrote:
When the company making the game develops leagues and circuits that are officially endorsed with prize support, its essentially implied the game is on some level a tournament game.

No, nothing is ‘essentially’ implied. GW had a bunch of games, and saw an opportunity to make more money via leagues and circuits by slapping on a ‘tournament’ label. Just because the game was jury-rigged to take advantage of this doesn’t necessarily mean it is ‘on some level’ a tournament game-it just means GW saw an opportunity and took it with the materials they had to hand.

Blacksails wrote:
If it wasn't a tournament game, they couldn't have held tournaments because the ruleset would be lacking something that would enable it to
perform as a tournament game.

Every game from tic-tac-toe, snakes and ladders, rock/paper/scissors and onwards can be dressed up and run as a ‘tournament capable game’ if you apply the usual tournament ‘dressings’ like prize support, win conditions and a scoring system, as GW did. Doesn’t mean that they are ‘proper’ tournament games though, does it? Tournaments are not that hard to ‘hold’ or ‘organise’ at the end of the day. They’re not a ‘badge of honour’ or a ‘gold standard’. When we ran ours, they essentially ran themselves.

Blacksails wrote:
40k 7th is still, fundamentally, the same game and therefore a tournament capable game, but one so poorly suited for it as to be hanging on by a thread.

No- it was a lot less a ‘tournament capable game’, and a lot more ‘a game used for tournaments’ or I’ll go further and say its ‘a game people insist on using for tournaments, regardless of its poor fit’. There is a big difference. Every game from tic-tac-toe and onwards is fundamentally a ‘tournament capable game’ if you apply the usual tournament ‘dressings’ like prize support, win conditions and a scoring system, as GW did. Doesn’t mean that they are ‘proper’ tournament games though, does it?

Blacksails wrote:
40k 5th by comparison was much better balanced (still with glaring problems before someone jumps in), had much simpler rules, and had more balanced scenarios for tournament gameplay.

No. Actually, 5th was a pretty terrible game by any metric. And balance was atrocious then, as well as now. There might be more ‘bug gunz’ these days but the fundamental ratios of imbalance were just as bad then as now. Imperial guard leafblower or space wolf long fang spam versus something like 5th ed tau, for example. And 5th , as much as I regard the ‘codex content’ – ie lore as the high water mark of 40k codices (well, up to the point they jumped the shark with grey knights and newcrons), it was here in 5th where the rules bloat really started. 4th ed in comparison was really the ‘back to basics’ edition that you claim 5th was in terms of rules, special rules etc since in many ways 4th ed. was a reaction to the excessive rules bloat of late 3rd.

Blacksails wrote:
The fact that tournaments were also good for many side benefits only supports my claim, as GW knew full well what the benefits were from running organized tournaments and events. GW also ran more 'narrative' type games across the globe, but really, any wargame is a narrative game if you put any sort of effort into making a thematic army.

No, your claim just highlights your confirmation bias with regard to your insistence that 40k is a tournament game because silly reasons, and that 40k isn’t really a narrative game because ‘anything can be a narrative game’.

As you say, any game is a narrative game if you approach it that way. Narrative just means bringing a story to life. And in the same way, like I said above, any game can be called a tournament game if you only put any sort of token effort into applying the usual tournament dressings like getting some scenarios, putting down some limits and get prize support etc. Even if you call it one, it doesn’t really make it true though when push comes to shove, does it? Unless you consider tournament tic-tac-toe, tournament rock/paper/scissors and tournament snakes and ladders etc to be legitimate. Which I doubt. This premise gets silly easily.

In other words, just because GW ran tournaments back in the day doesn’t necessarily mean 40k is, was, or ever was planned to be ‘on some level’ a tournament game. tournament 40k was an accident/product of circumstances rather than a specifically designed intent. Remember as well, GW ran, and suggested via white dwarf etc various other ways to play their games. If 40k is a tournament game ‘because GW ran tournaments once upon a time’ as you claim, then by the same premise and justification, it is just as fair to state 40k is an open-ended sandbox game, a narrative game, a casual game, and a co-operative game, (and all at the same time) because GW also suggested these approaches as well over the years.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

40k not being a good tournament game is entirely down to bad design. They built a game around the idea of a points limit, victory conditions and having a winner and a loser, that it doesn't work well shows they failed in design.
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Im actually rather sympathetic to them in ways, considering how the mechanics for 40k third ed came about (11th hour call from management to push the game in a different ‘mass model’ direction, which meant all their work up to that point had to be chucked out, and they had to reach for one of the guy’s 6mm WW2 home brew as a baseline). 4th edition went a similar direction, considering how what was meant to be 4th ed ended up becoming Starship Troopers – though flawed, it was one of the most brilliant-and-ahead-of-its-time rules sets I’ve come across. If anything, they were victims of management.

I don’t necessarily see points limits, victory conditions and having a winner/loser as criteria for a good tournament game – they just look like basic functional and structural components of the game to me.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If they built a game that was clearly narrative and cooperative rather than competitive I could buy the "you're playing it wrong" argument, but I think reality is more like "they designed it wrong" or at worst "they are marketing it deceptively".

It is narrative and cooperative if you want it to be. You’re making the mistake of assuming the rules need to hold your hand and do all the thinking and doing for you to somehow make it ‘narrative’ or ‘cooperative’. Don’t. The attitude, and the ‘game’ you bring to the table top with your opponent is what makes something narrative and co-operative, a lot more so than the rules themselves.

40k is undeniably a poorly designed game (personally I regard it as a genestealer infested space hulk at this point)- its clunky, crude, cobbled together and counter intuitive, and while ‘they are marketing it deceptively’ is certainly part of it, it is also just as fair to point to the players as well as gw - ‘they are playing it in a way not fit for purpose, and insisting on doubling down on that route rather than change direction’.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But as far as 40k never being a good tournament game, it's always been a bit unbalanced but I don't think it's been as bad as it currently is since 2nd edition.

Like I said to blacksails, in my opinion, the ratios of imbalance are just as bad, and have always been. There are utter horror stories from every edition, sadly. The only things that has changed is ‘what’ is OP at the time. In other words, the more things have changed in 40k, the more they have stayed the same.

Deadnight wrote:
I don’t necessarily see points limits, victory conditions and having a winner/loser as criteria for a good tournament game – they just look like basic functional and structural components of the game to me.

I don't think I ever said those things in and of themselves make a good tournament game.

Simply they imply that a game is designed for competitive play. When you see army construction rules, points values, victory points and a method for determining a winner and loser, that all implies a game that is meant to be played competitively.

If GW were clear that the game wasn't meant to be played competitively they'd simultaneously have less complaints and also less players.

It is narrative and cooperative if you want it to be. You’re making the mistake of assuming the rules need to hold your hand and do all the thinking and doing for you to somehow make it ‘narrative’ or ‘cooperative’. Don’t.

I never made such an assumption. IMO any game can be played narratively. You can play a run and gun online FPS video game narratively if you want.

I was simply pointing out that GW's games have the elements of a competitive game yet fail in their execution of it. It's either ignorance or malice. Ignorance of not knowing how to make a good game or that people will mistake it for a competitive game or malice in intentionally fostering the perception that it's a game that can be played competitively when it can't.

As far as narrative or cooperative gaming goes, as I said I think any game can be played narratively if you want. You can go to the park and pick up a couple of sticks and invent your own narrative game, literally anything can be narrative with like-minded people. But some games do a better job of fostering a narrative environment, 40k IMO does a pretty poor job of it, especially since they have such a broad background material to draw on.