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Hey folks!

Looking over the Proposed Rules Forum and this forum, and noticing how varied the opinions are. It goes without saying that everyone is always saying that X is OP, and Y is terrible, even when things can be really, really close in how good they are. Hey, it's the internet, and exaggeration is par for the course. But it did make me think about how it is that we play. I first wanted to make a poll asking what it was people are looking for in a game of 40k? But I realised that it's far too easy for people to get lost on spindly details, like someone saying "balance", with no real clear idea as to what that is. Of course we want a balanced game. Who would want an unbalanced game? Instead, I want to focus on how people feel, and the emotions that drive them. To this end, this poll is asking the question of how you like to play 40k. I've broken down the basic idea of "Competitive" and "Casual" into two somewhat less broad categories;

#1 - Procedural Competitive/Casual (Basically, do you try to cheese out your play ability and rules knowledge?)
#2 - Substantive Competitive/Casual (Basically, do you try and cheese out your list?)

Obviously, these things are on a spectrum, not just one or the other, but I think most people can fit themselves into these things. For example, I'd say I'm Competitive-Casual; I like to do the best decisions I can, and play to the best of my ability, but having a strong list doesn't really appeal to me. Sometimes that means using units to do silly things, like charging one unit with Hormagaunts, but spreading out so that I consolidate into a bunch of different units and prevent them from shooting next turn. I wouldn't call that cheesy, but I know some people that do, and yeah, I'm definitely leveraging my knowledge of the rules in order to do that. But I'd also just rather have a game with units I rarely get to use, like basic Chaos Space Marines, than feel like I'm forced to bring my Bash Bros Smite Spam in order to just have a fun game.

So where do you fall here? Keep in mind, there's nothing wrong with being uber-competitive, uber-casual, or anything in between. And if I'm completely missing something here, please point it out.

Always be competitive in painting, sportsmanship and gaming.

Crush the poor casuals who just don't have what it takes to compete in the full 40K-triathlon, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their pathetic grey armies!

Pure casual. I just like putting what I own out and having fun with it, and not listening to the “meta” so much as what my own experience with a model tells me. I try to put my best foot forward (losing is never as fun as winning), but as long as I get an interesting game and not a curb stomping, I’m happy.

I do think you might get a slightly skewed result here though; this is a forum for those who are bit more *enthusiastic* about 40K than the average player. That said, I’ve been surprised by the results of a poll here more than once. (I’m suspecting Casual-Competative will win out, just as a guess).

Competitive-Casual- I'll go into a game with the idea of winning it (despite what the CAACers will say...) and try my absolute best to do so, but I won't do this at the expense of my opponent's fun.

I'll take a competitive list, but within the theme of the army. No, I'm not going to spam the latest hot gak nor make a crappy soup list with memefied Captains (oh how I HATE that name. If I could destroy every single example of this model I would to erase it from 40k's history) because it runs anathema to what I think 40k should be, it is a visual game at the end of the day.

Loving the results and answers so far from everyone! Curious to see what the results look like in 24hrs.

There's no greater fun in this game than putting together the pieces YOU like and crushing the opponents with them, especially if they are considered bad models (go Maleceptor!).

Yes it requires you to be a good player and know every rule in and out, but it's worth it.


That said, if the game seems to go in one direction only and i notice that my opponent is not having fun, i usually tone down my playing quite a bit.

I'm definitely Competitive Casual on that list. I'm primarily a hobby guy, but with my idea of a Fallen Vanguard detachment let by Cypher, I was looking at Chaos units I could make that'd fill some gaps and be able to be modelled to my liking. Chaos Bikers (and everyone says SM bikes are trash compared to Scout ones) look okay to me. I'd have a few Ravenwing options if running a Loyalist list instead and they'll compliment my footslogging Fallen. Plus I can model them on horses, as Caliban Knights. If/when I get to play a game, I'll aim to win, but just with what I have. Want a Mauler/Forgefiend though and it'll probably just be a straight build because I can't think of an alternative look that'll fit, and I could stick it in an all Chaos list too.

For that list, competitive casual. I try to bring the best I can, but only with models I want to collect, and mono-codex. I.e. for Space Marines, no Fire Raptor or Storm Raven for me, because I don't want them. On the flip-side, I'm not bringing Land Raiders either, even though I love the model, because they aren't competitive enough.

I've been thinking about the Storm Raven more, but only because I have an idea for building a custom one for my collection.

Casual casual. I'm the kind of guy that will bring 300+ orks one week and then 35 model ork army next knowing full well I'll be creamed to piece. Hell been considering bringing 2 model ork army but that would be maybe too cruel for opponent as it would be ridiculously easy auto win They wouldn't even need to bother to shoot once.

Hmm, I chose "Competitive Casual", even though I play to see how well I can do but only with friends and with stuff people usually don't rate as strong and more often than not I modify missions with some narrative elements...
So basically it's a mix of 2-4

Competitive casual I guess?

Whatever game I'm playing;
I'll make armies I like, using models I like, & then try my best to win games with them.
If I succeed, great. If I fail but had fun anyways? That's fine too, there's always next game.
If I fail to have fun then I examine the why. Sometimes I just need to tweek the army a bit. Usually though it's either the opponent or something in the basic rules.

I don't put any stock in other peoples opinions (or their math, or their tourney results) on what models/units are bad & shouldn't be used because good/bad/weak/balanced/OP/broken to hell & back/etc isn't why I'm buying the model in the 1st place.
In general, if I like a model well enough to buy it? I'll make it work for me on the table.

Or since I don't do tourneys does this make me Casual Competitive?

I'm getting curious as to what Casual-Competitive players are thinking. So far no one that has identified that way has spoken up in the comments, despite not being the least picked option. What is it you Casual-Competitive folks are feeling?

I picked competitive casual. Pretty much my main 40k time will be at local tournies which I treat as a day of guaranteed three games rather than worry necessarily about taking top table. I play with semi-comp lists but I always take armies that I feel are at least remotely fluffy so I rarely soup which means I'm inherently at a disadvantage. Last local RTT, for example, I brought my knights but used as ad mech for the accompanying battalion rather than the more effective guard CP battery.

Definitely "competetive-casual" for me. I've been drawn to less optimal, but cool looking stuff for ages and have even spent a fair amount of time devoted to making such stuff work (at least work most of the time). That said, I do try to win and will play games out as far as possible because I've scraped out wins with barely anything on the table against armies that were far better than mine.

Plus sometimes you can just have a lot of fun challenging yourself to play better with less optimal things. I've jokingly called it the Dark Souls of 40k playing, but that meme is probably dead now.

EDIT: And sometimes you can end up going completely counter-meta because of your army not falling lockstep into the meta's patterns. Or get hard countered so bad you feel like you just rode a Cyclonic Torpedo towards it's Exterminatus target.

I am between 2 and 3. I like competitive games but I am more than happy to tone down a list and vs weaker armies and opponent for the sake of fun and fairness. I try to win though. Always winning. Even using house rules. Modifying points for bad units - allowing chapter tactics to apply to marine vehicals - ect.

I voted casual-casual as it best fits how I currently play.

I would play Warhammer 40K "Historical" if there was an option which wasn't based around Forgeworld models. On occasion our group will play a game and say "bring your nastiest list", but it's rare. Our games are normally campaign-aimed, and we'll take some bizarre lists because it fits the story of what is happening, vs. something that is mathematically efficient.

I find straight competitive games to be boring, generally speaking. It's just math and dice. I'm more interested in story styled moments and engagements, the types of engagements which historically are what capture peoples imaginations. If you look through the history of armed conflict on Earth, the most told tales are those of lopsided battles, disasters, lucky survivals, and twists of fate. I don't see any of that in competitive games. I don't see any of that arise from walking my models over to a random token on the table and standing near it, etc. Just doesn't motivate me to play or paint, or partake.

 Yarium wrote:
I'm getting curious as to what Casual-Competitive players are thinking. So far no one that has identified that way has spoken up in the comments, despite not being the least picked option. What is it you Casual-Competitive folks are feeling?

That was my vote. Basically, I like challenge. I don't really care if I win and to some degree, I don't really care for tournaments because I'm more likely to have to deal with people who do. I don't want to pull my punches and I certainly don't want my opponent to pull theirs. Nothing motivates me quite like giving it my all and coming up short. That's fun for me and while I can find that fun in tournaments as well, its not QUITE as much fun as playing with friends with nothing on the line but the itch for a rematch.

I picked "casual competitive."

I bring armies that are fairly strong with the intent of winning as if money were on the line. I bring strong units and strong lists and I like to play against people bringing better lists, and I like to win.

That said, I generally play with friends, and in my local league [where money is on the line, but not a whole lot]. I don't travel to participate in larger tournaments, because I can't really afford to.

Also, because this is a social hobby, I like playing the game with friends, or at least people I know. Random people aren't quite as fun to play with. Also, if you lose to a friend or FLGS regular, you can come back next week with an upgraded list ready to beat them back.

I casually play competitive.

i go to tournaments, sometimes big tournaments, and I go there with strong lists, and with my friends. But normally I just play in FLGS tournaments that are more of an excuse to gather together and play 3 games in the same day, because prizes are random, and in those I use weaker lists.

I chose Casual-Competitive. I play with friends only, and we have tournaments too which are basically all friends. However I always have to bring my A-game to challenge some of the lists (I fething hate Eldar btw). Playing fluffy or "fun" lists is basically just a way of bending over.

Casual-casual. Have never played a game in a store or in a tournament. Take what I consider fluffy armies, and for me they have to look like armies. This is medieval/classical warfare in space after all. Don't take duplicates of units that are not core/troops/battleline/whatever and try to take at least 25% of the power/points of the same.

Don't demand this from those I play but most seem to have a similar outlook in my small group of gaming friends.

Part of me thinks it would be fun playing a super maxed out list for the experience but it would be a bit easy mode unless both are doing the same and I don't think it's an experience I'd like to repeat.

I suppose at heart I am just a roleplayer who just loved those High Elves and Goblins in the boxed set and got sucked in from there.

I suspect this is what creates a lot of the "divide" in the community (this probably doesn't exist in real life outside of some banter but boy people like to get sensitive online), 'roleplayers' and 'gamers'.

I play competitive- casual ... the problem I encounter in most of my local guys like to say they play the same but end up bringing casual- competitive ..

thus begins the arms race, no one likes to lose every damn game!

The problem we have countering this is, in 7th Ed ... most folks knew .. Decurion, Skyhammer, free SM transports etc. were bad ... too much forgeworld was bad ... so we had a line in the sand on what was fluffy and what was not ..

8th edition has no such compunctions ... it's really hard to guage if something is a top tier netlist cheesefest ... vs "I'm proxying soda cans as carnifexes" tier

I voted comp-cas;

Basically i quite enjoy the tournament aspect, and feel you should play to the rules because thats the ruleset that has been laid down. (by this i mean, no bs amendments here and there because its more thematic/makes more sense... just play it)
But, I fething hate net listing, RAW lawyering and the whole "i painted this army in 2 weeks just to stomp this event". I hate soup and i fething hate the supreme command detachment.

I use a thematic list thats as nasty as i can make it within my own codex and within my "theme"- constraints i place on myself, therefore i dont whinge at tournaments when i get tabled turn 2 by a castellan netlist; they got their priorities, i got mine.

This all being said, i had to laugh at the "wasted money" thread, because every unit i paint and use in my army is a model i love the aesthetic of or the fluff of said unit- so when GW nerfs (unlikely as all SM units) or simply gives me the worst codex and rules possible.... It doesn't matter, its still money well spent.

Process wrote:
I voted comp-cas;

Basically i quite enjoy the tournament aspect, and feel you should play to the rules because thats the ruleset that has been laid down. (by this i mean, no bs amendments here and there because its more thematic/makes more sense... just play it)
But, I fething hate net listing, RAW lawyering and the whole "i painted this army in 2 weeks just to stomp this event". I hate soup and i fething hate the supreme command detachment.

I use a thematic list thats as nasty as i can make it within my own codex and within my "theme"- constraints i place on myself, therefore i dont whinge at tournaments when i get tabled turn 2 by a castellan netlist; they got their priorities, i got mine.

This all being said, i had to laugh at the "wasted money" thread, because every unit i paint and use in my army is a model i love the aesthetic of or the fluff of said unit- so when GW nerfs (unlikely as all SM units) or simply gives me the worst codex and rules possible.... It doesn't matter, its still money well spent.

Says they don't like house rules and to just play the rules with the rules we're given. Then in the next breath says they hate people who insist on playing RAW.

 IronBrand wrote:
Says they don't like house rules and to just play the rules with the rules we're given. Then in the next breath says they hate people who insist on playing RAW.

He clearly spelled out what kind of house rules he doesn't like.

"Rules lawyering" is also not the same as playing by RAW. It's the difference between someone claiming that assault weapons don't work and someone who doesn't want to change the rules for measuring from base to base in assault.

 Jidmah wrote:

 IronBrand wrote:
Says they don't like house rules and to just play the rules with the rules we're given. Then in the next breath says they hate people who insist on playing RAW.

He clearly spelled out what kind of house rules he doesn't like.

"Rules lawyering" is also not the same as playing by RAW. It's the difference between someone claiming that assault weapons don't work and someone who doesn't want to change the rules for measuring from base to base in assault.

Except playing anything other than RAW is playing by house rules. No one plays purely RAW. But throwing out the term "house rules" as if they're all outright a bad thing while playing with their own house rules is kind of silly. It's like if someone decides all left handed people are evil incarnate and just refuses to acknowledge that their best friend is left handed.

He defined what he means when saying "house rules", you chose to ignore that definition.

You are deliberately misrepresenting his argument.

 IronBrand wrote:
Except playing anything other than RAW is playing by house rules. No one plays purely RAW. But throwing out the term "house rules" as if they're all outright a bad thing while playing with their own house rules is kind of silly. It's like if someone decides all left handed people are evil incarnate and just refuses to acknowledge that their best friend is left handed.

Congrats, you've done the Dakka Dakka equivalent of saying "Look out! Your epidermis is showing!". The question of this tread is about how you prefer to play, and not whether that's right or wrong. As I said in my post, it's a spectrum. Since Dakka polls don't really allow for multiple "rate yourself from 1 to 5" questions, I went with the next best thing. If this person likes to play tightly enough with the rules that they consider their preferred Procedural play to be Competitive, even though there are those that are more or less competitive than they are, then that's fine, and they can still answer "Competitive" for that.

 IronBrand wrote:

Process wrote:
I voted comp-cas;

Basically i quite enjoy the tournament aspect, and feel you should play to the rules because thats the ruleset that has been laid down. (by this i mean, no bs amendments here and there because its more thematic/makes more sense... just play it)
But, I fething hate net listing, RAW lawyering and the whole "i painted this army in 2 weeks just to stomp this event". I hate soup and i fething hate the supreme command detachment.

I use a thematic list thats as nasty as i can make it within my own codex and within my "theme"- constraints i place on myself, therefore i dont whinge at tournaments when i get tabled turn 2 by a castellan netlist; they got their priorities, i got mine.

This all being said, i had to laugh at the "wasted money" thread, because every unit i paint and use in my army is a model i love the aesthetic of or the fluff of said unit- so when GW nerfs (unlikely as all SM units) or simply gives me the worst codex and rules possible.... It doesn't matter, its still money well spent.

Says they don't like house rules and to just play the rules with the rules we're given. Then in the next breath says they hate people who insist on playing RAW.

It was pretty clear what i meant; people trying to push their own versions of calculating charge distances, cover saves, ranges, people's creative interpretation of the words "don't model for advantage"- these are clear rules that should be followed- a guy at the GT last weekend tried merging an IG infantry squad with a heavy weapons squad because they both had the infantry keyword. These are clear misuses of rules for somebody's advantage.

Then on the flip side you have a guy who's managed to find a rule/strat with a misprint or grammatical error, or pulls a Tony on you in some form or another- this is a clear abuse of using RAW to override the obvious intention of the rule or what you as a player were intending.

 Jidmah wrote:
He defined what he means when saying "house rules", you chose to ignore that definition.

You are deliberately misrepresenting his argument.

I'm really not, he literally said "by this i mean, no bs amendments here and there because its more thematic/makes more sense... just play it". People playing the game in the vast majority of cases when interpreting rules go with the interpretation that "makes more sense". Like cloud of flies. It can read as either your opponent can't target that unit unless it's closest or that if that unit is closest only it can be targeted. Clearly it's the first of those two options that it correct but the only thing GW have put out that clarifies that is a question in the FAQ about snipers targeting the unit. The only way to know how cloud of flies works outside of that single question in an FAQ is to go with what makes more sense.