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Congratulations!

You've just moved to a new town and money's a little tight, so you won't be expanding your armies anytime soon...

You find that there is a decent 40k community (No Li, AT, HH, or AoS) in your new area, and you find out that they have open play on Saturdays. Good news so far, right?

Here's the issue. You have a strange love of giant robots, and have built your 40k lists to match.
You have a Dreadnought heavy Adeptus Custodes army and an Imperial Knight force. (Where you were previously, people understood your brand of insanity).

How do you introduce yourself to this new community without coming across as "That Guy," you know, the one who brings skew lists to friendly games?

Just be open about it. “Hey there, I’m <your name> and I love giant stompy robots”

It’s not like you are doing it maliciously. And being open about prevent the “surprise! Skew list” nature of ir.

Assuming that your particular brand of skew won't fit right in with the new group and their armies, and depending on the sort of players they are, proposing a narrative battle might be fun.

A band of evil, stompy big robots have appeared and are threatening the city, forcing the native warring factions to band together if they are to stand any chance of survival!

Just go, be yourself and have fun.

"That Guy" isn't an army list; its not an effective or good army of the flavour of the month "this one is broken".

That Guy is honestly much more of an attitude of the person in how they conduct themselves both in the game and outside.


Just be yourself; be friendly and so forth. You've got a great army of knights that you're happy to play with and who wants a game and so forth.

Just don't be a douchebag.

Try to use your ears twice as much as your mouth and you will be fine.

From what I see in the 40k room at my club, the meta list is still oops all Helverins/War Dogs so maybe bring the big dudes.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
From what I see in the 40k room at my club, the meta list is still oops all Helverins/War Dogs so maybe bring the big dudes.

That's what I like to use. The faction is Imperial Knights, not Imperial Squires.

A bell tolls high noon.

A mysterious stranger bursts through the door. They stride to the nearest table, push the current occupant aside, and slam their carry case down on top of the unfortunate's already deployed models.

They draw a Knight from the case and place it on the tabletop.

Silently they survey the assembled crowd; finally pointing at a random individual to mark their next victim.

???

Profit!

Overread wrote:
That Guy is honestly much more of an attitude of the person in how they conduct themselves both in the game and outside.

Yup. 100% this. And it can be subjective. People really into their tournaments and the minutiae of the rules might not be my cup of tea, but then, I’m probably not theirs. Provided nobody is a Richard about it, we can indeed all get along.

It does help massively to be a pleasant person. And to have showered.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
A bell tolls high noon.

A mysterious stranger bursts through the door. They stride to the nearest table, push the current occupant aside, and slam their carry case down on top of the unfortunate's already deployed models.

They draw a Knight from the case and place it on the tabletop.

Silently they survey the assembled crowd; finally pointing at a random individual to mark their next victim.

???

Profit!

You forgot the most important step, before I play my unfortunate victim with his barely painted miniatures, I ask him which model is his favorite and why.

Then in the first turn I annihilate that model in a blaze of fire!

Then I can laugh maniacally while he puts the model back in his box.

Yes, this will win me all the friends.

(I'm being sarcastic)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Overread wrote:
That Guy is honestly much more of an attitude of the person in how they conduct themselves both in the game and outside.

Yup. 100% this. And it can be subjective. People really into their tournaments and the minutiae of the rules might not be my cup of tea, but then, I’m probably not theirs. Provided nobody is a Richard about it, we can indeed all get along.

It does help massively to be a pleasant person. And to have showered.

My issue is that I'm not a hard core player. If someone drops dice or says, I meant to move that guy over there, 99 times out of a hundred, I'm going to say, "sure, go ahead."

Also, if my award winning personality doesn't win people over I still have a near endless supply of lame jokes.

(I use the same method for dating).


[You have been warned]

Yes. But have you showered before our hypothetical game?

And I’d prefer you to have availed of deodorant, but I accept people can run out, forget to have a quick skoosh, or have allergies, so it’s not an automatic dealbreaker, provided you don’t start off smelly.

I really can’t impress on other enough the importance of not being a smelly child-born-out-of-wedlock.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes. But have you showered before our hypothetical game?

And I’d prefer you to have availed of deodorant, but I accept people can run out, forget to have a quick skoosh, or have allergies, so it’s not an automatic dealbreaker, provided you don’t start off smelly.

I really can’t impress on other enough the importance of not being a smelly child-born-out-of-wedlock.

Shower? That's that strange place where water comes from the wall? I've been wondering what the purpose of that was...

Something tells me that if I didn't use it after a 10 mile bike ride, people would throw bars of soap at me until I stopped moving.

I've run into a solid wall of B.O. at a tourney, where every time my opponent reached across the table I would feel nauseous. It got to the point that I would focus fire on his models that had ranged the furthest from his lines, so he would have no reason to raise his arms.

It was kinda sad, when an employee from the store stopped him in the middle of a game and said, "you gotta wash, if you want to keep playing here."

That had to be embarrassing.

 Easy E wrote:
Just don't be a douchebag.

Try to use your ears twice as much as your mouth and you will be fine.

Sorry to derail the thread, but I struggle with interaction and that is quite literally the best advice I have ever read

thank you!

Strike 1.

First shop I visited was all about the "meta." I heard the word "Meta" yesterday more often than Mark Zuckerberg.

"If you are honestly going to play here, you need to think about switching armies. No one enjoys playing against c-tier lists." - said to me after I lost to a guy with Lion El' Johnson and Dark Angels.

Another player, you plays Necrons told me that the atmosphere was a little too competitive and invited me to visit the Warhammer store, where people play Kill Team and Combat Patrol, which might be more "my speed."

And here I thought I was going to be the douchebag...

I think I'm going to go play Combat Patrol at the Warhammer store next week.

I wouldn't call it "being a douchebag" they are just a competitive experienced group who are used to playing each other in a competitive environment.

That's totally fine and perfectly good for a group if that is their focus and they were kind enough to play, but also point out that perhaps you might not be the best fit for them unless you want to play that way too.

It might not mean you have to change armies but you would have to up your game and accept a lot of losses and perhaps a few that wouldn't play you because they'd want more challenge; as you learned.



So yes for who you are and what you want the Warhammer Store might well be a less competitive atmosphere ideal for you to grow and learn the game in and play in a more casual environment where its not all about Mark Zuk..the meta.