Everyone who plays this hobby fits into a different pot, everyone will play differently. But generally people will either be casual or competitive.
The 2 extremes of this are a hyper-competitive player who attends all the tournaments in his local area, and will travel to all the bigger ones. Then there is the player who will only be part of a tight knit gaming group, they will not wish to play other people, never mind those in tournaments.
These can be seen as two ideals for certain people, you may get a close relationship with your friends and can make games very personal and a lot more fun if you are in a tight knit group. This is fine, but I think you must be willing to play people outside of your group.
The same can be said of the hyper-competitive guys, they really should play some causal games now and again.
The reason I am making these points is because I feel that being part of these two extremes can literally take all the fun out of the hobby we know and love.
I have personal experience with the extreme casual player, and although I have not played in tournaments, I'm sure someone will see this problem.
In terms of the tournament player, if you are taking this to extremes you can either
a) Army hop.
b)Focus on making one codex work.
Lets start with a), and lets says everytime a new codex comes out you buy it, and quickly either decide the best units for yourself, or find out on the internet. In this situation, as GW release new codexes on average every 6-8 months, there is no way in hell that you can get an army of around 2500 pts (sideboard included), painted to the way you wanted, without commisions, which is a massive drain on resources you are already blowing on buying a new army twice a year. Another thing is that if you are doing this you are obviously not interested in the fluff of the army, or any themes at all, and in my opinion, you are missing out on most of the hobby in this way, aswell as showing up at tournaments with a sub-par painted army. You literallly care about nothing other than winning, and all your lists and just the bests units in the codex, you leave no room for exploration as you move on so quickly. A metaphor would be buying a fast car, and then buying a new one everytime a faster one is released without even thinking about how you
In the case of b) (and I have a grudging respect for people who do this), you will stick with this army, because you love the background or the way it plays, and this is in some ways better than a), as you experience more off the hobby. However, this may be taken to extremes were someone really wants to win everything with any army that isn't competitive. This then leads to boring and generally similar lists, as if you are usingh an old codex, you will only be able to win top-tier games with certain units included, rather than a pick-n-mix like you can with a new, more powerful codex. This can eventually lead to yourself spending literally hours just deciding how to fit a particular unit into a list, or how to shave off a couple of points to give a character an upgrade. I may be seeing in the wrong mindset due to my limited experience, but I cannot see this being any little more than dull and annoying. And certainly not fun. This also means that after a few years you will have milked a book dry just trying to be super-competitive, and from there onward you will not use units that you have tried and found out are not hyper-competitive. You may also find yourself facing an unnessecary handicap by not moving with the times, at a hyper-competitive level, option a) will generally be more successful ,although you will spend more money and get less out of the hobby as a whole.
My second group was people who stay in their group and refuse to play anyone except their close gaming group. I have had personal experience of this myself. This eventually leads to you tailoring you list to face your opponent's armies. For instance, if you are palying a variety of opponents in a few places, you will take a mix of anti-tank and anti-infantry. However, if everyone in your group plays Orks, Tyranids, and foot Imperial Guard, there is no way you would take anti-tank, as you are just putting yourself at a disadvantage as it would be useless. This leads to a horribly stagnant game, where people just by units to counter each other, and no-one truly sees how there army should perform against a mixture of opponents, or how to play an all-corners list. This can be especially problematic if no-one decides to change armies, and the games will boring quickly as games will be very similar and you will not be improving your skills as a general at all.
An example in my group was where a Chaos player bought a Land Raider, at this point we were playing 1000 points a side and so this was a massive shock that we had no way of dealing with. I (playing Orks at the time) immedietly went out and bought a unit of Tankbustas, whereas the Tau player went out and brought a Broadside. This lead the Chaos player to buy deep-striking Terminators and a Demon-Prince, and sometime s he just took out the Land Raider. All this leads to is a complete waste of money on units and a cold war of sorts between player, which could end up threatening the strength of the friendship in your group.
Of course there may be people who thrive in such a competetive environment and see spending weeks working out the perfect lists as very entertaining, equally there wil lbe those who like the extreme tension an unexpanding group can create. But to get the most out of this hobby, you must change you style once in a while, even if not permanently, or else the hobby will not give you back what you went into it for: Fun.
Players don't readily fit into one of two catagories, a better way to visualize it is as every player is both to varying degrees, some are more competitive, some are more casual, without a hard-cut line between them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Army hopping is that common. Sure, some people do it, but more often it's because the new army looks really cool than because it's new and must be the easiest to win with.
Those that stay with a single codex (or, just as likely, a few same Codices) are far more common, though I can't help but feel like this is a poke at certain, unnamed Black Templar players. Some older armies just can't take certain units and do well with them, not because they're not hyper-optimized but because they are simply sub-par. They play with them, the units don't do well, and so they don't field them anymore until their memory lags. Also, this applies to more than just competitive players, anyone who plays will usually encounter this as no-one likes to lose.
Another thing to realize is that there are players (especially those in your second group) who think that the close-knit group of friends who tailor to each other, buying new models and units to better handle their opponents, is the best way Warhammer should be played. There are also those who think that (not kidding here) taking good units because you want to win, even if you think those units are awesome, makes you a jerk and they will never play you. Jervis Johnson, employee of Games Workshop, has been quoted saying things along the lines of if you generally make tactical decisions because they're good ones instead of ones that could potentially have an awesome result you are not being a good sportsman (I think the term he used was 'not playing to the Spirit of the Game').
Not a bad article, though you should remember to write them in Microsoft Word to catch any typing errors (I noticed a few).
@ Devjon:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply, it is nice to know someone is taking their time to read what I have written.
I wasn't meaning to say that every player falls into those categories, just are just the two opposite ends of the 40k spectrum, but I see how your reasoning might make more sense.
I can see where you could have taken the part about sticking with one Codex the wrong way, not that you did it out of spite or anything. I want you to understand that I am in no way (based on what you appear to have assumed), taking a poke a Marshall Laeroth. That guy has been an inspiration to me and has taught me pretty much everything I know about Templars. I even e-mailed him recently about a Drop-pod list and he replied with a lengthy article no more than 3 days after I sent it, depsite having other arrangments. I have a huge respect for what that guy does.
I was merely pointing out that it is nice to relax and have a change after a while, especially after the amount of time high-end player spend working on the 'perfect' list. In my opinion it helps keep the game fresh.
I hope you can see what i was trying to put across, and it was mainly meant to be a though-provoking article. Please remember this is only my second article in the big world of blogging (your blog is setting a high standard), and I still have a lot to learn, but I do appreciate the response. :)
P.S. Thanks for the advice on using Microsoft Word, i'll make sure to do that in future.
Bah, I'm just getting cynical from reading comments on B&C being violently opposed to any sort of shooting (such as one user mentioning that he would kill any Sergeant of his who asked for a gun). And because I'm a stereo-typing hypocrite I assumed (because you are a more casual player than competitive and because you had a picture of a knight originally) that you easily fell into that category. Yes, I feel somehow politically incorrect now.
ReplyDeleteWhen I emailed Marshal Learoth about my own Drop Pod list, I was expecting (scratch that, hoping for) a few comments about any potential weaknesses in the list. 4-5 long emails later and we had come up with a list that was how I liked it with no further improvements that he could think of. And I've recently learned that he usually gets several emails every day that require long replies.
Many deserved thanks to you for saying that my blog sets a high standard. It really is gratifying to hear that I write good quality articles (though really Kirby'sBlog is generally better I think, mainly because he and his other authors have more experience and knowledge behind their posts).
P.S. Another advantage of writing it else-where is that Blogger can occasionally eat your post (or comment, as happened to Marshal Learoth on my blog once) and having another copy removes the chance of you having to begin again from scratch (well, it does for me; I'm not sure how you prepare before hand, either with notes or an outline or not at all or whatever).
Thanks for understanding. :)
ReplyDelete