40K Players: Turn up your army’s suck & turn down your own
Yes, I'm using a Starcraft II screen cap to illustrate my point.
In the Jaded Gamercast Facebook Group, I recently expressed my disdain for cookie cutter, power-build armies.
Actually, it was this:
What ever happened to wanting to play a fun army that’s fun to play against? Or a fluff army whose victories are unassured but looks AMAZING.
Or how about an army that should, on paper, lose games like frigging crazy but because its both unorthodox and you’ve become skilled with it, you wreck face?
I get that guys like to win, but aren’t people getting sick of cookie cutter armies? I think that THAT is part of the reason why there is so much ennui with 40K right now.
To which one of the pundits of the group, Tim of Douchebag Anonymous, asked:
Those are some of the ways to play, Teri, but not all of them. You don’t really think anyone not doing it in one of the ways listed above is having fun wrong, do you?
To clarify, the people he’s alluding to are the ones I’m also alluding to: the players get to their powergaming phase – the place where taking better units and optimized builds helps compensate for their lack of adaptive skill as a general – and instead of progressing to appreciate the hobby in all its aspects instead of just the game, they stop there. (I’ve talked about this myself on this blog before- I’ve been there as both a 40K player and as roller derby freshmeat.)
My short answer to Tim is yes. Yes, they’re having fun wrong.
The long answer is this: If their fun comes strictly from winning, they’re kneecapping themselves for wins in the short term but heavy losses over the long term (and possibly even a loss of love for the game thereafter.)
Players become better generals in adverse situations – unbalanced game scenarios, unorthodox army builds, and outside the box strategies all throw wrenches into a player’s gaming experience which forces them to think creatively, use their army differently and understand off-the-wall gaming approaches. Simply put, generals learn from their defeats (or near defeats), not from their easy victories.
It’s called a learning curve. The problem with these power gaming types gravitating towards the cookie-cutter optimized lists is that the list compensates for their lack of skill. (I’ve written about this before, but in the context of buying 700 roller skates to make me a better derby skater.)
Here’s a video game analogy: by playing these highly-optimized, cookie-cutter lists, players are essentially turning down the game’s difficulty setting. It’s great when you’re starting out, gives you that hit of dopamine that gamblers get when they strike lucky, but in reality, by being loss averse, players aren’t actually improving as generals as well as they could be with a list built knowing their list has a clear and obvious weakness.
Ultimately, if the amount of fun a player has is related to how much he wins, then playing to master the game should be the means to that goal. That may mean more losses in the shorter term, but far more wins over time.
Players who choose to take the short term gains will suffer some pretty brutal losses when the experience scale goes up – a large tournament setting, for example. They may be the big fish in their small pond at their local gaming venue, thanks to the power of their list, but when the stakes are raised along with the experience in the room, those same guys may find themselves struggling.
There’s only so many tournaments in a year, so if the ONLY place you can learn (lose) to play the game is tournament, you’ll be behind the curve. If you play games every week outside the tournament setting, playing an underpowered list against lesser generals with BETTER lists will make you a better general, instead of feeding your ego.
If your “fun” is to win, you probably want to also win at big events. You probably want to win when swimming with the sharks. If you choose to play locally and make every game outside that big event setting make you a better general, play for mastery. Don’t play for the win when the wins don’t count.
And, well, if you’re the kind of guy who likes to show up and play games JUST to win and you are uninterested in becoming a better general and your idea of fun is crushing kids at the local GW, well, you’re also having fun the wrong way. I’m not going to elaborate as to why.
Don’cha know Teri: Tim is never wrong.
Well… not exactly convincing. I starting picking out all the fallacies but found I was just quoting your entire post.
Ex:
‘Players become better generals in adverse situations – unbalanced game scenarios, unorthodox army builds, and outside the box strategies all throw wrenches into a player’s gaming experience which forces them to think creatively, use their army differently and understand off-the-wall gaming approaches.’
-Not quite correct, players placed in unbalanced game scenarios, etc. become better at unbalanced game scenarios. You then start talking about defeats leading to more skill gain than victories as your conclusion, never having mentioned it before.
Everything you write here is mostly based on two very flawed assumptions you keep going back to:
-Competitive players can only have fun by winning
-They build optimized lists because they are worse players
If the only way you can defend your view is by marginalizing another, you may have some issues with the former.
I would have preferred to email this to you, but Facebook doesn’t seem to allow messages anymore and you don’t list any contact information. Feel free to moderate this.
By the way, if this whole thing is a satire piece, I fully admit it went over my head.
Yeah, some pretty big assumptions here.
Teri, I once had a very similar conversation with a gamer at my old club. He was a notorious ‘competitive list’ gamer. I extolled the virtues of campaign style and narrative style gaming at great length. When I broached the concept of actually playing games with unequal points he finally snapped and looking at me as if I was something that had crawled out of a 6 month old zombies pants stated “I will never play a game where I don’t have a chance of winning”.
Some people just don’t get it.
I’m going to agree with Tim for some of this. There is no reason that playing hardball can’t be fun. Playing a competitive list all the time is not the same as beign a Win at all costs gamer. Yes, those people exist, no not every person who plays a hard army is one of them.
You’ve made some good points but also some massive assumptions.
Also I’m definitely not a power gamer I abhor people bringing D-bag lists to tournaments and own a few armies that are specifically there as brain stretchers (if I can win with this crappy army then winning with a good one is no problem).
BUT the one time i played in ardboyz for giggles was some of the most fun I’ve ever had, and I think it’s insulting to those players who play ardboyz to assume they are all poor generals.
I think the onus is on the player to recognize what sort of game he’s going to be playing and adjust his playstyle accordingly.
If I know I’m going to either an event or a friendly game where my opponent expects me to bring my A-game, that’s certainly what I’m going to do.
Does that mean I have to write a completely non-themed, dickhead list? Of course not. I don’t own a single army that isn’t restricted or themed in some way; to do so would, in my eyes, detract from a lot of the charm the hobby has to offer. I’d rather play with / against my double-shaggoth Warriors o’ Chaos (Fantasy) or my psyker-laden Thousand Sons (40k) than some netlisted all-four-gods-Daemons (Fantasy) or Coteaz a’plenty Grey Knights (40k).
But if I know I’m going to be playing competitively (which IS NOT the same thing as win at all costs, which is I think the attitude being argued against in your post, Teri, and rightly so!) I’m going to bring a competitive list without pulling any punches.
I think that might be what That Guy and Tim are suggesting; not that WAAC is appropriate for every game, but that if two guys want to play a competitive game, or if an event is themed to be uber competitive, there’s no harm in playing that way if everyone is on the same page and friendly about it, without bringing lists that are so completely over the top there’s no point in unpacking your models.
I remember one of my first fantasy games was at a Great White tournament with a borrowed army. I knew the event was competitive and, even though I got creamed, I had a blast! I was expecting and prepared for that kind of an event, and my competitors were, for the most part, fun guys to play against.
On the other hand, being the guy who brings a WAAC, purposefully broken tourney list to any tournament that bills itself as a campaign driven, less competitive event or playing like a jerk against the twelve year old that brought his marines from spehss to a Monday night at GW is certainly not acceptable.
I think the trick here is to know what sort of game you’re going to be playing (because it IS a game), know your opponent, and don’t be a WAAC ponce. Pretty simple.
Also, wow, that turned into an essay pretty fast. Apologies for length folks. This is an issue myself and several good friends of mine have been particularly passionate about for the past few years, working in and around the hobby so frequently. Thanks for bringing some of this stuff to light, Teri!
Ok: so I think people are reading between the lines and thinking I’m making judgements about guys who like to win. I’m not. Hello – I’m married to Nathan. He likes to win. A lot. That’s totally cool.
Here’s the assumption I’m making: guys who want to win at 40K want to master the game. Competitive players are epitome of master-archetype gamers (as game designers would put it). They want to be great at the game. I’m married to one, so I’m not going to poo-poo on that style of play.
My assertion: The way you get there is by putting yourself in adverse situations so you learn the game better, you make the game harder for yourself, and the outcome of all that is that you’ll be a better general.
And be honest with yourself: you learn more about how you can improve as a player from losses and draws rather than wins. It’s a simple fact.
My disdain for overpowered cookie-cutter lists is that those optimized lists don’t give the same opportunity for players to LEARN to be better (i.e. to be in positions where strategy wins the day, not better units).
Another MMO analogy: I’m advocating for griding.
Everyone knows when you grind against harder mobs, you get better experience. Same deal with mini wargamming. That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about unbalanced scenarios, or weaker units. I’m talking about bringing your army level down so YOU have to compensate for IT.
You play against the ropes, you get better.
What I’m saying to you guys who take good lists: try taking bad lists and being good with them. You’ll find that you’ll be a better general for it.
I’m talking about trying to get guys who are in their powergame phase (where their army compensates for their playstyle) to move towards becoming master gamers (where their army compliments their playstyle).
From master gamers guys then can move on to master hobbyists – where you stop shooting for best general and you can start shooting for best overall.
You made an assertion, but then haven’t really explained what led you to that conclusion. You still can’t help deriding competitive gamers (that’s the beginning phase, I’ve moved passed that, etc). So, do you have something to explain your hypothesis? Your own experience having mastered generalship? Some resource that has studied this that you’d like to reference?
If you you want to be a great runner, but spend all day cycling, you’re just not going to get there. Sure, you’ll get a little better at running, but you’ll sure become a hell of a cycler.
Playing with bad armies a lot will make you good at playing bad armies, not with good ones; how their elements work together totally changes as you start dealing with play concepts such as synergy (which just doesn’t exists with many of the lists I see). You start playing with an actual army that works together rather than a smattering of units that do their own thing (which is really obvious and simple to play). The former is my ‘playstyle’.
List building is a skill that has an equal place in this game and hobby as all the other elements you mention. Still, that is a skill that is extremely lacking everywhere I look. Instead of pursuing to be great at all things, people just throw around words like, ‘cookie cutter’ or ‘net list’ and hide behind it. One of my favourites is, “I’d rather be a great general than a great list builder.” Push to be great at both instead of drawing a line in the sand. Maybe it’s time for people to step up rather than hiding behind excuses and insults.
There’s other ways to ‘put yourself against the ropes’ than by practicing the wrong thing. Playing at a points disadvantage, for example. You could put constraints on your play like forcing yourself to tank shock whenever possible, or to always dismount when an enemy model comes within 12″ of your transport. You get to understand how elements function alone and together, and how to best employ them within the construct of a solid list.
I think its you that’s missing out
I try not to get involved on the comments of my wife’s blog since I can just talk to her about it but hey, why not?
I think the biggest problem that people are having is this idea of playing the game without “their” list. The point Teri is making is that you will be a better general with “your” list if you practice playing variations of it.
The idea behind this is if you intentionally handicap yourself in practice (similar to what Tim said in his last comment when he talked about “constraints”), then when the chips are on the line at a tournament, you will be better able to react to adverse situations and pairings at a tournament. Try playing your Mech Guard with no melta guns for a few games. Teaches you creative anti-tank methods doesn’t it?
Also, speaking from a place of experience, this method works. My first tournament ever (Conflict Calgary 2004, Holla!) I placed 5th worst. For lead up to that event, I played my tournament list about 20 – 30 times. I KNEW it. Inside and out. Didn’t matter. I played armies I didn’t know how to deal with. Got raped so bad that someone asked me to point on the doll where the bad men touched me.
Immediately after that tournament the fellow who runs the Onslaught tournaments (October 22, go register!) ran a narrative campaign. Sides were never balanced as points costs were different, as were abilities. I rebuilt my whole army through that campaign and afterwards I attended another major tournament with approximately 50 people in attendance. I placed 6th.
The point is, no matter how much I practiced with “MY” list, it only taught me how to use that list. Where to move, what to shoot and what to charge. It never taught me how to think critically. That’s what Teri is getting at. Go learn how to adapt to bad situations.
It’s not like Teri told everyone to go play Tyranids and Demons (Necrons are coming out soon, they won’t count for long) and learn to win games with a shitty army. She said to imbalance your lists and learn to think.
Well… she advocated bad lists and unbalanced scenarios in her original post. These are bad, bad, bad things for growing the community, as people who get placed at an extreme disadvantage (through poor listbuilding or unbalanced scenario) can easily end up with a bad taste in their mouths, and possibly quitting the game. Help the new guy by not putting him in situations where he’ll get rolled, and you may have just gained a new community member for life. Was it fair for the guy I played in the first round of Onslaught last time around to be forced to walk on all his drop podding troops due to scenario? I doubt he learned anything there, other than showing up to tournaments may mean he just can’t win some games.
If the intent was not there to do that, then I agree with her; something must have just gotten lost in the translation from thought to post. I agree with much of what you said, Nathan.
I’m not quite in agreement about your handicap of no meltaguns. This doesn’t actually end up teaching you creative anti-tank methods if you designed your list around them. All you will end up with is severe losses against a mech army with no solution left than to change other parts of the army to compensate for removing reliable anti-tank from your list. You’ll learn a couple lessons maybe (such as how ineffective combat is for destroying vehicles), but you won’t end up with much knowledge that isn’t (I hope) obvious or useful. I’ll just chalk that up to being a random example rather than a legitimate testing method.
Still though. Don’t you think you could have improved quite a bit by just playing against those armies you didn’t know how to deal with as part of your playtesting gauntlet? When your practice shows that, over time, you have a glaring Achilles’ Heel, it indicates that you have an unbalanced list where you may have thought otherwise. You can practice all day learning your own list’s nuances, but if you don’t have a plan for how to beat foot Orks for example, you’ll still get rolled. Lack of experience is still a central reason for losses, here we are in complete agreement. I just question Teri’s (and I guess, your) methodology, not clearly seeing its ability to actually lead to improvement.
I knew my list very well at the last Onslaught. I ended up losing one game to a Jetseer Council list. I had never seen one before. Had I just gotten a draw, I would have ended up Best General, but instead ended up being massacred putting me in 4th. I now know the ins and outs of that match-up and have expanded the types of armies I need to test against. It’s really a bad army, in retrospect, but can catch you by surprise when you show up unprepared (and inexperienced).
“I now know the ins and outs of that match-up and have expanded the types of armies I need to test against. ”
Why don’t you just do that from the start like Teri’s blog was arguing. INstead of playing a cookie cutter point and click list against what you think are the “best” cookie-cutter point and click lists, why don’t you add some variety to your games.
Just cause you love Big Macs doesn’t mean they’re good for every meal.
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