[HappyJim]

Originally Posted by 2000AD

I was reffering to the example given, the guy that would tailor lists but also cry beard. IMO that makes him one of two things:
- A hypocrit
- The type of player I was trying to illustrate.

The problem with the player with the way you tried to illustrate is that along with other traits you ossicate it with using a weaker list, its like your saying if you like weaker like but expect to win your a poor player, this is a constant throughout your post.

I know a WAAC player wouldn't limit themsleves, I make that point throughout my posts.

Actually you dont, i seem to recall it being someone who wants to use the same weak list but win

You're forgetting one other important part of winning: Pride
You think football players want to play in the Champion's League just for money? Hell no, they want to play because they recognise it as the foremost competition in club football and if they play in it they're testing themselves against some of the best in the world, it's a challenge of their skill.
I've never been payed to play Warhammer, but I have paid for the priviledge to test myself against players in a recognised format.

Oh please, we are talking about toy soldiers, we are not talking about football, obviously however your are not testing yourself if your using the no brainer choices, take a skaven SAD list, do not even pretend it takes a competent player to win with such lists. Its all about ego, and pride, some people are affraid they might fail.

Bolded for emphasis. As I made clear in my previous post social behaviour is determined by the place. Your presenting one specific example as if it applies to all occasions of playing to win.
If you know in advance that the place your playing is more about fun, but you still play like a GT final, then yes, that would be bad social behaviour, but that is just one situation. It is far far away from declaring totally that playing to win, no matter what the circumstances, is bad social behaviour, as the previous post I was replying to implied.

Thing is i only actually care about the example i gave, i personally give a damn about how people play at the GT's, thats none of my buisness and to be honest its just a bunch of nerds trying to beat their chests in the only way they know how. I went to a GT once, i would never repeat the experience, while i meet a few cool people i meet just as many idiots, the problem is when you pay abit of cash to play warhammer people seem to think it gives them a right to cheat, thats against the social code i see in place for a game of warhammer.

Army building is one of the main skills in winning at Warhammer. The best victory is one where you didn't have to fight at all, if your list is so good that the opponent stands no chance before the first dice is even rolled then that is still a victory.
Again the challenge of beating a 'unbeatable' list appears, no matter how you choose to go about it, whether it's to change your list, to change your play style or just change your tactics.
I'm not confusing optimised lists with power gaming, I'm recognising optimised lists as one part of power gaming.

Im sorry but thats the worst kind of victory, that is spoken like a true WAAC player, i player warhammer for the enjoyment of the, this really goes back to my anaogly of perberty, some people take longer to get past the need to win. To be honest, i have played some truely appauling players in my time who i have beaten with little or no effort, how did make the game better for both of us, offer advice and weaken my list, trust me, its a better game .

As mentioned earlier, pride is one reason. The Champions League final could be a boring as hell 0-0 lockout, going down to penalties, but the team that wins will be overjoyed no matter how boring the game was.
Also an example from a doubles tournament a few years ago. Me and my partner squared off against a father son team that brought new meaning to the words 'rules lawyering'. they questioned every decision, took ages to do even the simplest moves and basically made the game hell. Did me and my partner have fun playing that game? No, but when the victory points were totaled and we had a major victory we had such a feeling of satisfaction that it made it worth it.

Oh we have all played people like that, yes its great to beat them once, would i want to repeat the experience, certainly not, then again this is in a tournament enviroment again, isnt it really to be expected? as i said people turn into dicks and think they have certain rights when they pay money to play warhammer.

I recognise that I play to win and as I pointed out 'moral high ground' does not enter into it. I'm playing with the same rules everyone else does, if they want to assert their own decisions on top of those rules about 'how to play' and 'beard/cheese/etc.' onto their own army then that is their choice, not mine.

Your whole post seems to me like you feel you have the moral high ground, the thing with the term cheese/beard/etc is that it has been around everr since i remember, if you learnt to play warhammer in GW then your going to pick up the slang. The whole problem occurs when you have a guy playing for fun/showcase models/meet people vs mr I MUST WIN/ARROGANT/etc, the problem is the first guy wants to enjoy himself and the 2nd guy dosnt care of the other guy enjoys himself, so we have the start of the social problem. Generally when you break social code you are going to have remarks made in away that offends/anouyes you. People dont change that much from school, people just like to pretend they do (i work in a play school and the teachers are worse than the kids )

It's a game, and the main difference between a sport and a game is that sports tend to require more athletic ability. In the end they're all games, all with a winner and a loser (or a draw).

Actually the main difference is really that a game is something to pass the time, a sport is something to compete in, the game becomes something to compete in if you lack the athletic ability for sport or you take life far to seriously.

And obviously it's an analogy that's gone right over your head.
The people using the drugs are still playing by the rules, just using everything they have available as an advantage.
The people not using the drugs are hampering their own chances of winning by trying to take some percieved moral high ground that the game doesn't recognise. If they refuse to take the drugs and then lose to someone who does, they then have no right to turn around and start declaring their opponent 'beardy' because they used drugs.

no i just found the analogy amusing, just the fact you compare beardy to drug taking wait, think about it

And the notion that it's the weaker players that do this is laughable for 2 reasons:
- It's often people just as strong as the competition that do stuff like take drugs. Ben Johnson was a world class sprinter already before he took drugs. In the analogy of the Olympics allowing drugs do you think they're just going to pick someone randomly and give them drugs? Of course not, they're going to pick the best and then try to make them better.

Of course you find it funny, just as i have found many parts of your post, please, not everyone need to pick the best army to win, you know why, because not everyone has the massive ego that needs stroking. I have played the unfluffy powergaming list, i simply get no joy from using them, i never found them a challenge to use. I guess the difference is here is that base my views on personal experience rather than speculation, many of you points assume your better than someone else because you have no restraint.

- As your so keen to point out Warhammer is a game not a sport, it has no athletic component, so where does natural ability come into it? For example, one player beats another player solely because the loser didn't study the tactic used because he thought it was 'beardy'. Is the winner a weaker player with less 'natural ability'? Hell no, he brought a tactic to the table that the other player had no knowledge of how to beat it and used it to win. If your opponent decides to blinker themselves by not wanting to use certain tactics due to their own moral code then there's no reason the other player should limit themselves if the rules clearly allow it.

Intellegence isnt a abilty, some people are simply more so than others, some people eat better food which improve this, for a sport you have to work hard, train hard many hours if a day and for many its becomes a fulltime job. I guess the main problem is you really dont even understand how beardy is used or perhaps your just selfish and have concerns for others around you. At the end of the day warhammer is a two player game, not a one player game. If you people are happy playing you great, have fun, it dosnt fit into the way i recieve enjoyment from the game which is the most important thing as far as im concerned.

I tend to find the people at the top, the ones playing to win, make less comments about their opponents play style. They're not going to call something 'beardy/cheap/etc' because those same words could most likely be leveled at them.

I generally dont make comments on other peoples armies unless its damn extreme, when i say extreme we are talking about Thorek gunlines (if this wasnt broken GW wouldnt have needed to release a errata just for the GT )

My reason for posting is to defend agains the notion that playing to win is a bad thing.
As I've made clear the only play style that you'll have to defend against me is the one where the player tries to force their own way of playing on another. People playing to win and people playing for fun just get on with it. It's the people that say they're playing to win (or sometimes say playing for fun) but then try to impose their own rules on the game by insinuating that certain styles are 'cheap/beardy/etc' to make it look like another persons style of play is somehow worse than theirs that I am attacking.

I wouldnt say its a bad thing persay but more it has its time and place, my main issue with you original post was the arrogance and the claims your a better player if you play to win. I personally would never make someone change a list in order to play me, if i have a problem with certain playstyles i would however rather talk about it online than create a bad vibe with people i play.

I never said basic maths skills made a good player. My whole point is that the people playing to win will explore the game to it's full extent and create new tactics and ways of playing.
The people who cry beard will fence themsleves into their own version of how they think the game should be played and when they come up against someone who doesn't play to their own special way will quite likely get massacred by tactics they either dismissed or never even dreamed of.

armylist creating is nothing more than basic maths, the thing is, is using a army based around say 3 models playing the game to the fullest? actually seems to me that its actually playing the game in a very limited fasion.

[quotw]In fact, how did you translate:
"exploring the game, experimenting, trying the unknown, finding counters to supposably 'unbeatable' tactics/armies, they looked at what was 'beard' and instead of refusing to use or play against it, they found out how to beat it."
into:
"people think because they have basic maths skill they are a great player,"
because from where I'm sitting they look like 2 totally different and unrelated statements.[/quote]

People who think they can create a army list seem to believe they have some amazing skill rather than the cold hard truth is that you can do some basic maths, when you are exploring the game to the "fullest" you clearly mean armylist creation as well. I mean perhaps im wrong, perhaps the skaven 4 warlocks, 20 jezzails, 2 warp lightniing cannons, rattling cannons with every unit is playing the game to the fullest, well bar when i actually play i dont have actually take part in the movement phase but rather sit back and roll dice.

At the start of my last post i confessed i didn't know what the acronym WAAC meant and guessed it meant Win at all Costs. Is that not correct?
I'm going by assumption that a WAAC player is the same as someone playing to win. Someone that will use every legal means they can to win the game. Someone that doesn't add their own 'code of honour' or 'moral high ground' to the game, someone that will use any and all legal tactics and army lists to win the game.
Is that not what it means?

I thought it was pretty self explentery

And this from a guy who insinuated i made cheap shots and then strawmanned my argument.

You intial arugement was rather insulting to begin with, if your gona have such arrogance within it what do you expect? Its that kinda of thing that will always fire up normal players.


As mentioned earlier, I pay to test my self against the best players. If there was a Risk World Championship I'd bet there's be people paying to play in that too, just so they could say they were World Champion at Risk.
If Warhammer had massive sponsorship and was watched worldwide like other sports then maybe it would be like big sports where your payed to play, but it isn't, it's a minor game and like all others right now the players are paying to have the chance to call themselves the best.

You don't have to be a competative player to be a good one. Like wise playing to win and having fun playing are not mutually exclusive and I never said they were. It seems your confusing the concept of Playing for Fun with having fun while playing.


Don't forget building army lists is only one part of the game. I go to GTs not just to face tough lists, but also tough players, players that know good tactics and play styles, players that will be a challnege to beat with only an average list.


Maybe to you they're pointless, but to someone Playing to Win they're fundamental. A player wanting to win will have to think of a way to beat that tactic/list/etc. so that when they play it again they don't lose.

Not really, in fact I switched between the 2 during my earlier post while describing the same people.

I'm not hiding behind anything. If a player brings a superior list and superior tactics to a game and wins consistantly (to minimise luck being a factor) then I think it's clear that that player is the better player at that game.
I've never made any insinuation about who's the better person.

In summation, to make it clear, it's the people that try to make themsleves look like a better player by calling another person (especially one they just lost to) cheap/beardy/etc that I have an argument with.[/quote]