[HappyJim]

Originally Posted by 2000AD

Before I begin the reply I'd like to requote a part of my previous post you didn't reply to and make something clear:
" In addition I'd like to point out something not brought up in my previous posts.
The very best WAAC players are the ones that also play some games just to have fun as well. (again this is inspired by the articles by Dave Sirlin)
In a quick summation of the linked article the main reasons why WAAC players will also play just for fun are:
- Research. If you only ever play the safe option you'll never know if it's worth taking the risk at the right time. Likewise if you dedicate yourself to playing one way you might never find out there's a better way to be playing. Playing just for fun allows you to test new ideas in an environment where there's no risk.

- Limited local player pool. Sure, in your area you might be a class above everyone else, but if you constantly demolish everyone then that's going to wear down even the most adamant 'just for fun' player. If the only options available to you are:
A.) demolish everyone once and then no one wants to play you again
or
B.) play for fun and keep playing week in and week out, bring out the big guns only when needed.
then obviously B.) is the only real option. "

To make things clear:
I am not advocating playing to win at all times. I am not saying it's ok to agree to go for a friendly game yet take out your uber-army of doooooooom and domintate them.
I'm advocating that playing to win is not intrinsically a bad thing.
I'm advocating that players that dedicate themselves to playing to win, tend to be, on average, better players than players that don't.

well im advocating WAAC playing when your playing friendly games, what ever people do at Tournaments is their buisness, i had my fill of the GW GT's, im just highly against people using the same armies round a friends house or what not.

Actually what I'm trying to say throughout is that if you deliberately play weaker (for eg. because you consider things beardy) and then automatically expect other people to follow the same things as you, or even insult another player because they don't follow your special guidelines, then that is making you a bad player.
The 'expecting to win' part comes from that, in my experience, the players who cry beardy tend to genuinely think they are better players because they don't 'play beardy'. If they get beat, they'll all to easily dismiss the loss as "I only lost to that guy because he was beardy, I'm still the better player." when more often or not it's not the list but the player that beat them.
Also, if you deliberately use weaker lists and avoid using stuff you call 'beardy' then you can't truly say you are playing to win. If you impose limits on yourself, you're playing to win in your own slightly different game, not playing to win the game itself.

Actually crying cheese at fall isnt always because people think they are bad players, its because they are poor sportsmen, did i mention how beardy my exalted daemon is against TK.. aparantly. The thing is its very easy to dimiss a game against someone using a gunline, you simply cannot feel outplayed if someone has sat at the back of the board rolling dice, i personally avoid these types of players because you get little out of the game, i just hate the very limited playstyle, this isnt to say you cant beat them but you find you either beat bad or lose badly.

Even if it doesn't take a competant player to use it it will take a competant player to beat it. And if a list is so good it's broken then why shouldn't someone playing to win use it? If they can go out and dominate tournaments with it then why not? Use it until someone finds a way to beat it (and 99% of the time "unbeatable" lists turn out to be beatable after all) or the game designers admit it's broken and either fix it or ban it.
Basic human nature means there'll allways be people that thrive on competition and winning.

So basically it for players with less skill and beating it proves im a far better player? dosnt this just prove my point using weaker lists and winning makes you better player I guess what this comes down to is what you want out of a game, personally i enjoy troop movement, baiting, flanking and the such, against these style of lists i robbed of many of these things so games becomes a move as fast as you can into combat. Im also greater hater of massed shooting, hence why i dont play 40k anymore. At the end of the day unbeatable isnt even in my equation, no such thing, any list can be beaten with tactics, i just know what makes for a good game in my eyes.

If you only care about the example you gave then we're already in agreement.
As for cheating at GTs I can't say I've seen any. I've seen some honest mistakes (magic armour + enchanted shield = 3rd place -> mid table), but I've never seen blatent cheating, probably because the people attending GTs are normally very well read on rules and will call anything they can.

Hmm, well i played a GW staff member with my chaos who claimed after being charged buy a spawn and failing his fear test the unit got the mark of chaos undivided, you woudl also think by game 4 he would have remembered that you take stupidty test for helm of many eyes. I also had the guy who claimed that while being6/7" away from the centre of the board he was in the centre and so could claim any table edge, i also have the player (actually the chaos player again) who declared a charge with a beast heard and moved it into contact before i could even check the arc (didnt look like a side charge to me) This just to name a few, dont get me wrong i did meet a few nice players, i also meet some cheating bastards.

I'll take that as a complement.

I wouldnt

And your analogy of puberty is flawed. Playing to win is not just a phase some people go through, it's a part of human nature. While I agree younger people are more competative and the onset of puberty does tend to see a drop in competativeness, it is never comlpetely dismissed.
As for weakening lists, I tend to have better games against good list/good player than weak list/average player, I like the challenge. Then again if I'm playing for fun it becomes any list/any player that isn't an absolute cock.

No less so than your analogy to drugs in sport again you bring in the average player = weak list, you certainly do have good players who have weaker lists. Still i dont claim it is completely dimissed obviously not if i dont why people cant use toned down list and still want to win.

Depends on the circumstances. Would I want it as a friendly game in a store, no. Would I want it if it was the deciding game at a GT, hell yes.

The latter would never apply, i will never go to a GT again, every now and then i think about it but i always decide against it because of past experiences, friendly player is the way forward for myself.

Maybe, but in my experience the majority of people are just as friendly as everyone else. They can be a bit more competative, because there's actually something on the line in those games, but that doesn't impact how they are as a person. There's always a few bad apples, like the father son team i mentioned, but only in the same proportion as you'd find anywhere else.

I think in my time apart for the GT i have encoutered one bad apple, this person however lives in london and thus dont play him im not saying their arnt good players but its the same blanket statement you have given about players wanting to use more interesting lists as being weaker.

From your characterisation it seems that the problem with mr I MUST WIN/ARROGANT/etc is not with his army and play style but with his personality. Bad personality is not something that is automatically linked to playing to win, in fact I've seen a few players who play for fun that make the game just as unenjoyable as bubonic plague due to their personality.
Also, as mentioned numerous times, it does come down to the circumstances of the game as well.

Well i have found more often that not the players trying to win tend to far more arrogant than those just having fun, while i agree that many people cant make a game unenjoyable they tend to be the ones who dont drink

At their core, every sport is a game, it is a contest between people to see who is better at that activity. Sure, you can just play them to pass time, but there are allways people, no matter what the game, that will play it to see who is better at that game.

Yes but it does become rather sad that people putting winning before the enjoyment of game in a friendly enviroment, as i said, its just toy soliders, losing is part of life, its one of the greatest teachers, still i would rather lose a game than win because i used Karl franz and two stanks, kinda like me entering the 100m sprint on a motor bike.

You're right, not everyone needs to take the best army to win, but if your intention is to win, then picking the best army you can is the best starting point.

If you don't like playing that way the don't, I'm not trying to change how you play.

The thing is while playing ina friendly enviroment i just cant understand the enjoyment of even using certain list, its like the last time i used a BT (with new book however) it completely dominated the game, the only thing i enjoyed was the guy bitching because it killed Tyrion and tyrions a daemon slayer, for a two hour game thats rather saddening to say the least.

[/quote]
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.[/quote]
And in my experience a good player with a good list wins more often than a bad player with a good list or a good player with a weaker list.
As for assuming a player with no restraint is (on average) better than a player that limits themselves isn't really that much of a stretch.
A Manchester United team that uses all it's players and tactics is better than a Man U team that doesn't play Christiano Ronaldo because they think using him is beardy.[/quote]

the thing i found with many of no brainer choices was that are pretty easy to use, like a dragon for example, its fast, it hide behind terran far easier due to move rate, it can shoot, march block, terror cannon crews, etc.

An infantry block on the other hand needs several units to work in synergy in order for it to work, you need units to take out shooting, to protect against shooting or top screen if its frenzied, you need to protect against units that may march block, ou need to make sure it isnt charged by fast moving units, to make sure it gets the charge, , you protect it flanks or rear from light cav, you need to attack enemy infantry blocks with flank/rear charges at the same time. dont know about you but i always find the infantry unit far more rewarding to unit and filled with plenty of tactics, infact far more than said dragon. Seeing as i need to use more tactics to use mu infantry i wonder why i think you become a better player

And likewise if you dedicate time to Warhammer you can become better at it and you can overcome a natural ability (If Warhammer has natural ability) with enough practice.
While Warhammer is no where near the stage that you can become a pro, it is certainly at the stage where you can have very talented amateurs.

however with warhammer you are limited to what you can learn based on your intellgence, unlike a runner who easily muscle mass and stamoa with no such limitation

I totally agree that the person on the other side of the table can make the game a joy or a pain, but army and playing style are not automatically linked to personality. I've had many games against people who had power lists and played to win, but they were as friendly as anyone else.

but not matter what a great guy you are, i just cannot see the joy in say someone with a sad list going right heres 5 warp lightnings a turn, 2 warpcannons and 20 jezzails, as far as im concerned, playing those styles of lists is a waste of my time.

On that we agree.

Good

I apologise if i came off as arrogant, but I do genuinely believe that if you don't limit yourself then you will become a better player.
I'm not saying you automatically become a better player by accepting that, but I think it is the first step on becoming the best player you can.
I think that if you take two players of equal ability, yet one imposes limits on himself then the he is more likely to lose.

thats ok, just dont do it again im sorry but i cant see how using a "better list" which takes minimal part in the came can make anyone a better player.

Neither would I

Fair enough, I tend to try and resolve my problems and get them out of the way. Then again, I don't really have problems with playstyles.

No amount of talking will change some peoples views, its just the way of things, its also not my placem still the internet is a different ball game

Frankly that's ridicolous. So I can calculate how many zombies I can get in 2000 points, does that mean an army of zombies is any good?
Basic maths isn't even that important given the widespread availability of tools to do it for you.
Building a good list is about knowing how to get the most out of the points limit for your army, knowing what units complement each other, minimising your weaknesses while maximising your strengths, trying to predict what your opponent(s) will be taking and a whole host of other things on top of those.
To say army building is just basic maths displays a fundamental lack of knowledge about it.

It isnt that hard to look at unit, add the points up, compare to another unit and see what your getting for you points, it really isnt rocket science, of course my assumption is that person using basic maths skills has atleast minimal intellegence rather than a 5 year old with a fetish for pressing the same numbet on a calcultar.

If it's a very good army and you're a good player, so it'll take an equally good and army and player to beat it then yes, it is playing the game to the fullest.

But your not if you only take part in two phases of a game, infact you playing a game of warhammer to the minimal

Given that I repeatably mention tactics and play style, no, I don't clearly just mean army list creation. New armies are part of it, but there's other parts too.

I have seen this so many times how all the tactics of warhammer are in the list, hell, the two dwarf players at my local GW think this (they also player 40k and think it has more tactics...) still i dont define gunlines as a tactical army.

IMO playing the game to it's fullest is taking the best army you can and playing as good as you can. If that Skaven list is the best you think there is fair enough, I bet there's lots of other players out there who think their army is the best there is and will try their best to prove that on the gaming tables.

But that isnt playing the game to the fullest, your just taking part in the shooting phase and magic you clearly ignoring other phases because your either to lazy or unable. Please using a gunline because its powerful is not playing warhammer to its fullest