Hi y'all!

A while ago, back when I was the most involved in the hobby of GW gaming, some, er, ten years ago (?), there was a lot of talk about something called beardiness.

Beardiness means, quite simply, to play only for winning, disregarding fluff. This could mean a) making your army list as powerful as possible, or b) playing in such powerful a way as possible. A person guilty of beardiness was a beard, an army made in such a way was considered beardy.

Note - and this is important! - that beardiness has nothing to do with cheating. It just has to do with using the rules to one's fullest advantage.

Anyway, I haven't come across this term in a while, and wonder what happened to it. Is it still in use? Is there another word for it?

Love y'all
Jürgen

I think its been replaced with cheesiness or some variation on that. A lot of ''beardy'' 40k armies have their own name as well-eg nidzilla/flying circus etc.

A lot of ''beardy'' 40k armies have their own name as well-eg nidzilla/flying circus etc.

Actually, those are just names for various styles of lists... not really being 'beardy' or 'cheesy.'

i use a range of vocab for such things "beardiness" "pure cheese" and "power gamer" being variations used by myself but beardyness is my favourite!

dont worry it is alive and well at GW St.Albans...

Brits use "beardy" more, while "cheesy" is more American.
The French often use "Grobill".

They all mean the same, and they're all well and alive.

Brits use "beardy" more, while "cheesy" is more American.
The French often use "Grobill".

They all mean the same, and they're all well and alive.

In theory, anyway.

These days, as with alot of things, even amongst Britishers it's the American term that's more common. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I don't know.

I use the term "Power Gamer." I know what you mean. Story wise, the army has no cohesion, but there's a ruthless combo within it.

Honestly, as an Ogre player, I feel this way about giving butchers skullmantle and siegebreaker, a common combo. All the butchers' models have one handed weapons. Sure the more skilled craftsman will MAKE a model appear to have this, but very few players do. Even in the codex, if you look up Siegebreaker, it appears to have been made for a Tyrant, not a butcher.

This is why new codexes are made, I suppose.

It's a part of fantasy gaming. In DnD there have been characters that power game. Magic the Gathering has power gaming combos, and it looks like even Warhammer couldn't escape the cleverness of the powergamers.

I think it's because the age of gamers has lowered. They know what cheese is but couldn't manage a beard if they tried. ;)

I don't understand the brit variant.

I have a goatee, but I play for fluff dammit! :P

Several years ago, at least on my end of the isogloss, I remember "cheesy" being the most widely used term. There was a guy, who amongst other things fielded ridiculously "cheesy" Vampire counts and 'Nid armies... to the point that we kept telling him he needed to get one of the cheetos "Dangerously Cheesy" shirts. I think the local group even bought him one of the shirts, which he wore at one of our tournaments.

Anywho, "Cheesy" was the most common thing I'd heard in my area for the longest time. Now, it seems that "beardy" has more or less replaced it in frequency of use... to the point that I think "beardy" before I think "cheesy".

For 40K, GW overpowered CSMs, SMs, CDs, and Eldar. People learnt to adjust.

For WHFB, GW did another massive power creep for DoC, VCs, and DEs. People learnt to adjust.

The term beardy no longer has much meaning.

*braces self for a bricking*

-AFG//

For WHFB, GW did another massive power creep for DoC, VCs, and DEs. People learnt to adjust.



Don't forget the dwarfs armybook.

The Dwarven Anti-Defamation League raised a lawsuit against Librarium Online. We're not allowed to use "beardy" any more, guys. We don't want to get sued.

Also, for the record, I have no beard but I do have some awesome muttonchops.

Leo Tolstoy... now there's a beard.

Actually, isn't their a difference between being Cheesey and being Beardy?

Cheesey is taking advantage of an imbalanced army list

Beardey is taking advantage of rules glitches.

I was once accused of beardiness because I took a wound on my IC to keep a squad at half strength... Back in 4th, where if they were under 50% they couldn't score.

But he was just a sore loser :P

The Dwarven Anti-Defamation League raised a lawsuit against Librarium Online. We're not allowed to use "beardy" any more, guys. We don't want to get sued.

Take it as a compliment... A beardy army = an army that is just too damn good. Like the dwarfs! :dance:

Actually, isn't their a difference between being Cheesey and being Beardy?

Cheesey is taking advantage of an imbalanced army list

Beardey is taking advantage of rules glitches.


In White Dwarf, they used the word beardy for both of those things.

They even made a special battle report, where the whole point of the battle was to make it as beardy as possible. They called it "Battle of the Beards". That was kind of fun. I remember one of the players being Empire.

I think the term 'Beardy' was used because of the habit of people stroking their beard when thinking hard. And so the list used to abuse rules loopholes would require a good stroking.

A la God when he invented the appendix.

Hmmph. I always kind of figured beardiness had to do with dwarves, and especially with their gunlines. I also figured that with daemons and all, the term was falling out of use because dwarves became less beardy... or less cheesy... depending on how it strikes you. This is probably quite wrong, but I just figured I'd give you my made up answer.

I always the origin of the term 'beardy' reffered to old players. When a new kid starts an army he usually plays it straight until an old gristled veteren with a long beard and an eyepatch comes along and destroys his army with his expirience with the rules.

So when an army is super-powerful it's considered 'beardy'

Eh, I think the whole concept is rubbish. I've never met a player who accused another of being 'cheesy' or 'beardy' that didn't just get his arse kicked.

"What happened to the term "beardiness"?"


- It got shaved!!

*badish*

.
.
.

Tough crowd.






seriously though, sore losers shouldnt play a game where someone has to lose.

Hmmm... I think it's a stereotype thing, and it's dissapearance has alot to do with the age of gamers.

In the old days, gamers were older gents. Those who stayed in their basements long enough to come up with the math-hammer algorithms and the little-known combos, and lived for nothing but to unleash these diabolical schemes upon the unsuspecting- often neglected hygiene. This caused (among other things) the scrubby growth of something resembling a dead rat glued to one's chin. Aka a beard.

Now, as gamers ages decrease, and fewer of them manage to grow anything but a fine film of peach fuzz and maybe some glued-on bellybutton lint, we can't go around calling them beardy. Instead, we fall back on their poor hygenics yet again, and go for the stench of sour sweat and unwashed body, typically referred to as Geek-Stank. This tends to reek of smelly-foot cheese, and therefore the term Cheesy has come into existence.

I still use the term beardy, though I consider it different than what people refer to as cheesy or powergaming.

While cheesy is something that is overall an exploit or something that just doesn't make sense, and powergaming is using those exploits to win at any cost, even to the point of being unsportsmanlike, beardy to me is that rare instance where the person you are facing appears to be powergaming, but is actually just using what works and is in truth polite and a good sport.

A good example is an army built on the old eldar codex back before the new one had come out. It seemed very powergamed but was forced to be that way by its age and inadequacy. The player was a savvy old gentleman (who happened to have a beard) just doing what he had to to keep up with newer more versatile armies. So he was beardy. At least thats how I describe it.

I think its been replaced with cheesiness or some variation on that. A lot of ''beardy'' 40k armies have their own name as well-eg nidzilla/flying circus etc.
Well, if you are going off of his description of beardiness my Nidzilla list really isn't that way at all. I made fluff for it before I even knew that Nidzilla lists existed, I just really liked the Carnifex model so I put a bunch in my army, and thus the fluff I made for it.

I always felt cheesy or beardy players were similar but different from powergamers. I would use the term cheesy on gamers who finds exploits in overpowered, unfair, inbalanced units. Cheesy players would love the idea of there not being a force organization chart limits. If their best friend could not afford enough lascannons they would still put three Wraithlords in their army. Cheesy players are people too, they usually simply do not see it as cheesy and find it perfectly fine to field three wraithlords so its not their fault. If someone called them cheesy, they would feel bad and stop.

Powergamers are about winning. Powergamers are more for stats, strategy, and effectiveness over points cost. While they feel bad that their friends lose to them, they would feel worst if they lost themselves. Its almost a curse so its not really their fault either. Be sure to never mention things like flamer crisis suits or tau human auxiliaries in front of them unless you want to get them mad. Or maybe like Ork Flash gitz or something like that . Playing a squad of Vespids because they 'look cool' is out of the question.

Most of everyone else is categorized as the 'casual gamers' or their real term, losers. Haha, that would make me a huge casual gamer.

That's my rant, its long and mostly inaccurate but I wrote it because it entertained me.

Oh yea, there's some things that some of the powergamer or cheesy players say that bugs me a lot though. It doesn't apply to everyone though.

-If it wasn't fair, they wouldn't put it in the codex or rulebook. (Untrue, its almost impossible to make rules that were perfectly balanced or unexploitable)

-Its not cheesy, its called strategy. (its cheesy)

-Its easy to stop three Wraithlords (yea, like three more wraithlords)

-There's no such thing as cheesy (not their fault, they really don't think there's such thing as cheesy)

Beardiness is as i see it spamming the same broken units so it gives's you're opponent an un-fair advantage thats how i see it like spamming say for instance 2 Tyrants 6 carni's and the rest of the points on guants LOL.

It's fun to see all the different explanations and interpretations of this term.

Here's how I see it....

Cheesy: an army or item or rule in the game is cheesy, not a player.

Powergamer: a casual player that uses as many cheesy things as possible and says, "the point of the game is to win, this is the only way I can win," or "it's not cheesy if it's in the rulebook," (nice logic.. why's there 7 rulebooks then?) and basically doesn't realize that he's playing with friends, just wants to win.

Beardy: a player that knows what he's doing, is aware of cheesiness, and uses it to win tourneys, doesn't use flawed logic to make himself feel better about using cheesy stuff... but he also has a casual army to play with friends.

My friend plays Vamp. Counts. He equips his vampires with Vampiric abilities that make them fly, have a 2+ save, reroll all misses, kill instantly when they wound, etc. etc. And at the end of a game, I'm just like, "you broke the most important rule...."

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j76/MxyzptlkXIII/Picture1-4.png

Lucky Number you have made a very good point.

Thank you. I mean, when it's all said and done, this game is supposed to simulate an epic battle. Epic isn't flying from unit to unit, killing everything, and then dropping the general in one roll. You should always maintain a balance when playing with friends. Otherwise no one will want to play with you.

I like to see some strategy. And by strategy I don't mean read the rule book, find every exploit and give it to everybody making them impossible to kill/impossible to avoid being killed by. I understand if you're playing competitively, or for a prize, yeah sure... try to win. But when you're over a friend's house... why do that? Why do it to yourself? Why do it to friends?

Like I said earlier on page one... I play MTG the card game... I know EVERY infinite loop combo. I know how to win before the first turn BEGINS. But you know what? I don't. I had those decks, demonstrated them... and filed them in a vault next to "the one ring." People wanna play, not watch themselves lose. And in my house, no one is allowed to duplicate an army. So no... the option of everyone making a VC army to compete with his VC army is out of the question. That'd make it even MORE boring.