Are you "competitive"?

[RuneBrush]

I know this is a little "off-field" but do people think it's possible to gauge/rank how competitive an army list is?  I know it's massively subjective - we'll all have an opinion on what we personally feel equates to a competitive list, but are there any common items that occur in those lists?

[Marc Wilson]

I think you're missing a step between options 1 & 2 which I think a lot of people would fall into.

[Caffran101]

Surely everyone playing this game is "competitive" to some degree. And I dont mean that everyone is speed painting Kunnin rukks and Skyfires.

I just mean that every person you meet who plays this game wants to do well.

[Soulsmith]

I am a balance. I paint models I like and like to use them, but at the same time I tend to like things more knowing they're decent in game. That said my current painted destruction forces lack synergy so hard [emoji12]

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[Valenae]

I'm  competitive at all in AOS

I played only one game not in the tournament.

I don't see AOS as "friendly game". I can play SAGA or Warhammer 40k without tournaments but AOS only for tournament play for me.

I like to paint and make some conversions but I only paint and collect models that I pretend to use in game.

I will not include in my army bad units that I lik,  but I don't think I will play overpower army if I don't like models.

[Sheriff]

I don't understand why people would NOT want to be competitive. Winning is a huge drug, in every sense. 

Never get tired of winning, folks! 

[Nevvermore]

I don't care much about being competitive or winning, I play to hang out with people and to look at (and show off) beautiful models and terrain in a setting I enjoy. I do play in tournaments but I hang out in the bottom tier having fun and relaxed games. I don't like games being to complex either, gives me a headache to make tactical decisions for hours on end... I want gaming to be as relaxed as possible.

[RuneBrush]

I think one important thing to point out is that winning is not equal to competitive.

You can have two competitive players each running a competitive list.  Only one can win.  Conversely two non-competitive players/lists will still have a winner.  At it's core, any game should be played to win - even if your own win scenario is to have a laugh and play with your toy soldiers

[Planar]

I guess I am not competitive at all . The games I enjoy most are those which both opponents have a chance to throw a good fight till the last dice roll. When this happens I feel content and I hardly remember who won or lost the next day. These games I enjoy the most. On the other hand I am equally disappointed when someone is steamrolled on the table, either that being me or my opponent.

Having said that, that is my 40 years old self. Looking back at my 20 years old self, I had picked quite a few fights over arguing about which toy soldiers prevailed over a set of imagined rules. Really embarrassing when you look it from a 20 years perspective...

[MrCharisma]

I'm competitive... and mostly compete with myself. 

I don't run a top tier army (The Empire that's moved into Mixed Order / Free People) and don't buy models that don't fit the theme.

I do compete with my own potential and attempt to do the best I can with what I have. I like to win but I like winning through strategy and an arm wrestle. While a Hurricanum might dish out 18 mortal wounds with Storm of Shemtek, I'd rather win the intellectual battle of a great deployment what counters their turn 1 shennagains, counter punch with strong offense from a defensive position, and win the battle from an unwinnable position.

I do continually evolve my army, always testing and looking for better ways to play my army. Each opponent teaches me something new about my army, either confirming a strength or exposing a weakness. 

 

[BunkhouseBuster]

I voted for " I'm just happy to get games in" because that's where I am at in my life.  Between a 4 month old, my step-daughter now living with us, large amounts of housework to finish, and lots of bills coming in, I just don't have the time or money to spend on the hobby like I used to.  But back in the day, I have no problem putting myself at a pre-game disadvantage (whether by list or scenario), but when I play, I will play to win.  Not in a measuring-my-self-worth-by-tabletop-victory way, but in a "my units would not hold back in a battle for survival, and they know their objectives" kind of way.  Firm, but fair, I suppose.

In my local Age of Sigmar group, there are just 3 of us that regularly play the game, and I haven't had a chance to play in about 2 to 3 months now, and none of us are particularly cheesy or anything.  I don't even know if the other two guys still play Age of Sigmar anymore or if they are just on 40K at this point because I am so out of the loop on the latest news and releases.

In any game system, I am not a "competitive" player by any stretch of the imagination.  I would never associate myself with the local 40K/Warmahordes players who live to be WAAC/powergamers/meta-chasers.  They will challenge my rules interpretations, ignore or remember FAQ rulings in their favor, criticize my army and model purchases for not being "optimal", or conduct other shady-but-legal behavior in order to win their games.  I don't play in my local tournaments anymore, and have pretty much lost all interest in 40K at this point.

Granted, there are some Narrative 40K players that meet up for Necromunda/SW:A or campaign games on a regular basis, but they aspire to little more than nerdy trailer trash, and smell as though they need lessons in personal hygiene.  So my options are to have my morals challenged by what I consider to be unethical behavior, or have my sense of smell, sinuses, and allergies be attacked by the stink of cigarette smoke, sweat, and other nefarious body odors.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to try and save up some money for the latest Reaper Bones Kickstarter that is currently underway

[Criti]

Depends on your definition.

I never look to write min/maxed lists - but I also play to win.  But not if that means stretching, bending, or breaking rules.

I also try to play in character of an army, but not recklessly so.

For instance, I was playing 40k recently.   The event I was playing had a weird tabling ruling (this is important to the story).  For some reason, they played tabling your opponent as a "freeze" game state.  That is to say, if I table you, the game immediately ends and we score our objectives as if the turn had ended...  Meaning that if I tabled you on Turn 3, we just walked away with our current score.   On a progressive turn-by-turn scoring system.  So technically, if I wipe you on Turn 3, and you scored more points than I did in those first 3 turns, you still win the game.  But if I best you to ineffectiveness and camped the objectives until game's end, I would win even though we'd have to play through largely pointless extra turns.

Anyway-  I had a mob of 30 Ork Boyz on an objective and there was an enemy nearby.  I was largely safe just staying still and scoring the objective but I figured Orks would want to fight,  so I charged off the objective.  I did move onto the objective with a Warboss to replace the Boyz in case of a tabling.  Sure enough,  the tabling happened that turn and the game ended.  If the Warboss wasn't on the objective, I would have lost the game, even though I cleaned off my opponent without losing any full units.  My opponent gave me a little grief for not playing a Warboss in character.  And yes, I decided to let the Warboss camp an objective rather than charge him headlong into in combat he didn't need to fight.

Does not  intentionally throwing a game just to be "in character" make me "competitive?"

 

[Furious]

2 minutes ago, Criti said:

Does not  intentionally throwing a game just to be "in character" make me "competitive?"

 

Was the event one where you were encouraged to role play? It's harder in a wargame than it is in something like D&D. They're two completely different game structures and have different goals.

[Criti]

 

2 minutes ago, Furious said:

Was the event one where you were encouraged to role play? It's harder in a wargame than it is in something like D&D. They're two completely different game structures and have different goals.

Generic tournament.

Not that I see the difference here,  honestly.   The very notion that a player can be tabled, yet still win the game (unless the scenario was specifically set up as a last stand) is just terrible design - especially if there are enough turns left that the tabling player would have been able to get back on the objectives and score everything to victory. 

[Freddy25]

Are you "competitive"?

 

No.

Not at all.

Not even remotely competitive.

I'm so NOT interested in victory that I believe the simple idea of associating the term "competitiveness" to the term "game" is some form of fun annihilation and paradox.

Of course, a balanced match is a thing I welcome, but NOT as something which grants the players the same chance to show their dominance on the other, but instead as something which brings the same amount of challenge and fun to both players!

To me a game is a decision-based series of challenges aimed at entertaining ANYONE who takes part in.

Competitiveness, on the contrary, TO ME, is not caring for the enjoyment of the social/mutal experience bur searching for a form of selfish auto-affirmation by winning at all cost, potentially even to the extreme consequence of destroying the possibility for your opponent to have fun.

(That's why for example I can't love anymore the Super Smash Bros videogames' series as I once did: I believe it is now so much focused on the "competitiveness" that the idea of sillyness and fun the game once embodied is now almost forgotten).

 

These are of course personal opinions, I don't wanna criticize nor offend anybody!

[Veillotron]

Great topic.

More then anything, I love painting. I spend way more time painting the models than playing with them.

I also looooove playing the game - for me, it is a great way to have fun, to relax, and disconnect from reality for a few hours. 

So, the end result (winning or losing) does not matter to me. But, for me to have fun I have to get into it. So from that angle I am competitive. I like spending time building lists. Not to have to most powerful/maxed out list, but one that is efficient, where units work well together and that fit my playing style.  And when I go to events of course I hope to do well, and will I do my best to win. During games I will really get into it, but always in good fun.

Where I do like to compete more (although this is probably not part of your question) is on the painting side. I have only recently got into AoS, and I have not participated in many official events. I do intend to do so over time, with the goal of a) improving my painting skills and b) hopefully one day win an award (those skull chalices from GW are soooo tatsy, and would look lovely on my shelf...)

 

 

 

 

[Chillpill]

Now I have not actually played a real game of AoS yet apart from the taster game in the local GW Branch... but I am not sure I would be competitive. I'd want to have fun more than anything.

[ageofpaddsmar]

Im competitive when playing against what I call sore winners. You know the kind that think they won because they are a tactical genius and not because they took OP units and got lucky dice rolls. 

Im not very competitive if im playing a normal person .Happy to lose to nice people all day long

[awcamawn]

I'm somewhere between 'if there's no story it's boring' and 'just want to get some games in' simply because any and every game will tell some sort of story if you let it. It's up to your imagination to connect the dots of the gameplay and fill in the ol' who/what/where/why/how. Cheesy, I know, but let's face Warhammer is pretty hammy and that's part of the fun. It's nine parts war and one part soap opera.

4 hours ago, Criti said:

If the Warboss wasn't on the objective, I would have lost the game, even though I cleaned off my opponent without losing any full units.  My opponent gave me a little grief for not playing a Warboss in character.

I like your story a lot and the idea of playing in character. A cool way to play out those moments where you do something that seems out of character in order to fulfill a game mechanic is to use it as a jumping off point to add a little detail to the story. Just ask yourself, why would he grab an objective instead of leaping into the fray? There are all kinds of reasons! Whatever you choose becomes part of the character of that Warboss; a part of who he is and what makes him a little different than the next Warboss. Over time the character's story sort of naturally writes itself and you may learn some things you didn't expect:

 Maybe he's a bit greedy and saw his boyz eyeing some loot on the objective that was clearly his. Maybe he got distracted by a mortally wounded foe writhing on the ground and went over to relieve himself on him, to the horror and fury of the remnants of the enemy looking on. Maybe he just saw something over there that he wanted to smash and/or desecrate. Depending on what the potential charge target was, maybe he just really hates dogs or is utterly fearless except when faced with being burned by plasma or being set on fire (a la Sandor Clegane from Game of Thrones). Perhaps he's simply a bit more kunnin than the average git and knows what needs to be done to keep the waaaagh going.

It's easy to see it as out of character for a Warboss to camp out on the generic 'the objective' but everything falls into place once you define the motivations by replacing every instance where you would say 'objective' with 'lootz' or whatever else fits the story or battleplan. In this sense narrative and competitive need not be mutually exclusive.

Of course you could have gone to the trouble with coming up with a bit of story detail behind why he acted that way and your opponent still would have been snarky afterwords. Snarkers gonna snark. Griefers gonna grief.

[Davariel]

Voted for the "just happy to get games in" option, even though I very much consider myself a narrative player. I love coming up with detailed stories and settings, playing imbalanced games and so forth... but I don't think that games are boring without a story; even the most competitive tournament game should create its own story. Even if there's no explicit narrative, seeing two armies clash on the tabletop instantly evokes the feel of epic fantasy tales. That's part of the appeal of Warhammer for me.

And I certainly don't think points are stupid - I love points! Points can tell you how much stronger one army is than another; one general might be thinking how desperate their situation is, and their goals might change accordingly. Building lists to a limited point value forces hard choices in what you can bring and can reflect the challenges of logistics and mustering an army. I think points and narrative can easily go hand in hand.

Ultimately though, this is a game, and I'm going to enjoy it and have fun no matter what style of game it is. Whether I'm playing with a top tier tournament list or in a casual narrative scenario, I'm still going to laugh when my Treelord Ancient fails to cast a single spell all game (and perhaps wonder if he's had a few leaf-beers too many ).

[Spiny Norman]

Seems the poll shows a quite reasonable attitude towards the hobby. gj guys.

[Rhellion]

5 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

Seems the poll shows a quite reasonable attitude towards the hobby. gj guys.

Looking down on people who are competitive gamers is just as much a part of the problem that causes a rift in the community. You're inferring certain options on that list are, by result, NOT reasonable.

Not an attack, just an observation. Please don't mistake the tone as hostile. As a VERY competitive player I've felt that judgement. It doesn't bother me too much because I'm definitely playing and hobbying for my own reasons which are different to many. And I try not to judge others for not being as competitive as me or being hobby-focused.

[ageofpaddsmar]

2 hours ago, Rhellion said:

Looking down on people who are competitive gamers is just as much a part of the problem that causes a rift in the community. You're inferring certain options on that list are, by result, NOT reasonable.

Not an attack, just an observation. Please don't mistake the tone as hostile. As a VERY competitive player I've felt that judgement. It doesn't bother me too much because I'm definitely playing and hobbying for my own reasons which are different to many. And I try not to judge others for not being as competitive as me or being hobby-focused.

Being competitive isnt always a problem. I like to play against competitive people aslong as they are good winners not sore winners

However alot of the so called top uk players take it to extremes not with there lists but taking advantage of the rules not being complete

 

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

Thats very true.  The inference that competitive gaming is bad is the same thing to me as a competitive player telling others to git gud.

You also see that mindset expressed in statemenrs about not being competitive/not fussed about winning because the person is just trying to have fun - as if somehow the ideas are incompatible. 

[Criti]

4 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

You also see that mindset expressed in statemenrs about not being competitive/not fussed about winning because the person is just trying to have fun - as if somehow the ideas are incompatible. 

I've said this before,  and I'll say it again. 

The GOAL of a game is to win. 

The POINT of a game is to have fun. 

You can choose to acheive both,  one,  or neither.  Entirely on you.