@Competitive Players, Does Narrative or RP Ever Bleed Into Your Tournament Play?

[Mephisto]

1 hour ago, blueshirtman said:

It is a bit like being a fan of the Raiders. Yes, when one thinks about them they are wierdos, but it doesn't mean that to be a fan one has to look like a drag queen/king. There is a ton of tournament people, specially decade old veterans, that know a ton of lore and love the world of both WFB and AoS. But there is also people that go to have 6 back to back game, and care not for the lore. Both can be good, or bad people. The only real difference between both is that the people that love the lore, are better at luring people in and building communities, and that is "all".

Or a Packer fan... I KNEW my Legions of Nagash lists were missing something. A proverbial "cheesehead" made of foam for me to wear while I destroy all my enemies. 

In a totally unrelated note, I will be patenting Upside Down Soul Pyramid Heads made of foam. Totally unique idea, trademarked, don't steal. I'll call them pyramid heads... wait that one's taken by a video game. I'll call them dead heads... nope weird hippy band fans. I don't know what I'll call them yet...

[amysrevenge]

1 hour ago, Mephisto said:

Or a Packer fan... I KNEW my Legions of Nagash lists were missing something. A proverbial "cheesehead" made of foam for me to wear while I destroy all my enemies. 

In a totally unrelated note, I will be patenting Upside Down Soul Pyramid Heads made of foam. Totally unique idea, trademarked, don't steal. I'll call them pyramid heads... wait that one's taken by a video game. I'll call them dead heads... nope weird hippy band fans. I don't know what I'll call them yet...

Tetrahatron

[rokapoke]

1 hour ago, amysrevenge said:

Tetrahatron

Nah, you’re trying too hard. 

Tetra-head-ron.

[Ben]

some really great replies in here.  keep them coming

[Sleboda]

9 hours ago, Overread said:

Re: Pre-painted

 

As someone who, for yersa, has never really learned to paint - I'd personally HATE that. 

Yeah.  100% against. It would give me pause about staying in the game.  I probably still would, but it would be a serious blow to what this whole thing means to me, even though I would only ever use my own painted stuff.

[Mephisto]

A tournament in Madison I'll be going to in a week or so is actually requiring players to write a backstory for their army as an entry requirement. I find this interesting but difficult since I run Nagash. I'm wondering if I'm allowed to write him as though he's an avatar of Nagash and not THE Nagash or even a "generic powerful lich" so that I have a bit more creative control and flexibility in coming up with my angle. 

The oddity of this all is I've been paid cash money to write stories and have them published. I talk about the fluff and flavor of AOS being one of the reasons I gravitate toward it over other games. And here I am scratching my head about an army I put together from just going through books and theorycrafting and playtesting.  

I made sure my army had a theme and was modeled more interestingly than just a bunch of skeletons but now that unique visual style I chose could be at odds with a story I'd write.

I suppose I'm suddenly forced to put my money precisely where, well, you know. 

The strangest part is this is not a narrative tournament. They're not using the story, they just want you to have one in mind. Odd. 

[AGPO]

I think a huge thing for me, which a lot of my fellow Narrative W***ers (to borrow a term from @Russ Veal and the Face Hammer guys) are often guilty of is conflating the tournament scene with the That Guys from our local communities who not only play with uber competitive net lists but approach the game in a very anti-social way. The reality is that these guys and the tournie community are chalk and cheese. One of the best things about getting involved in the wider online community has been getting to know some of the TOs and other competitive types who not only give a ton back to Warhammer but are just really sound, funny people to spend time with. I've actually really enjoyed the handful of tournaments I've been to for AOS and even though I tend to do really badly, I've met some fantastic people and learned a lot about the game in the process.

[Dead Scribe]

13 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Yeah.  100% against. It would give me pause about staying in the game.  I probably still would, but it would be a serious blow to what this whole thing means to me, even though I would only ever use my own painted stuff.

I'm curious.  You would rather see unpainted grey plastic armies over prepainted armies?

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I'm curious.  You would rather see unpainted grey plastic armies over prepainted armies?

My view is that prepainted changes a lot of things

1) It means you can't paint your own models so any unique colour scheme is out. 

2) It would put the price up. No ifs-nor-buts unless GW was able to 3D print in multi-colours; if the models went pre-painted then the cost would have to go up or the quality go down on the sculpting. Basically it adds a whole new layer that would up the cost for the model. The nature of prepainting might even result in lower model quality in general so that the cheaper painting quality looks ok. 

3) It takes out the hobby part of the hobby and focuses it purely on the combat on the tabletop. That is fine, but honestly its a different market and a different game and experience by then. GW could well do it for a side game, but to change their core game would be a massive thing and take away what many find fun in the hobby. 

4) In the end armies of grey don't bother me. I'd rather play armies of grey than armies of default painting which, on the high detail models GW make and in their general shape and design, would just look wrong. 

It works for things like Xwing games because there is only 1 scheme officially had by most of the forces in Starwars; it works because they didn't have a "hobby" focused game before so there's no change in product or market; it works because the overall schemes can be simplified to work with fast painted pre-painting services without putting the price into insane levels.

 

Don't forget Confrontation went pre-painted and not long after it was dead (and still is pretty much dead as the last KS that I saw running for them might have funded well, but was full of odd choices, strange questions and a general feel that it might not work). 

[Mephisto]

I get where you're both coming from, @Dead Scribe & @Overread. It can be a small eyesore to play against the gray tide. Still, even from a competitive, don't care about the hobby, I'm going to have my good at art friend or commissioned stranger paint my army and wait has some gratification to it. I don't care how totally detached from the hobby you are, when that army shows up it's YOUR army. You may even end up at a convention or tournament with the army and someone is like, "oh nice pai-" and you cut them off "I didn't paint them." This builds your persona in an amusing way.  The hobbyist get more satisfaction painstakingly doing it all. Even the receives their army painted by someone else down the line and it's like mini-Christmas. 

From a pure play stance it doesn't matter if they're gray or prepainted, they work mechanically the same so why would someone who doesn't care about hobby, care if they're gray or some phoned-in color scheme? The hobbyists would still have their stigma of gray but just shift it to prepainted instead. And as a competitor you get information about your opponent. If he's slowly painting his army, the order in which he does it can inform you of how they'll play or at least which models they favor. 

The cost of models to release them prepainted would certainly go up which wouldn't really do much to alter the barrier to entry. Person who wants to play warhammer but doesn't want to also pay for paint, isn't going to also want to pay and extra 5-50 bucks a model. So that line remains unmoved.  

And I really must circle back to how prepainted would become the new gray tide. The visual standard as a whole would go down with armies of prepainted versus the army of someone that cared. Laziness would further prevail. Someone that COULD paint, won't. By having the gray tide it almost enforces a certain standard. You go to tournaments, even the guys that don't give a ****** about hobby have some stunning looking armies that despite their best efforts, end up with at least the personality of the person that took the commission. 

(We also have the entire 'sub market' of artists that get money because commissions exist, and that's in addition to the rather muted secondary market of bits and re-sells. Ask MTG how the secondary market has had a positive impact on their direct sales, community engagement, and growth. 
I know that's an exceedingly pathos argument so I don't put much stock in it myself. In some respects I know prepainted models would subplant a portion of that by actually making it easier to get a second hand model, but it would also increase theft of your models at events since your prepaint is indistinguishable from another person's whereas this community KNOWS each other's armies but this is an entire other argument...). 

I know a lot of this is a little too much on the Pathos side of argument so take it all lightly. Simply, even the detached from the hobby gamer benefits from the current MODEL (get it?!). How I feel about the hobby is how I feel about the rules. I want better rules. Casuals are worried this would harm their fun by breeding more WAACs and Must-Win That guys. To the contrary, I say, by removing nebulous interactions, That Guy has less ground to cleave to and angle-shoot from. Similarly, by encouraging the hobby, we're all held to a higher standard and the game gains more personality as a whole and it is indeed healthy. We've not even touched on the cross section of competitive players that are also hobbyists that chose THIS GAME because of the hobby. They could play X-Wing or Warmachine or whatever but they care about the quality of sculpts and army variance that AOS has in spades over other games.

Anyway, I'm not hear to change hearts and minds with an argument backed mostly by my feelzies and not hard numbers, so I'll instead say, however you enjoy the game, I'm glad you're do and that you're here. Good gaming, folks. 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I don't mind playing against the gray tide myself. As importantly I have and will always say a poorly painted army looks better than a gray one too. By that same logic I wouldn't harsh on prepainted but I'd rather play against your badly painted army than GW's badly painted army. Your badly painted army will have more personality than you, yourself may give credit to. Even a green glob army spawns inside jokes and humorous interactions. Like my old resin skeletons... basically dipped them white paint, globbed on some details, and gave them red eyes that I accidentally got outside the eye holes. Those eyes were glowing, damn it. That's my defense to this day. Also I was like 12...

[relic456]

I consider myself a pretty competitive person when it comes to gaming, so when I started getting excited about AoS the hobby aspect was probably the biggest pill to swallow.  I definitely don't think it's a hobby I could have gotten in to before YouTube and all the wonderful tutorials that are out there, they really helped ease my fears and give me the confidence to dive in feet first.  My first real army and paints come in at the end of the month so we'll see what happens when I have to actually do it!

@Mephisto's original question is really interesting to me.  On the one hand, a big part of why AoS caught my eye was the fluff and lore, I couldn't get enough of it!  But when it comes to thinking of competing in tournaments, things like painting scores and army lore make my eyes roll.  I haven't  had a chance to play really competitively yet but I enjoy playing narrative battleplans at home or trying to make up little stories for when we play Matched Play battleplans.  I think it has something to do with there being a prize at stake that makes me focus purely on the mechanics and gameplay, it makes everything else feel irrelevant (to me).  But I don't think I'd ever play Skaven even if they were the greatest army by a mile, so narrative/competitive is definitely a spectrum.

[Dead Scribe]

On unique color schemes, people repaint the prepainted xwing models all the time and give them custom unique color schemes.  

I don't think prepainted ONLY would be desirable... but I'd like a prepainted option and I'd spend the extra money to have prepainted models (it couldn't be anymore than what I have to spend on commission painters to paint my stuff, and the benefit would be I  could play out of the box painted instead of having to wait on my painting guys to squeeze me in and get my stuff done, often times weeks or months out)

So keep the grey plastic option, but also have a prepainted line in addition to.  A three color minimum standard paint job that I can use and not feel bad about having a grey blob army but I have zero interest in painting (or assembling truth be told).

[Mephisto]

2 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

On unique color schemes, people repaint the prepainted xwing models all the time and give them custom unique color schemes.  

I don't think prepainted ONLY would be desirable... but I'd like a prepainted option and I'd spend the extra money to have prepainted models (it couldn't be anymore than what I have to spend on commission painters to paint my stuff, and the benefit would be I  could play out of the box painted instead of having to wait on my painting guys to squeeze me in and get my stuff done, often times weeks or months out)

So keep the grey plastic option, but also have a prepainted line in addition to.  A three color minimum standard paint job that I can use and not feel bad about having a grey blob army but I have zero interest in painting (or assembling truth be told).

So like GW releases a "5 year anniversary Edition" of some minis prepainted but their standard model of gray sticks around?That could be a fine compromise for those willing to pay. 

2 hours ago, relic456 said:

I don't think I'd ever play Skaven even if they were the greatest army by a mile, so narrative/competitive is definitely a spectrum.

That's me and Tzeentch. He's actually my favorite Chaos god. I really hate the "just as planned," Xanatos Gambit, deus ex machina sort of writing he's prone to but at his core, he's a thinkin' man, mage guy and I dig it. The universal truth for me when I was getting into the game was that I was going to play a spell casting army and I was going to play an army that I could win with. Tzeentch checked the boxes and were the absolute, unquestionable best when I decided to pick up AoS. Don't get me wrong, they have some sick models. Lord of Change is pretty cool. I really dig the Gaunt Summoner for its Del Toro vibe and Changeling is straight up rad. If only the rest of the entire army could just look like Ogroid Thaumaturge instead of stupid bird men and undulating blobs of depression. It killed any desire I had to play Tzeentch when I saw the models.

Anyway, I'm exceedingly happy with Death. I sort of jumped in on them before they "got gud" (i.e. the Legions of Nagash Battletome came out) and was promptly rewarded for my hubris. In the end I picked them because I wanted to play Castlevania the army on the table. I was going to find a way to be better than my opponents regardless. 

We spend 90% of our time looking at and thinking about our armies. It's very important you're happy with how it looks. I love to win but I can only win once or twice a week in LGS "practice games" (because every game, even narrative is practice when you're me) and maybe once a month at a big tournament. I mentioned the high of winning earlier... that can sustain me a long time. 90% of the time though? Nnnngh, there's a diminishing return. The more you push around an army that looks like a pile of ******, the more hollow victories become. At least for me. 

In all games, I think there's a puzzle of personality for competitive players. This is not unlike casuals and hobbyists. Something gets you into your game on that army or that character. A lot of times it's happenstance. A lot of times it's some subconscious draw.  Certain players, the best in the world, will gravitate toward one list over another initially. In MTG, I was always the control player with a combo finish (a lot of grixis basically) because that's how I liked to play the game. I wanted to tell you no and then turn on my heel and win so I'd make the best deck that did that. In Street Fighter, I am (well, was) the rushdown player because when I was a kid I picked "the Red Ryu" since red was my favorite color. That warped how I played that game series the rest of my life. I'm sorry, person, your character is "too fair." I'm going to wait for your fair character to make a mistake and then punish you to death. My Soul Calibur days it was Nightmare (well Sigfried, Nightmare, then Sigfried)... a, big punish guy, with deceptive speed... so Nurgle basically on that last one. Ken is probably Daughters of Khaine except DOK is more of the instant aggressor than Ken is. Oh, wow, what a fun for only me discussion that would be. Note to self: Make later thread about Magic Decks or Fighter Game characters as AOS Lists... 

Back to the point, AOS is three dimensional and I don't mean the models. The experience itself is multifaceted, a step above other games. I can't play an army I hate no matter how much it wins for instance. Similarly, I struggle to run certain units (like spirit hosts an edition ago) if I don't like them. I will handicap myself if I hate the model (or figure out a way to bash it up to be awesome) and just assume I can overcome my handicap. Skeletons were a little plain so I fixed them the way Steam fixes things... silly hats. That's sort of the brilliance of AOS. We talk about the barrier of entry to table top games. Rarely do we talk about the angle of entry. There are a lot of different ways to get into the game. 

[relic456]

22 minutes ago, Mephisto said:

That's me and Tzeentch. He's actually my favorite Chaos god. I really hate the "just as planned," Xanatos Gambit, deus ex machina sort of writing he's prone to but at his core, he's a thinkin' man, mage guy and I dig it. The universal truth for me when I was getting into the game was that I was going to play a spell casting army and I was going to play an army that I could win with. Tzeentch checked the boxes and were the absolute, unquestionable best when I decided to pick up AoS. Don't get me wrong, they have some sick models. Lord of Change is pretty cool. I really dig the Gaunt Summoner for its Del Toro vibe and Changeling is straight up rad. If only the rest of the entire army could just look like Ogroid Thaumaturge instead of stupid bird men and undulating blobs of depression. It killed any desire I had to play Tzeentch when I saw the models.
 

Damn, are you me? When I first saw the Ogroid Thaumaturge model I was like "this is the army for me, no question".  When it comes to game tropes I tend to be drawn towards the mage/sorcerer/warlock and to use your MtG analogy, I loved blue/black control decks.  Plus Tzeentch seemed to be placing really well in tournaments.  So Tzeentch seemed to check all the boxes!  But then I saw the Pink Horror models and it all came crashing down.  If Tzeentch was really competitive with just mortals and Tzaangors, maybe I'd invest in it.  But the fact that at any point the meta might shift and make Pink Horrors the best choice was just too much for me.  Then I saw Reikenor, thought "this is the army for me, no question", and fell in love with the rest of the Nighthaunt line and their cool magic options and here we are!

 

26 minutes ago, Mephisto said:

Note to self: Make later thread about Magic Decks or Fighter Game characters as AOS Lists... 

You joke, but I think there's a real desire, especially from new players, to better understand how each faction plays.  Relating them to more well known tropes would be neat!

[Mephisto]

@relic456I think a comparative list/discussion of other games is pretty useful for new players now that you mention it. There is a lot of overlap between all the nerdly vices these days. You have a lot of people coming over to AOS because of Total Warhammer alone. These are people that play video games as their first love and then show up to this new, kind of expansive game. MTG and other Table Top Games have their obvious overlap but still lack a common parlance beyond some very basic terminology (the beat down, the control, etc). 

As for Reikenor. His model is one of those just... great centerpieces. This is the sort of centerpiece model you build an entire army just to include. The exact subject of this thread is in play here for me. I'm not likely to shift off Grand Host and go full Nighthaunt any time soon. I was SO PUMPED when they erratad us to include some new Nighthaunt units because I knew I got tools to keep with the creep. A lot of the Death players are including chainrasps and grimghasts and I think that's overall the right choice (especially GGR who bring necessary mobility and are a solid hammer without giving up army synergies). My core army list has just about 400 points of "flex space." This is where I can toss in some grimghasts as I get them assembled... then I look over at Reikenor. This bag has the audacity to look this awesome. How dare he? I have no interest in going full Nighthaunt where he synergizes the best and really becomes an auto-include. But it would just be sooooo easy... Minus 1 vamp lord + 1 Reikenor allied. Those other 40 points? I haven't really been liking geminids anyway...  

I'm so tempted to do the suboptimal thing because how awesome he looks alone. I'm justifying a lack of optimization, "well, he does do this thing and..." My competitive side is directly at odds with my awesome side.

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I'm curious.  You would rather see unpainted grey plastic armies over prepainted armies?

I believe I would.  Overread's response right after your question comes close to hitting the mark on the reasons why, but I'll take a moment to expand on one part here.

It tells me something about the experience I am about to have, from the game itself to the mindset of my opponent. Here's a hypothetical to explain a bit:

I am presented with two possible opponents for an afternoon's game at the local shop.

Player D has a grey plastic army.

Player 4 has a prepainted army. 

For all other purposes, the two players appear no different.  Recent shower, pleasant breath, wearing some sot of anime t-shirt, a tattoo of a fish on their left wrists, pants pulled up over their hips, both named Terry, etc.  You get the picture.

I will select Player D over Player 4.

 

I do this because I am making a judgement about the two players.  In my mind when comparing these two people on the spot  -

• Player D is invested. I'm not talking about money.  He's picked out his stuff, spent the time to assemble all those kits, and is so excited to start playing that he wants to get a few games in as he's working on the army.  He's probably got some color schemes in mind and maybe a theme or some hero names.  He's going to want to tell me about where his army is headed.  It may take him a year to get them all painted, and he knows he will lose a lot of games until they get painted (because painted armies do better), but he's willing to put in the effort to create something that not only can be very good at the table when rolling dice, but will bring him enjoyment over dozens of long painting sessions.  When he's done, he will have become more invested in the game, the hobby, and the community of hobby gaming.
• Player4 is flavor of the week, chasing wins only. He's playing Magic, Hearthstone, or, at best, Hero Clix. When I see him again in two months, he won't remember my name or even our game, because we didn't chat about his army or talk about how upset his general must be about not having blue pants yet. There will be zero connection to the player*. Plus, he'll have a totally different army anyway, because of the new hotness, so it's not like we'll be building a friendly rivalry between his Ravagers of the Borax Fountain and my Legions of Nearly-limitless Irritability. In short, I can't see a reason to choose to play Warhammer with this person when Risk, Pokemon, or Chess would fill the same time and not ignore so much of what makes a game of Warhammer a game of Warhammer.

Now, let me be clear. I may get along famously with the pre-painted guy and end up thinking that the grey army guy is a dirty, rotten Cowboys fan.  That's possible. I'm not judging the person, just guessing at the at-the-table experience.  I'm making a lot of assumptions based on first impression, but that's the essence of the choice for me.  That's the feel in me for why I would pick the grey guy.

 

 

* Edit: I just had an epiphany. This is related to why I really don't enjoy online gaming against people. No connection.  Some anonymous, faceless hater 700 miles away just looking to trash me.  No thanks. If I'm gonna get my face kicked in, I want a friend to do it at my house over a few beers and a game of Shadespire.

I play lots and lots of video games, but unless the game has a solo campaign or some other way to play against the computer offline instead of only PvP online, I won't buy it.  For me, there is no point to the experience of interacting with someone else in this way, and Player 4 triggers many of the same feelings for me - it might as well be a PvP online game because the activity between us has almost nothing to do with us.

[svnvaldez]

I am a competitive player and will run the best list possible in order to win a tournament but I do have some rules grounded in narrative/hobby. 

1) I will never proxy a model. I believe the game looks better when everything is WYSIWYG and uses official GW models.

2) I only play armies falling  under GA: Destruction. I have been playing Orcs and Goblins for 13 years and they are the models I like to paint and put on my shelf.

3) I only use models that are painted to my personal standards.

4) I will not write a list that uses finecast or FW. I do not like to build or paint resin or finecast models and thus I don't even consider these units when writing lists... and no I will not just proxy in a plastic model (see rule 1). I do like metal models and will jump on ebay and buy older metal stuff.

I don't care what my opponent does though and thus these are rules that only apply to my army. I firmly believe each of us are allowed to have different views as to what we like. I enjoy playing an opponents grey army just as much as playing a beautifully painted army as long as my opponent follows the rules of the game and has everything on the correct base size.

[Mephisto]

@svnvaldez I dig your perspective. It's almost like a connoisseur of competition. I can practically envision you playing with a snifter of Brandy in one hand. Not only do you care about the game but you truly respect the integrity of it. You don't judge others but you wish to maintain a standard and hold yourself above all else to it. Almost like fencer or sumo wrestler or some other classical sport that's filled with tradition and etiquette... Except you play Destruction so like a really, really mad fencer that likes to smash people.

 

 

[Bellfree]

Not really. My most frequent opponents are people who couldn't care less about the story(a couple wouldn't be able to name all 4 chaos gods), people who play 40k primarily and just use sigmar as a 'break game' and people who have a casual interest in the broader narrative, but aren't overly concerned in the nitty gritty of who/what/where/when/why.

At events it never comes up before or during the game EVER(at least in my experience) but it does occasionally start up a conversation after the game.

The narrative is fine enough, it's never really been a part of my gaming experience and I don't really have any interest in adding narrative components.

[Mephisto]

15 hours ago, Bellfree said:

Not really. My most frequent opponents are people who couldn't care less about the story(a couple wouldn't be able to name all 4 chaos gods), people who play 40k primarily and just use sigmar as a 'break game' and people who have a casual interest in the broader narrative, but aren't overly concerned in the nitty gritty of who/what/where/when/why.

At events it never comes up before or during the game EVER(at least in my experience) but it does occasionally start up a conversation after the game.

The narrative is fine enough, it's never really been a part of my gaming experience and I don't really have any interest in adding narrative components.

That's respectable. 

Out of curiosity, why do you seem to lean AOS over 40k like your friends? Or maybe AOS is your break game too, if so, why this and not X-Wing or War Machine? Is it community? Habit? Brand Loyalty to GW?

40k's competitive scene is at least more robust (bigger tournaments, more recognizable in popular culture). I personally bowed out from 40k in 5th Ed. I'm currently cataloguing and trying to sell my army to buy some Nighthaunt ****** to be more competitive... The vicious cycle.