How do you guys deal with frustration or losing games?

[Mayple]

2 hours ago, Sigmarusvult said:

Interesting topic, thank you for bringing that up.  How do you guys deal with the fustration from playing against someone you felt had cheated? 

Tends to be a bit of a joyous thing. People who regularly cheat (there aren't a large amount of them, in my personal experience, but environments may vary) hate losing. So I pay extra attention to everything they do, question anything that sounds way off, accept smaller things that ultimately has no effect on my own gameplan (i.e: If you say you're doing a bazzilion mortal wounds on a unit of five clanrats, that's fine by me :p)  -- and then do my utmost to absolutely crush their dreams in game.

If I lose, that's fine. 

If I win, knowing they had a stacked deck, oh sweet glorious day.

Super rare, anyhow, maybe one in twenty do it in an overtly delibarate manner. A lot of people simply forget, or don't know how certain things work. Myself included

[passtheKhorneplease]

I cope with this frustration like I cope with all of life's frustrations nowadays.  I buy more models.

[Overread]

2 hours ago, Sigmarusvult said:

Interesting topic, thank you for bringing that up.  How do you guys deal with the fustration from playing against someone you felt had cheated? 

Cheating is a totally separate issue and honestly worthy of its own thread, however my views are as follows

1) Cheating in wargames is tricky to spot because these are complex games that are played out on a very imperfect setup that define things to rather perfect terminology - ergo in the real world there's room for some grey areas and forgetfulness to creep in to any player without any intention to cheat.

2) For that reason I'd treat any potential cheating as a mistake unless evidence is overwhelming. 

 

So how to counter, there's a few methods;

1) Ensure both players have all rules materials that they are using for their army. That means battletomes, core rules and any supplemental rules for the game (FAQ, Errata etc...). This means any dispute can be checked in an official source. It should not be print outs (safe for online only information of course - such as FAQ). This can help avoid a lot of mistakes because if something sounds off you can both double check it in the official rules. 

2) Ensure army lists are written out clearly before the game - allows for easy double checking of the army by both players

3) Speak to your opponent about any concerns. Perhaps they are moving units rather casually or you can see them using a method that is producing an error. Don't be hostile, politely mention it to them and if its the case of an error suggest a resolution to avoid it happening again. This is purely part of a core of wargames; even during your opponents turn its your job to keep an eye on them. To help them if they are making a mistake and to avoid cheating by accident. 

This basically sticks to the concept of most players behind honest - and they are for the most part!

4) Understand the type of person you are playing and adjust accordingly. Some people are 100% sticklers for the rules and will not tolerate any deviation nor distraction during the game. Others treat the rules as a guideline and might even wander off or chat a lot mid game. These are two extremes and there's a whole host of people between them. However you can easily see that the second example shown would have a player more likely to make casual mistakes but not be concerned about them. So if you know that pre-game you know not to get too uptight; whilst the former example would be someone you might avoid if you're the more casual kind noted above.

5) If you are unsure of a rule ask for them to show it to you in the book. No harm at all in this its purely fact checking and conversing with your opponent. People do forget things all the time so double checking is no shame; its purely part of wargaming on the tabletop. 

6) Beginners make mistakes because they are new to the rules; experienced people make mistakes because they are new to this edition of the rules. It's very easy for both of those sides to make mistakes for different reasons. The beginner from inexperience; the experienced because they played a previous edition a lot and now things have changed.

If you are concerned that someone is cheating intentionally then report it to whoever organises/runs your club. You should NOT expect any resolution at that stage unless there is significant proof of cheating (eg they are using weighted dice that are heavily biased without declaring it in the pregame and thus is cheating for advantage and the dice are right there to prove it). What you are doing is airing concerns which can hopefully be recorded and used later if this person gets a lot of reports like that.

[Azamar]

3 hours ago, Charleston said:

I get salty sometimes even before the game when my enemy tells me "All the great mean stuff in his list" that he has prepared.

 

Best advice I can give here is worry less about what’s across the table from you and focus more on what you’re own strengths and weaknesses are, and play to the former. The grass is always going to seem greener, especially if you compare your ghb army with an army that has a full battletome. (I play both mixed order/darkling covens and idoneth so I’ve seen that from both angles). But if you go in with the mindset that you don’t stand a chance, you’re more likely to end up with a lopsided game. 

 

As a a side note- you probably don’t do this but it’s worth saying- try not to have too much of a rant at your opponent however salty anyone is feeling. I started an idoneth army last year and on two occasions, one of my regular opponents went on a 15-20 minute tirade about how broken he thought they were. When you’ve spent countless hours putting together and painting a project you’re excited about, this *really* sucks. I’m lucky in that it’s not my only army, so I can just take something else, but I could imagine stuff like that turning a new player off the game.

[Jaze]

Personally I enjoy losing games as I find it easier to evaluate what mistakes I am making  and what my opponent is doing well.  I think learning from defeat is how I don’t get frustrated.

Pre game discussion can also go along way if opponent is willing, be it saying ‘ I would like an extra unit above the points limit as I think it would balance out x’ or ‘could you swap [unit] for something else as I can’t really counter it?’.  Mid game discussion is also of help I find where your opponent could suggest if what you are about to do is good/bad/ugly or throw out some ideas, if my opponent is about to move their superstar unit into range of all my aggressive wizards I would usally ask them if they mean to do that.

When I am on the other side and appear to be heavily winning the game from the offset due to some imbalance I will usually give my opponent the priority choice if I win the roll. They then will often take it and have a chance to react rather than feel quite so pummelled. From a competitive mindset or sell this is still fun as I get to play out what happens/would have happened when I didn’t get that double turn or over exposed some glass cannon gubbins.

Also what can be fun is to swap armies, like if your feeling underpowered then do the set then swap table sides. Your opponent may find the game was really close or find that they are being crushed by their own power creep, I find that often the person who wins feels it was close and the person who loses sees a massive gap (usually from the point where they can’t work out how to recover/counter the game). Playing as their army may also highlight some weaknesses you don’t see when facing them.  Also bonus you may find out your opponent are playing some stuff wrong? Possibly not but I find in a lot of casual games I watch and play most people read/skim  the first line and stop afterwards, think latest one I had was gloomspite  fanatics charging in their opponents charge phase which pretty much every local player was doing.

[Skavelynn]

I think frustration mostly comes from going into a game expecting to win, and then having your strategies and expectations shattered by something you feel is out of your control. GW does a fairly good job at balancing but there will always be a cheese army/strategy, top competitive armies, and weak factions which can give that feeling of unfairness. Also need to keep in mind that Warhammer uses dice rolls for mostly everything which adds onto that "not in control" feeling at times when you roll poorly. Game knowledge, good positioning and tactics can obviously negate most of these, but "unfair" situations will still happen occasionally.

It's a good idea to try getting into a mindset of being okay with losing before you even start playing, and if you're into it then adding some narrative elements to the battle and your models can make unfair moments or losses still be enjoyable. I personally like naming my heroes and giving them titles or adding bits to their bases for notable things they do in battles, regardless of whether it was a good or bad thing, or if I won or lost.

When I lose games I also like to think about what I could have done differently and what I can do next time. Maybe a new unit I tried out wasn't performing as I expected, maybe one did very good and I should include more or build around it more next time. There's always something to learn from your losses, although usually it ends with me buying more models I think would be effective for next time 😂

[Rick_AoS]

I never lose.   

Oh, wait.   

Denial.   I cope using denial.

[Wraith01]

I just enjoy playing... 

[Nick907]

0-3 in today's tournament with my KO
I lost to a Skaven player, a Tombking player, and a Bretonnian player. 
The Skaven player was able to destroy my Ironclad early turn 3 thanks to priority roles and locking the big ship in combat with a cheap hero. The Tombkings player was an older guy who beat me on objective points, but we didn't finish the game on time. He might have had me but maybe not. The third game had a scenario rule that made my Ironclad deploy 24" off the centerline, but the game was on a 4x4 square so I couldn't reach anything or use fleetmaster. 

Those are my 'negatives' from the experience. but here are the 'positives':
I killed the scaven player's Verminlord Corruptor in the first turn, and wiped his 40x 'Plague Monks' after that. If I had won the priority roll for turn 2 or turn 3, I would have repaired the Ironclad and likely tabled him by the end of the game.
I had an early advantage against the Tombkings player, killed his snake monsters in the first turn and almost killed his chariots as well. I stole some objectives with my Thunderer's sneaky retreat ability.  I was deleting his units but used poor judgement with some shots, and he was ultimately able to lock me up, regenerate, and start to overwhelm me. I may have been able to bring that one back if we had finished all 5 turns, but I made enough mistakes to have earned the loss. 
The Brettionian player won on points because that game forced my Ironclad (and therefore entire army) to deploy in the corner and I wasn't able to take the objectives fast enough. I killed every model except the 'damsel', and only lost a 4x unit of Thunderers. 

So it was good. I made everybody sweat. I killed a lot of big stuff. I could have done better and I recognize where. 

[overtninja]

I don't think most games are lost because one player's army is ****** and the other's is overpowered.  Most games are lost because someone misplayed, or the dice fell the wrong way on a gamble they took, or models were out of position, or they didn't concentrate on objectives properly, or they deployed poorly - basically, factors the losing player could control (even when dice don't go your way, it shouldn't crumple your whole army - that's usually a fault at list-building, where your list is extremely failure-intolerant, so even one round of flubbed attacks breaks your back). There are a great number of factors that affect outcomes in every game - terrain, unit and model match-ups, objective positions, battleplan rules, realm rules, and so on, and experience is the greatest help towards becoming a better player in those regards.

Other times, it comes down to the fact that some army strategies are very strong against other strategies. For example, if one player plays Sylvaneth and their opponent plays big monsters, the Wyldwoods can make it very, very hard for the opponent to move their big monsters around, and almost impossible to charge. In that case, it's very frustrating, but that's because one army directly counters large monsters, and the other player focused heavily on them. Some matchups are pretty rock/paper/scissors in that regard, because different factions focus on different aspects of play and use different strategies to secure victory.

Mostly, it's useful to consider whether you are frustrated with your own play - factors you can control and improve on, or frustrated by the game itself, which is not something within your power to improve upon or change.

[sainted75]

I can handle losing and, as others have said, Its about managing your expectations. Knowing and understanding both your and your opponents army helps massively. I have also found the workbook that can be found on the honest wargamer (https://thehonestwargamer.com/player-workbook/) very helpful. 

If I lose to someone, I tend to look back at my game and try to work out what I would do differentyl.

My biggest frustration when playing a game is playing against someone I dont find sporting or a slow player. I can sometimes feel like I have wasted my time after one of these games.

[Payce]

I try. I always try. As long as there are objectives on the board and you have models, there's always the chance that you're simply better regardless of army.  

Yes, there are losing matchups, there always will be. I recently broughy my Ironjawz to a GT with a CP-farm build for max WAAAGH! and it went 1-4 - as expected. The one victory was against the Freeguild gunline that went 0-5. My games against Skaven and Deepkin? Never stood a chance. Against Fyreslayers and Tzeentch? Even matches where player skill and army composition mattered.

The point is that Age of Sigmar is an objectives game. If I had foregone the cabbage and put 30 Brutes and 60 Ardboys on the table, I would have killed less and scored more. Not doing that is on me. Of course there's inevitable frustration playing your army because there are always better players, better armies, bad matchups, bad scenarios. If it's a tournament, just finish the game politely and move on, if it's a friendly game, concede or start over.

But never give up until you're mathematically eliminated from the game. That's a recipe for frustration.

[zedatkinszed]

Loosing doesn't mean a game is inherently flawed. That's a childish attitude. Playing does not equate with an entitlement to win. Winning any game takes mastery of it and/or luck.

To deal with the frustration of loosing:

1) Learn from it from a social POV. Maybe the OP's friends who are hyper competitive are actually no fun to play against. Because they aren't coming with a "play" mentality but rather a "dominate" mentality. 

2) Learn from it from a game POV. Maybe you made a rookie mistake or maybe your opponent was tactically or strategically better than you.

3) Relax and take yourself a little bit less seriously. It's a GAME! Winning is fun but it is not everything.

4) Enjoy the scene. Enjoy hanging out with other ppl.

5) Blame the dice gods. Maybe like me they hate you too.

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by zedatkinszed

[Saxon]

20 hours ago, Charleston said:

Hi dear TGA Community!

I want to ask you about your opinion and personal experiences on a topic that bothers me more and more in the last time: Frustration. And how to deal with it in the best manner possible. I am feeling quite unhappy right now with my temper after some frustrating situations, but often feel also overwhelmed n how to handle this.

What I am actually refering to are situations in that a pretty nice game turns into 2 hours of simply beeing crushed. I have this quite often when playing against two friends of mine who like to play board and card games in a rather competetive mindset . We have  good games, but they end often in becoming salty because of some rules of the enemy that seem unfair or due to the feeling that the powerlevel of the game was ****** from the early beginning on. In the aftermath we often talk about the games and about what could have been done differently and come always to the conclusion how good (close/tense) the game was actually. Therefore I guess it is also about my frustration and how I deal with it.

I would love to hear your stories. Do you have any tricks or tipps how to keep frustation away from the table? Or Anectodes which somehow match the topic?

 

I have this a lot. Two of my group are brothers and the other is their father. The father is very dodgy when it comes to moving models and will argue rules he thinks aren't right when he hasn't got a clue. He will also concede if he doesn't like certain single combats (i.e. trying to concede on turn 2 because my freeguild wiped a single unit of blightkings because he charged a great company). 

The older sibling of the brothers is always doing things slightly dodgy. My favorite was giving the ironjawz mawcrusher a 2+ save and a 5+ rerollable ward save and then trying to argue that he knew it was ok (it wasn't). He also became salty and made us measure everything twice. He's usually pretty cool but will only ever play meta lists. I've only ever beaten him once. He regularly pastes us with just ridiculous lists. 

The older and younger siblings can't play with each other and the older sibling and the father cant play together or the salt flows heavy. 

As for frustration when losing, i try to remember its just a game. My frustration usually comes from forgetting abilities both of my own army and the enemy which. 

These days we actually have to get spells and artefacts written down because the older sibling and father seem to be very liberal in what they do and play only to win. A good example was using a nurgle spell once. Every time he rolled he rolled for the awful plague squall first, for like 4 turns. On turn 5 he didn't make the spell and didn't call what spell he was rolling first and then tried to claim it was his less severe spell (can't remember what it was) so that he could roll again for plague squall. Dodgy stuff like this ruins games and the desire to play future games.

We have had to be very strict on the application of rules to ensure half the group play nice. It's sad but how it has to be. 

[sal4m4nd3r]

If you think age of Sigmar is frustrating, take to the pitch and play blood bowl. After that, you will play a game of Age of Sigmar and feel like you’re relaxing on the beach.

blood bowl taught me that life is pain, and expect nothing god to happen to you..ever. 

[Deadkitten]

21 hours ago, Charleston said:

Hi dear TGA Community!

I want to ask you about your opinion and personal experiences on a topic that bothers me more and more in the last time: Frustration. And how to deal with it in the best manner possible. I am feeling quite unhappy right now with my temper after some frustrating situations, but often feel also overwhelmed n how to handle this.

What I am actually refering to are situations in that a pretty nice game turns into 2 hours of simply beeing crushed. I have this quite often when playing against two friends of mine who like to play board and card games in a rather competetive mindset . We have  good games, but they end often in becoming salty because of some rules of the enemy that seem unfair or due to the feeling that the powerlevel of the game was ****** from the early beginning on. In the aftermath we often talk about the games and about what could have been done differently and come always to the conclusion how good (close/tense) the game was actually. Therefore I guess it is also about my frustration and how I deal with it.

I would love to hear your stories. Do you have any tricks or tipps how to keep frustation away from the table? Or Anectodes which somehow match the topic?

 

In Poker and Magic the Gathering what you're describing is called "Tilting" and there is a wealth of information written on the topic.  Here are a few articles:

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/no-more-tilt/

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=11824

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26443_Tilting-And-You.html

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2015/11/btl-types-of-tilt/

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

I have this a lot. Two of my group are brothers and the other is their father. The father is very dodgy when it comes to moving models and will argue rules he thinks aren't right when he hasn't got a clue. He will also concede if he doesn't like certain single combats (i.e. trying to concede on turn 2 because my freeguild wiped a single unit of blightkings because he charged a great company). 

The older sibling of the brothers is always doing things slightly dodgy. My favorite was giving the ironjawz mawcrusher a 2+ save and a 5+ rerollable ward save and then trying to argue that he knew it was ok (it wasn't). He also became salty and made us measure everything twice. He's usually pretty cool but will only ever play meta lists. I've only ever beaten him once. He regularly pastes us with just ridiculous lists. 

The older and younger siblings can't play with each other and the older sibling and the father cant play together or the salt flows heavy. 

As for frustration when losing, i try to remember its just a game. My frustration usually comes from forgetting abilities both of my own army and the enemy which. 

These days we actually have to get spells and artefacts written down because the older sibling and father seem to be very liberal in what they do and play only to win. A good example was using a nurgle spell once. Every time he rolled he rolled for the awful plague squall first, for like 4 turns. On turn 5 he didn't make the spell and didn't call what spell he was rolling first and then tried to claim it was his less severe spell (can't remember what it was) so that he could roll again for plague squall. Dodgy stuff like this ruins games and the desire to play future games.

We have had to be very strict on the application of rules to ensure half the group play nice. It's sad but how it has to be. 

This sounds like an awful group to play with honestly 😟

[Deadkitten]

16 minutes ago, Nos said:

This sounds like an awful group to play with honestly 😟

It really does...

[Saxon]

29 minutes ago, Nos said:

This sounds like an awful group to play with honestly 😟

It can be very difficult but i have picked out the worst examples from the last 12 months. The problem with the three i have described is the they're all so similar, they spend a lot of time together and they know how to wind each other up. 

I'm pretty much the middle man and play in most games to keep them from killing each other (i also use an army with rather narrow tactics in free guild so easy to beat). 

[Skreech Verminking]

I ususally put the fault of loosing to one of my underlings, meaning that everything would have gone just fine if this one guy didn’t mess  it up.

as for dealing frustration, that’s one way the other is to just figure out how my enemy plays and start scheming and plotting against him, until one of my plans  works.

But should everything fail  I’ll still have a few clanrats left to blame. 

[King Taloren]

I don’t actually lose games. I’m just luring my opponents into a false sense of security so that when they believe a final victory is at hand I will then crush them and show that they were playing by my whim all along.

*evil maniacal laughter*

[Carnith]

Ultimately look at why they are winning and why you are losing. Is it your composition that is hurting you? Can you change up your list to perhaps give you a better shot? 

Or is it that your army is just countered by the existence of the other faction. If you play an army with a lot of 4+ to hits, and the opponent runs units with -1 to hit, then your army is effectively 1/3rd less likely to hit, and thats a huge detriment to your forces. Some fights are just lost causes and only a dramatic change in lists would help. 

Something to do to help determine this is to do a post game discussion of what happened that could have gone differently.  Was a charge the best thing that could have happened during turn 3, or was there a misunderstanding of the threat a unit could do and so you thought the charge was necessary, opening a hole for your opponent.  This can help you grow as a general. 

[Greasygeek]

On 3/9/2019 at 11:28 PM, passtheKhorneplease said:

I cope with this frustration like I cope with all of life's frustrations nowadays.  I buy more models.

- Friends gone? i’ll get a box of 10 new multipart friends.

- Fired from the job? No problem just start up painting a new army and you won’t have time for work anyway.

- Wife gone? Buy Allarielle, she won’t be very talkstive but she will give you that familiar dead stare you was used to getting from spending all of your savings on problemsolving soldiers.

[Greasygeek]

But on a more non derailing note.

I have had succes with the following when it comes to avoid or deflate frustrating moments. 

1. Be prepared: before the game begins be sure to agree on the local rules. Like: when is a dice is inconclussive? When is it not ok to change a sudden action? Example. I just started moving my unit 0-1” and then I remember some stuff that I should have done at the start of the movement phase, is it ok to go back? Personally I always inform my opponent that when I ask for them to explain some of their units abilities I might still want to check the warscrollcard after hearing the explanation. This has nothing to do with not trusting my opponent however if my opponent is unaware about this that might look bad and will often increase any possible frustration. Clearing all these silly little details before a game really tend to give a more positive experience.

 

2.  Snap out of it: boardgames/wargames tend to be a long intense ordeal and one can get rather tunnelsighted in the heat of the moment. Step away from the game should things get to tense. Take a few minutes to crack jokes, share lore, painting tips or whatever makes it more than just you vs me. Carefull not to taunt though. 

3. Make the experince more than a game.  For me this is about playing with models I have just finished painting, not allowing them to see action before they get some colours. So while I am getting torn to bits at least I get to enjoy a cool looking army and awesome scenery, maybe I even get to try a few new tricks with the latest addition to the army despite being bruttally slaughtered. I think that AOS has to be bigger than I get to win/loose. If not, I might as well play cards instead. 

4.  Change of scene: In my local group we hit a wall a while back since the hierachy seemed to be established with little to no surprises in winners or looses. So at some point we started playing narrative games and it turned out to be the exact ‘change’ we needed at the moment. Now you do not have to go ‘all in’ like we kinda did, writing journals and battle reports. But beside being great fun narrative allowed for some really interesting armylists and offered a chance to field some of those models that never gets used. At one point one of our players in the final moments of a game even gave the victory to his opponent just because he really wanted to see his enemies last desperate plague priest fleeing off table at the klimax of that narrative. Keep in mind that this was a guy who was and is the first to be frustrated during all matched games. We still prefer matched play but also happends to go narrative every once in a while. 

 

[Kugane]

I think the first step is to accept you are a person that gets frustrated, the second step is to do something about that. Instead of trying to fight the symptoms, you should try and fix the core issue by practicing a positive attitude.

When you do lose, and you do feel that frustration brewing in your mind, rather than giving in to that feeling, treat it as an opportunity to practice to be humble, to practice patience, and even to practice tolerance to loss. The moments thing don't go our way are always the moments with the most opportunity for personal growth.

We all have enough suffering as is, so don't let a game like AoS be one of them :). Keep practicing and in time you'll condition your mind to face a loss with dignity and perhaps even happiness.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by Kugane