Powergaming/Whats Fair/What will you Play?

[Arguleon-veq]

After reading a thread in another board that went a little off topic and got onto this whole issue I thought Id see what everybody thinks without going off topic.

Now there were people talking about flat refusing to play certain armies no matter what which I think is far worse than somebody taking a competative list. GK's were mentioned a lot in this regard but I actually use GK rules to represent my Arbites, loads of Henchmen with Bolters in Carapace then some Death Cults so I can use my Cyber Mastiff models then a few Strike Squads which I use Deathwatch for. Its a terrible list from a competative standpoint but it looks good, has a strong theme and uses a lot of models you dont see anymore but some people just wont play against GK.

I see other things about not wanting to play against people using Sternguard combat squadding from Drop Pods. Even though Sternguard arent a competative choice and its a long time since DP armies were really competative.

Personally I will never complain about what im facing although it did get old seeing the same Psyriflemen/Psyback/Coteaz spam GK last edition and the same Wraith/Barge/Scythe Necron spam this edition. I will never take a truely top level list although I will make mine as competative as I can whilst trying to keep it a little different to the norm and fun to use.

I think very few tactics or use of rules is beardy unless it actually is abusing some kind of loophole.

The only thing I dont like although still play against are people getting very angry and 'narky' when they are getting beat or just people that are far too picky with everything and challenge everything you do.

It is almost always more about the player than the army. At the last big tournament I went to I lost to a very beardy DE/Eldar army, a very beardy Wolf/GK army and a Beardy GK/Guard army and I had taken a terrible list because its all I had painted but I enjoyed ALL of those losses because they were against nice, fun guys that despite being some of the top ranked and most competative players in the country would remind you if you forgot something etc providing you do the same for them and not be picky about anything.

On the other hand the 3 games I won at the same tournament were against 2 fairly friendly/balanced Marine lists and a powerful Ork list [but its Orks and all Ork players are fun right?] at each game was terrible simply because I was winning them all so my opponents attitudes were just terrible and they were getting stroppy and angry and wouldnt stop complaining and it just totally ruined the games. 1 of them was a purely for fun player who was the absoloute worst to play against as even though my list was probably worse than his he was just calling me a power gamer for the whole thing despite me letting him get away with things. The other two were competative players but had the same attitude when it come to losing.

I think people flat refusing to play certain armies in case they lose to them would clearly fall in this second camp of players that get super angry when losing and thus spoil the game because if you cant take losing so badly that you wont even play against an army then theres a high chance you are a sore loser.

If EVERYBODY just accepted losing and had fun even when they arent winning, then there would be no complaints about any kind of gamer or any kind of army.

[DEF Knight]

Well the thing to remember, first and foremost, is that this is a game, and therefore is supposed to illicit that curious sensation of "fun".

I don't particularly think flat out refusing to play against an army is really acceptable, generally speaking. Then again, if a list is so beardy or broken it's impossible for you to have fun playing against it, then there's obviously no point to playing against it (well for you. you would be depriving someone else of their fun in so doing

[InsaneTD]

There are a couple I prefer not to play as I lose against them so quickly, I don't find it fun at all. I have no problem with losing and my most fun games have been me actually losing.

GK don't bother me, but I am yet to play them or new necrons.

[Waaaghpower]

I wouldn't refuse to play against someone based on army lists alone... But if they tailor their list specifically to beat me I might. (Or, more likely, if I saw that they were spamming anti-ork weapons such as templates or stuff like that, I'd just take mech heavy orks and blast the crap out of them.)
Orks are a fairly mid-level army in the newest edition, generally middle of the road in terms of power: They aren't the worst army by any means, but nor are they the strongest. I'd play them if they were terrible and I'd play them if they were great, but I like their averageness because nobody can accuse you of power gaming due to army choice but they won't fall apart either. Against 'Power Gamers' I tend to do fairly well, though, simply because my orks are so unusual. (I'm less likely to go with hordes or even fast orks like speed freaks, going with erratic mixes of long range heavy firepower and psychic powers, blended with small but powerful nob units and stuff.)

[Naser Al-Istikhara Cyrus]

I agree with most points in the OP. Except for the last one. Making something "fun" is a two-way-street. If i play a game against a player who has no knowledge/recollection on proper application of the rules, but questions every thing I do and demand I show the rulebook's quote for, it makes the game slightly annoying. If they themselves also cheat, "accidentally" forget to do stuff, or lie, it makes the game slightly more annoying. If they also are a dick, and they constantly swear, curse at the dice, and cry that I use a cheap list, then it becomes even more annoying. In the end; if your opponent is someone like this, it's not about "having fun while losing."

From how I see it, the game is about "having fun playing, and aiming to win." The two things are not directly related. Whether you had fun that game should be irrelevant to the result of the match. I've had games where I've been tabled on turn 2, yet enjoyed the game!

The second part is aiming to win. However, the trick is not to throw the first rule out of the window when submitting to the second. Everybody aims to win to some degree - it's why you shoot the enemy, why you hold home objectives, why you make decisions with a decree of thought, and so on. Aiming to win does not make you a powergamer.

A powergamer is, in my opinion, a descriptive tag that is attached to players who cannot fufill the "have fun playing the game" without first succeeding in their "aim to win". Powergamers often don't have a nice personality as an opponent, and will often never give you a 50/50 call because it could result in turning the game. Powergamers usually run lists that have proven successful to vast amounts of others beforehand, a simple copy-paste internet list such as the Jetbike Seer Council eldar list at 2000 points with Warwalkers, or more recently, the psyriflemen GK lists. A Powergamer's list will often have as many of the excellent units as possible, often duplicated to full effect. A good example is an ork army with 9 kans, 45 lootas and 30-strong shoota squads.

While what is stated above is often the case, it isn't always. Not every powergamer is a total d*ck to verse in a match, and not every person who uses an internet/mainstream list is a powergamer. But the bad gaming attitude and the yawn-worthy lists go together with powergamers like 2+2=4.

Don't get powergamers confused with agressive gamers, or scheming gamers. I once considered a guy at my LGS to be a powergamer based on a number of games I had with his Templars. In every game, he'd somehow manage to sneak in a tiny bit of an inch on each movement and managed a charge on my troops with his assault units that they should've actually been 2'' short of. His list seemed fairly copy-pasty and while I never refused a game, I didn't hold much respect of him. However, another day he brought in his guard - with the types of weapons I'd never thought i'd see brought to a tabletop. He had heavy bolter HWTs, each model in his command squads and vets had a different specialist weapon. his playstyle and attitude seemed to be a bit more user-friendly. After I played against him with this army, my respect for him was restored. He's simply an aggressive player - many players are, but he's still a good guy with a slight consideration for fluff.

Scheming gamers is a term i give to gamers who are really strategic. They think really tactically and rely purely on tactics rather than army-list selection to beat an opponent. I really enjoy playing against this game type, but newer players usually get thrashed by a schemer. A scheming player usually acts methodical and relentless with regards to in-game actions, but OOC chat both before, during and after the game they are usually great people.

Another easy way to spot either a noob or a powergamer is to find lists that make a mockery of fluff or canon. I understand that Mat Ward is slowly turning fluff/cannon into a mockery lately, so perhaps this will be a social norm in the future, but for now - seeing an army of very good units together which wouldn't make much sense fluffwise (such as 3 vendettas supporting 1 infantry platoon in a small-points game)

The game isn't exactly perfectly balanced either. I was having this discussion with Wargamer only yesterday; the 6th edition rulebook is amazing, but it's the points cost of units that really needs to be looked at. GW Seems to have ideas that certain things should always cost x points, even after codex creep. And I am not just referring to terminators (where the latest Chaos ones are better with no increase in cost IIRC), but also other units such as Ravagers. Many units are either too expensive (Carnifex, Guardians) or too cheap (Vendetta, Predator) and although their price doesn't necessarily make them unbeatable (far from it, in some ways) it just gives an example of how unbalanced the points-system is in GW.

Troops in general aren't necessarily...worth taking. Or at least, not to the extent that they should be. A squad of tactical space marines should be able to dispose of most threats effectively. Gaunts should be more than tarpits, sluggas should be more than cannon fodder, and so on. If a rule were to come in where troops weren't a requisite, and that all types of units were scoring units, I can almost garuntee that massive amounts of players will take far fewer troop selections. The Way GW has been handling the codexes has been...not so positive for the game IMO.

Anyway the point is, the system allows for people to take advantage of imbalance if they choose so, and some people manipulate it as much as possible in order to maximise their chance of winning, thus their only way of having fun. Powergamers often have the attitude to accompany this too, but not necessarily.



Onto what's fair, and what I will play.

What's "fair" i guess is sticking to the rules. Technically, taking the cheesiest army but following every rule to perfection is perfectly fine, and perfectly fair. Regardless of what my opponent brought to the table, I'd play him. Even if he's using the same cheesy list as he usually does, I'll give it my best shot, and then ask him about his..."list"...as part of the rapport conversation either before/during/post-game. Doesn't garuntee that I'll enjoy playing against a powergamer, but meh

[/rant]

Zambia

[crisis_vyper]

For me, I can never defend the game anymore despite my love for it.

The idea that people are required to think about how they go about beating an opponent has literally disappeared. Scrubs are everywhere, and they just play with and/or against an army without understanding the full fundamentals of what is exactly going on with the game. I find it immature to flat-out refuse a player for playing a certain army or taking the 'autowin' army list of the month because it performed extremely well in a tournament and expect it to work.  This is a sign of incompetence and lack of initiative to learn to adapt, and I find the pursuit of getting to know what is going on as being a journey on itself. Winning is something I enjoy, but having a tight game is even more pleasurable for me. I like to be pushed, but at the same time I will not take bullshit from people as I expect everyone to be civil to one another when it comes to playing.

So my philosophy is that if you want to enjoy the game, you have to be good at it too. This often means that I will choose the best options that will allow me to win in my own way, and sometimes that would mean using little nuances to increase my understanding of the game. Unfortunately that makes me a little bit of a rule lawyer/beardy player. Do not get me wrong, I like fluffy lists and stuff, but I will make sure that it can hold its own against competitive lists consistently. I will not keep units that are cool but useless, and instead will always prefer raw efficiency. I find the process of finding the golden ratio as an immense reward upon itself.

As for my gaming attitude and what I think is fair, I would say fair game to anything but I do have several important pet peeves in any game I play;

1)Whining

2)Not thinking

3)Cheating

[The Man They Call Jayne]

I will play agaisnt anything, but that doesnt mean I have to like the list you bring. If you drop 9 Vendettas on the table I am going to think you are a douche. If you are Drop Pod heavy, the same applies. The main reason I find the drop pod offensive is because it is it unstoppable. It cannot mishap and it is garenteed to drop something nasty right where you dont want them on turn 1.

If in turn one you manage to land behind me where you want to with the weapons you want and you take out the core of my army, I am instantly boned. And where is the fun in that? I dont mind a challenge, and if its fun I will fight on to the last man just for the hell of it, but whats the point if I cant do anything to your tanks anymore because you just killed my AT units before they had a chance to move?

Vendettas en masse are just as bad. When you have enough, accurate AT weapons to use as anti horde weapons, what are you ment to do? It's a point and click unit that should never have existed for a stupidly low price.

Playing to win is fine. You will try and I will try. Yesterday I had a 1000 pointer that came down to the last few men on my team vs his Vindicator. And I managed to pull a win out of it thatnks to a lucky immobilised result. The game was close the whole way through and if you had walked in at any point you could not have called it one way or the other. And it was GREAT. We both had immense fun, lots of laughs and shook hands afterwards. Neither of us were geared for anything in particular, it was very TAC. A dice roll here or there could have changed everything, and that is what makes a game worth playing.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

Personally, I wouldn't refuse to play someone based on what codex they're using, I prefer to see what they bring from that codex. I have played Grey Knights, and yes, I was beaten so utterly it wasn't even funny, but I'd have games like that against Guard and Nurgle as well, and against other codexes in previous editions.

That being said, I have refused to play someone who wanted to bring a Stormraven. a) because I don't like it as a unit, I think it's absurd. b) the guy was also bringing Dante c) He knew full well I had no access anti-air and my anti-tank would have its hands full with his Vindicator and assault cannon razorbacks.

I think it is a lot more about the player. It is possible to write a fun list with every codex, but people don't. I've had people drop Vanquishers to field Eradicators against my Dark Eldar, I've had people spam Sonic Blasters and bring a flier to play my Dark Eldar (knowing I had no anti-air), but I've kept playing those people. Hell, I beat the guy when he brought an Eradicator against me, and then I drew with the Sonic Blaster spammer, but when people do things like that, knowing full well that my list hasn't changed in months then I get annoyed, and I will start to complain about it.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

If people build lists specifically to play against your specific army, thats just not cricket. Thats one of the reasons I try not to over specialise in my mormal list. Autocannons are common in my list for example, precisely because they work so well against so many things. My Havocs and Forgefiend can serve as Anti Flyer units in a pinch.

It also means I dont need to change my list when other enemies come along.

[Waaaghpower]

Scheming gamers is a term i give to gamers who are really strategic. They think really tactically and rely purely on tactics rather than army-list selection to beat an opponent. I really enjoy playing against this game type, but newer players usually get thrashed by a schemer. A scheming player usually acts methodical and relentless with regards to in-game actions, but OOC chat both before, during and after the game they are usually great people.

I'm definitely one of these, and it certainly does help me win.
But, the comment about new players brings me to another question...

At what point is it good to stop giving advice to your opponent? Their first game? If they've been playing for just a few weeks?
When I was just starting, the people I played against only told me about things if I directly asked about it, and didn't tell me a lot of things that cost me games. (For example, on my very first game I asked if I could move further because I was about 4" from an enemy and wanted to make sure I could assault since I had S&P and it was 5th edition. They said I could run... And neglected to tell me I couldn't assault if I did... And since I didn't know about calling a WAAAGH yet, I ended up not able to assault his best unit (as Tau) with my meganobs. I didn't play much with him after that, but always tried to help out my opponent after that.)

Obviously in a tournament you shouldn't try and give your opponent advice, but outside of it as a general rule, I try and give whoever I am playing strategic advice if they don't know about my army. My opponent asks me who I should shoot at, I tell him my lootas are a much better target than my boys. As a rule, if you withhold information to try and trick your opponent, I think you're a jerk.

[Arguleon-veq]

The main reason I find the drop pod offensive is because it is it unstoppable. It cannot mishap and it is garenteed to drop something nasty right where you dont want them on turn 1.

If in turn one you manage to land behind me where you want to with the weapons you want and you take out the core of my army, I am instantly boned. And where is the fun in that? I dont mind a challenge, and if its fun I will fight on to the last man just for the hell of it, but whats the point if I cant do anything to your tanks anymore because you just killed my AT units before they had a chance to move?


This kind of thing is a massive problem, if a player cant deal with something as simple as drop pods which are nowhere near over-powered and then refuses to even accept to play them [and thus never learning how to deal with them], it is no wonder we have so many players refusing to play against certain armies/builds.

Against Pods its easy to avoid losing what you dont want or mitigating it massivly simply with good army placement. Plus there is the fact that you only get half of them turn 1 which usually wont mean half of your army which means you end up with something like a quarter of your army isolated on its own against an opponent in turn 1. You get a few special weapon and bolter shots off and then have to eat the whole enemy armies firepower. Drop Pods also give away easy First Blood.

Ive played against 6 Vendetta lists quite a few times this edition and easily beat them by destroying everything on the ground. You cant afford to take too many and thats why people have gone away from using too many flyers [unless they are cheap and versatile like Night Scythes].

Last edition I often played against very powerful firepower GK and Guard armies with my mix of everything Eldar list and won more often than not by playingthe mission and learning to deal with it whilst Id watch other people using the same kind of list I was running essentially give up upon seeing an army like that placed on the table opposite them.

I agree that list tailoring is way out of order though.

When it comes to giving advice I dont think you should ever stop giving it, nobody knows everything and the more you help other people the better they will get and then be able to give you better games.

[Naser Al-Istikhara Cyrus]

At what point is it good to stop giving advice to your opponent? Their first game? If they've been playing for just a few weeks?
When I was just starting, the people I played against only told me about things if I directly asked about it, and didn't tell me a lot of things that cost me games. (For example, on my very first game I asked if I could move further because I was about 4" from an enemy and wanted to make sure I could assault since I had S&P and it was 5th edition. They said I could run... And neglected to tell me I couldn't assault if I did... And since I didn't know about calling a WAAAGH yet, I ended up not able to assault his best unit (as Tau) with my meganobs. I didn't play much with him after that, but always tried to help out my opponent after that.)

Obviously in a tournament you shouldn't try and give your opponent advice, but outside of it as a general rule, I try and give whoever I am playing strategic advice if they don't know about my army. My opponent asks me who I should shoot at, I tell him my lootas are a much better target than my boys. As a rule, if you withhold information to try and trick your opponent, I think you're a jerk.

I believe that it's your responsibility to know the rules for the army you're playing. Before I started playing, I read the rulebook cover to cover at least 3 or 4 times, as well as the codexes for the armies I use. When I started and lost games due to my mis/non-understanding of the rules then I fully admitted that it was my own fault. However, remember that you are free to question your opponent's rules/look at his codex. If you lie about your army to an opponent then it is your fault, because a player isn't expected to memorise every rule from every army he could potentially be facing. (or every stat ).

When it comes to advice, I rarely give advice spontaneously. I'll always let my opponent do what he's doing under the assumption (or hope) that he has a strategy behind it. However, if my opponent is unsure about something, then he is free to ask; and I would give him all available options. There's no shame in asking questions.

The main reason I find the drop pod offensive is because it is it unstoppable. It cannot mishap and it is garenteed to drop something nasty right where you dont want them on turn 1.


This kind of thing is a massive problem, if a player cant deal with something as simple as drop pods which are nowhere near over-powered and then refuses to even accept to play them [and thus never learning how to deal with them], it is no wonder we have so many players refusing to play against certain armies/builds.

Against Pods its easy to avoid losing what you dont want or mitigating it massivly simply with good army placement. Plus there is the fact that you only get half of them turn 1 which usually wont mean half of your army which means you end up with something like a quarter of your army isolated on its own against an opponent in turn 1. You get a few special weapon and bolter shots off and then have to eat the whole enemy armies firepower. Drop Pods also give away easy First Blood.

While drop pod lists aren't necessarily unbeatable, I dislike them because they will only mishap if the deploying player wants them to. There is a 0% chance that something will go wrong...and models that drop down out of the sky can proceed to fire at their full BS. I believe it should be snap-shots on the turn you arrive from drop pods, and there should be SOME kind of margin for error. Perhaps drop pods scatter up to D6 (or even D3) instead of auto-placement. Another possibility could be to roll 2 scatter rolls and choose which one you'll take. But it does not require any skill to execute a drop pod of an army of marines, yet to try and fit 1 crisis suit into a 6'' area could easily go horribly wrong. That is what I don't like about drop pods. No guts, no glory. No game-risk, no reputational reward.

[Arguleon-veq]

Im not sure if this is what some people are suggesting or not. Do people think Pods dont scatter?. They do.

[LinnScarlett]

Hm. I rarely play these days, bar against some friends and my bf. There's just so many jerky people out there, it's no real fun to play against them. I don't mind losing or getting soundly stomped even. I am not a very stellar player and I know that, but I try my best at understanding and memorising the rules, and knowing my army and thinking of decent strategies. Its good fun regardless of the losing, and some guys are quite nice and helpful and its a great match. But the majority of 'random' people I've played with are just... jerky. And the games just leave me feeling ganked. :/

[Arguleon-veq]

I find playing at GW's to be that way. For some reason they tend to attract the worst kind of players. I attend 2 gaming clubs though, a fairly small one and large one that often holds some of the biggest and best tournaments of the year and has a lot of very high ranked players. 90% of games at both of these clubs are good/fun games. I think with a gaming club because you see these people a lot and will have to see them again it makes people far more freindly. At GW's people can go and never see the person they played again which could lead to them thinking they can get away with being idiots.