I get these forums are good for venting opinions but sometimes i'm reading this forum and thinking

'are my buddies and I playing it wrong'

We've not found anything 'broken', we dont get upset when new stuff comes out, just go 'wow thats nice' and we just have a laugh *every* game.

Perhaps its because we dont play tournaments

One of the reasons i left GW events is because tournament play seems to bring out the latent git in so many people.

I've seen grown men cry and/or have temper tantrums at Warhammer GTS, i've seen people stall for time so their opponent doesnt get his last turn, i've seen improbably and unlikely forces selected... not because they in any way fit the backstory of the game universe and the army but because they are 'points efficient'.

Jeez, does anyone else just play to have fun and make up cool stories... or is it just us, in the cold hard vacuum of narrative gaming?

Like i say I've been a TO, i saw it suck the fun out of GW gaming, when i was tasked with running more tournys than narrative campaign weekends and open days, thats when i quit.

I want to play epic space battles with character... not do a maths exercise with bits of card and plastic....

(i get everyone has their own style of gaming but it seems most the negativity comes from people who choose to play total strangers with a 'win at all costs' agenda)

I'm with ya gadge, just gotta check out my battle reports, it's all good clean fun for me with the occasional smutty innuendo thrown in for good measure

I also used to work for GW many moon ago and I stopped going to game days because people just take it far too seriously, oh and the fact I couldn't stand those smelly little things, always talking to me, 'hey mr, does it fire' or 'hey mr, how did you make that' or ' hey mr, does this bit move'. Yeah, their kids were just as bad too....

One of the reasons i left GW events is because tournament play seems to bring out the latent git in so many people.

Like i say I've been a TO, i saw it suck the fun out of GW gaming, when i was tasked with running more tournys than narrative campaign weekends and open days, thats when i quit.

GW's Warhammer games are hopelessly unbalanced. They are not to be taken seriously - ever - and are best played with friends, drinking some beers. You know that a game has problems when tournaments enforce 'army composition' and 'sportsmanship' scores. They're broken, silly and fun in their own stupid way that works. I don't mind 40K when I want a laugh at how quickly my army died against the new power-creep codex.

X-Wing, despite not being perfect, is a better balanced game. It is far more suitable for tournament play. The rules are good enough (not perfect) for the game to flow fast and fair for most people to have competitive fun, even during tournament pressure.

Remember that every game will always have 'that guy', it can't be avoided.

Somehow I think you and Mr Hasselstein are going to get along just fine.

I'll refer you to that recent example of the guy who had about 2mm of base corner go off map and his opponent said he'd 'flown of table', thats the sort of play i just cant be doing with you know?

@Gadge - No, you're not alone. I personally avoid the tournament scene like the plague as it's not my thing. The games that my friends and I play are ALWAYS friendly, we leave our seriousness at the door. We have wonderful games, try new - and sometimes silly - squadron builds, and generally have a great time. Afterward we go out to get a bite to eat and laugh over our stupid moves and bad die rolls. All in all for us its a social thing rather than a competition.

No, it's not just you Gadge. My group plays mostly for fun. We've gone to a few tournaments (Imdaar Alpha being the latest), but mainly for the experience of playing against other people & different lists.

Although funnily enough, one thing you do notice when you go to tournaments is when you ARE playing it wrong. It's surprising what you pick up. For instance, up until our first tournament my group and 1 were playing it that focus tokens could only change the result of one dice. Have seen a few conversations between players at these events with a similar effect as well.

Yup i can see how thats valid, I didnt realise that an ateroid hit was caused if the movement template crossed it as well.

i'd sort of skim read asteroids and it was only when playing against a friend who had learnt to play the game seperately that i realised I'd got that wrong.

same with a cockpit hit. I initially read the card as the ship was at PS0 for the following turn, it's actually until its fixed!

Yup i can see how thats valid, I didnt realise that an ateroid hit was caused if the movement template crossed it as well...

...I've seen a very similar thing here, actually. My original interpretation of the asteroid/obstacle rules was that if any part of the ship's base would overlap an asteroid token during movement, you lost your action and rolled a damage dice.

Then it was kindly pointed out by a tournament opponent that it's only the template touching the asteroid token and the final position of the ship's base that matters. Saved me an action and a damage roll, didn't help me much in the end though!

I hear ya. Just played my first tournament in xwing last weekend. Although the organizer did a great job keeping things moving, I ended up facing similar lists for my first 3 games. Folks know which ships win, and they squeeze them into every list. I have much more fun playing bizarre lists and iconic pilots to see what happens.

I play just for fun with a couple of friends, we change lists weekly so there's no predicting what will be taken.

I don't miss playing in gw stores with the unwashed masses, seriously the stench on a summers day and they wondered why girls avoid the place.

My group consists of myself and my three kids. We are all Star Wars tragics who pick our lists based around the ships we like the look of, pilots and upgrades come later. We have a lot of fun, nothing they like better than beating the old man.

I would like to think of myself as someone that likes it all. I've only played in about four tournaments. Three of them were at my local store (One was the pre-release for wave 4 and I won my first pick, never won anything in my life so it was a good day) and the other was a regional. I like to have fun with this game, at the same time this is the only game I've ever really wanted to try at a competitive level.

Kentucky Fried Ewok. ..oh my god that's an awesome handle!

Koodoos on the name choice.

When there are prizes involved, you're going to have that - really if you think about are you willing to pay an entry fee and not try to win? Why not just play a free game instead?

Sounds like you found the perfect solution though - just don't play, and if you really do want any of the prizes that come from those tournaments, you can buy them for the overly inflated prices on ebay.

I would like to think of myself as someone that likes it all. I've only played in about four tournaments. Three of them were at my local store (One was the pre-release for wave 4 and I won my first pick, never won anything in my life so it was a good day) and the other was a regional. I like to have fun with this game, at the same time this is the only game I've ever really wanted to try at a competitive level.

Whenever you enter the Competitive scene of any game will find bad people. Not so much due to the Tournament but the exposure to people outside your group. if you had a casual group playing that had 35-50 players you will still get a couple people who could ruin the experience for everybody. The X-Wing community seems to have a hard time differentiating between being a **** and being competitive. You certainly can be one without the other or both at the same time.

I am a TO for my FLGS in Cuyahoga Falls OH. I run a monthly event where the people who come to play are a very casual group. I run the event to fit their taste not my own. I run the event to help promote and grow the number of players in my area. Don't let the Tournament word scare you away from our events. Every month we have new people coming in and joining us, it's a wonderful thing. Often the new player have only seen the game and have never played it. I will have squads pre-built and ready to hand out. I will find one of the veterans of our group to explain the rules and during the first couple rounds I'll hang around the newer players to help when I can. No one in our group gives these newer players a hard time over not knowing all the rules but rather help them understand the game better. Often the experience is so positive they walk out carrying a starter kit.

So if you are from the northeast ohio area and have a negative opinion of tournament, i encourage you to come to one of our events. I guarantee you will make some friends and have a wonderful time playing X-Wing all day. Our next event will be held Aug 30th At Underhills Games in Cuyahoga Falls OH. It's an Escalation Tournament and registration begins at noon.

I play games for fun. Never entered any tournaments as once winning "matters" it changes a lot of people from being normal, fun individuals into That Guy.

So are you people telling me I won't get a scholarship to a Div 1 school by winning X-Wing tournies?

I pretty much only play with my friends and every game is a fun time, save for a few times when the dice just totally make you go "Wtf?!".

I've got one tournament under my belt (Imdaar Alpha) and won't likely do any more. It's just not my thing given local organizers aren't rules savvy or present during matches, so dealing with peoples own interpretations of the rules grates a little on me.

My home games are super casual, super friendly.

-Cal

I have to restate i'm totally understanding of tourneys

I was the 'UK Organised Play Manager' for GW HQ for years. Thats running four or five GT a year, four or five campaign weekends (far less beardy/competetive as you play as a team so its less important if one of you fluffs a game), three or four open day and two or three hobby skills weekends.... oh and i used to organise the hobby content of UK Games Day between 2001 and 2005/6. Trust me I know all about tournaments

I know exactly what they entail, i know exactly how it changes peoples play style.

Like i say , thats why i avoid them.

Why can't someone have fun doing both? We just wrapped up the first season of our league here. Through the weeks of normal play I experimented with a lot of different things; various builds trying to get Vessery to work, a couple different squads with Etahn, a Corran+Han build that I thought was wholly impractical (but someone managed to take to near the top of Nationals so what do I know?), some 50-pointer free for alls, and so on. And had a lot of fun. Then the end of league tournaments came, and it was time to play to win, and guess what? I still had fun, and so did everyone else as far as I can tell.

You're always going to have 'that guy'. It's unavoidable, and they're not limited to serious tournaments, there are plenty that are that way about pickup games too. Just do your best to ignore them. Which is obviously easier to do in pickup play where you can just refuse. It can suck, sure, if you're stuck playing them in a tournament, just bear with it, have the TO resolve disputes and move on. I can say I haven't once yet had a negative experience at any tournament I've been to; multiple local store championships, Imdaar Alphas, regionals, and our league tournaments. Maybe we just have a lower number of jerks around here, beats me.

TL;DR, yeah, it's fun to throw something goofy together, and just play a casual game. It's also fun, in a different way, to test yourself against someone else who is playing their best; being competitive is human nature. If that's not what you're looking for out of this game, that's cool, but labelling the entire tournament scene a bunch of stick-in-the-mud fun haters because of the bad apples isn't exactly fair.

i usually play thins for fun, but i like to have changes of winning in the game.

I played a lot ot M:tG and in the beginning everyone used whatever card they could get their hands into and was alot of fun. When some guys started netdecking our "scrape" decks became useless and the fun was gone because we couldn't do a thing.

I hated because if we wanted to keep havings chances we would have to use the power houses everyone used and that kill the constructed game for me (i like using different cards). And i'm not even talking about the tournaments. Hope this does not happen with X-wing.

ps.; what is GW?

I think some of you miss my point chaps.

I know what tournaments are about, i used to run them for the worlds biggest wargames company for over four years.

My point is that a lot of the negativity in these forums seems to be coming from people looking to build 'win at all cost' lists.

all the 'this sucks' or 'this is broken' or 'this will wreck the balance' threads seem to be centred around building 'competitive lists' for events.

And in my opinion i saw that really drudge down GW events and the standard of sportsmanship.

I'd hate to see xwing go the way of 40kGTs. Trust me i hated running or working on those. The only good bit was the pub quiz in Bugmans at the end. I've seen standards of 'douchery' that you'd chuck someone out of your house for at GTS

But i totally get their appeal.

For some people it is the 'mathhammer' of it

For others its getting to play new people

For some its actually getting to play the game as their mates or wives dont

I get all that, like i say I've been in the industry for a long time.

My point being is that when you *don't* buy in to all of that 'arms race/meta' stuff you seen to be less up set and have more fun.

At the end of the day, if you win or lose, you still just managed to win or lose at a game of plastic toy spaceships based on a movie series that started close to 40 years ago, and that you've probably spend hundreds of dollars/pounds/traded chickens/etc. for. What we're doing here isn't going to change the world, find a cure for cancer or figure how, exactly, to make a functional and affordable warp drive.

However.

It's a hell of a lot of fun playing with toy spaceships, with a good bunch of gamers, who enjoy having a great time. Win or lose, and it never matters to me so long as we're all having fun, I just want to play. And yes, if I pay for a tournament fee and I get tabled repeatedly by superior players, it just means I need to figure my game out better. If I clear my opponents off the board, I will do so graciously, and modestly.

So yes, Gadge, there's still lots of us who play for the sheer enjoyment of it. Just look for the players that aren't frothing at the mouth during their matches.