I wrote up a bit of a more serious article about something that's been bothering me since our second batrep, namely the way I acted during it.

https://intelsweep.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/dont-let-the-hate-flow-through-you/

On the lighter side I should have a tournament report for the Rebel Outpost tournament out in the next few days.

The link is broken? Better link.

Or does it just hate me?

I'm really impressed you made that post. I love your battle reports going back to Armada and I remember thinking during this one "wow, he's a bit salty today." Not a huge deal but I definitely noticed. But to admit when you're wrong like this and make such a public statement is a great example to us all.

Nobody's perfect but it's how we respond that matters.

1 hour ago, Amanal said:

The link is broken? Better link.

Or does it just hate me?

Fixed the link

Thank you for your text.

I also thought that you were always talking about the dice.

Fair enough.

One thing I will say for me personally playing these games(wargames) is I play to role play a battle...I want to enjoy the battle for what it is and part of that can be getting beaten, I enjoy the game, not the winning personally. If I took part in a battle on the tabletop I like to envisage it as a proper battle and they can go either way.

If people want to play something for purely winning I dont understand why they dont play something more simple like Noughts n crosses. IMO wargames are about immersing yourself in the battle, whatever the outcome.

I dont play at a local club, I went down to learn Flames of War once and the first game I played (I had read the rules) the other guy while being very very helpful for a new player...also in retrospect chose missions and setup that ensured he would get a win matched to his army. I just dont see the point. Never played there again. I wasnt bitter about losing, I lost and it was a great battle, just dont want to play somebody who wants to win that much that it becomes the focus.

The 'heroes' lost the battle of hoth.....and it was brilliant. No reason losing wargame battles cant be the same.

Interesting post. I must say I quite liked the first video and second seemed tactically interesting, but the “dice” related comments/ sighs etc were quite off putting.

It happens to all of us, and well done for realising and trying to do better.

Personally I always play to win, but winning isn’t what makes it enjoyable. That said it is easy to get a little grumpy when the dice hate you :-).

58 minutes ago, VAYASAN said:

Fair enough.

One thing I will say for me personally playing these games(wargames) is I play to role play a battle...I want to enjoy the battle for what it is and part of that can be getting beaten, I enjoy the game, not the winning personally. If I took part in a battle on the tabletop I like to envisage it as a proper battle and they can go either way.

If people want to play something for purely winning I dont understand why they dont play something more simple like Noughts n crosses. IMO wargames are about immersing yourself in the battle, whatever the outcome.

I dont play at a local club, I went down to learn Flames of War once and the first game I played (I had read the rules) the other guy while being very very helpful for a new player...also in retrospect chose missions and setup that ensured he would get a win matched to his army. I just dont see the point. Never played there again. I wasnt bitter about losing, I lost and it was a great battle, just dont want to play somebody who wants to win that much that it becomes the focus.

The 'heroes' lost the battle of hoth.....and it was brilliant. No reason losing wargame battles cant be the same.

The reason why it was hard to watch, for me, was because it seemed pretty clear to me that in that game it had become about the winning part and nothing else. I don't think anyone will try and tell you that the "WAAC" player is a good thing.

I will say though that when these discussions come up, as someone who is very competitive at heart, I see the motivations of competitive people generalised and reduced all the time.

There's an implication that because we care about winning, and that it's an aspect of enjoying games for us, that it is somehow all we care about (i.e. by caring about winning you immediately fall into the Win-At-All-Costs category).

I love the cinematic and immersive aspects of wargames, honestly it's one of my favourite parts of them. My earliest wargaming experience was playing the Lord of the Rings: Strategy Battle Game with my grandpa when I was 9, and the things I remember from that is stuff like the time we recreated the battle of Helms Deep over two days. Even over the weekend I had a moment where I used Force Push on Luke to pull him out of engagement with one squad of stormtroopers and then he hit the double crit necessary to finish off another trooper squad to clutch out the win. I was definitely picturing him, hand out, sending the troopers flying and then spinning around with the pistol. It was the coolest thing ever (in my head).

The reason why we don't just play checkers or other games like that is easy because very few people actually care about just winning . We want to play Legion, or X-Wing, or Armada because we are also a huge Star Wars fan (just like you I would assume). Because we want to build stuff, and paint stuff, and get those amazing moments on the table that feel like they're straight out of the movies and that leave you going 'holy **** that was amazing!'.

But the other side of it is that its like a puzzle "How do I win this game", and because the puzzle changes all the time (different maps, different lists, different objectives, different deployments, different conditions, different players) it has a nearly infinite number of permutations. So every time, you get to try and figure out this puzzle, and see if you can crack it. It's interesting how often people dismiss why that might be fun, or a validly enjoyable aspect of the game.

I think the comment above mine put it about right, good competitive players always play to win, but winning isn't the entire package. It's just an aspect of the whole picture.

I had watched your first and second battle report. It was the first time I had been exposed to your content (likely because it is the first game of this sort that I have been exposed to.)

I thoroughly enjoyed the first. The second I definitely picked up on the consistent dice complaints, and while I watched the full thing, it pulled me out of the video during each complaint.

I was going to watch the third and see if that was common, or just a one-off. Happy to hear its uncharacteristic. Great post and a good point for everyone to acknowledge (since playing against super salty people is no fun, especially in a new game people are still figure out) but don't beat yourself up too much. I still learned quite a bit from the 2nd Battle Report.

I'll also add that the fun, friendly-abusive banter among friends in your videos is pretty amusing. Calling your mate a $#&!er for one shotting your Luke can be funny if that's the type of relationship you have. But getting outwardly sour about dice rolls is especially poor form because the other player has no hand in it or control over it (not picking on you OP, just general observation). If you cursed at me for killing your Vader, I'd laugh it off because of course I killed him, that's the point (assuming we're friends). But when you're generally salty over dice, I don't know what to tell you.

Also for the record, everything you said in that video, I've said in my head in games like that. It's definitely a rough feeling when the dice give below average results when you've set up a skillful play. I just try to spare the other player and hope he does the same when he whiffs.

The attitude I try to cultivate is: play to win, but celebrate the successes of both sides. If Captain Weather's Luke does some awesome force moves and decimates my stormtroopers, I'm cheering too, not getting salty.

I give you a lot of credit for this. I watch batreps in the background while I paint (of which there aren't many yet), and I got a bit uncomfortable from it. Granted, that had only been the second video of yours I ever saw. I felt bad for your opponent, but I'm sure you have rapport with him and he gets you.

Thankfully, I watched your third video and it was much calmer.

It's really big of you to admit your faults. I for one will keep watching.

Any person who plays any game even remotely competitively should read this. Well and courageously said. Thanks.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys. I must admit I was really worried that people that hadn't seen our earlier Armada content (i.e. people coming to the channel solely for / from Legion) would not have the same long term viewership to know that it was something definitely out of character for me. A big part of why I wanted to write the article was to indicate how strongly I disapproved of how I acted in that bat-rep, and that it was not something that I was personally comfortable with.

In any case I hope it's provided something of value, and that people join in on our content in the future.