14 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

One thing I've learned from several decades of wargaming is that you should never approach a tournament differently than you would a casual game.

Bam! There it is. That has been my philosophy of gaming for a good decade now too.

42 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

Bam! There it is. That has been my philosophy of gaming for a good decade now too.

Good for you all. I've been playing and going to tourneys since 1988, and I've always approached it different. Different strokes for different folks! ?

15 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

One thing I've learned from several decades of wargaming is that you should never approach a tournament differently than you would a casual game.

There are very different sorts of players who play these games for very different reasons.

The divergent play approach between casual vs competitive appeals to some more than others. I've been wargaming regularly since 2002, and I absolutely approach the two game types differently. It's part of the experience and the draw, for me.

The real key to enjoying a wargame is to find a person who is playing for the same reason, at the same level. The vast majority of negative play experiences I've ever had are due to player mismatch.

I'm not going to mercilessly stomp a less technical/more casual/newer player into the ground, nor am I going to worry too much about small details or push myself as hard in that game, nor will I worry much about the outcome as long as he had fun.

I'm also not going to enjoy that game as much as a high level match against a cunning opponent that I have to scratch and claw for every bit of ground I take. THAT game is going to be held to the highest possible standards of rule adherence because we are both pushing the rules as far as we can. THAT game is the pinnacle of my play experience in any wargame, and the number of (local) players who can give it to me I can count on one hand. I won't be anywhere near as relaxed for that game, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun.

I think I’d be insulted or feel humiliated if someone “went easy” on me and they stated it or it was made obvious. It would just feel so condescending.

Which is not the same as not teaching someone to play or helping them learn the ins and outs of the game. You can be all that you can be and still help someone learn from their mistakes so that, at the least, if they encounter the same situation they’re making an informed decision.

Tournaments are inherently couched in the idea that everyone is trying their best and pulling no punches. Besides, tie rankings. could come down to something like number of victory points and units destroyed, making it important to the competition not to give up or something like that.

17 minutes ago, Tvayumat said:

There are very different sorts of players who play these games for very different reasons.

The divergent play approach between casual vs competitive appeals to some more than others. I've been wargaming regularly since 2002, and I absolutely approach the two game types differently. It's part of the experience and the draw, for me.

The real key to enjoying a wargame is to find a person who is playing for the same reason, at the same level. The vast majority of negative play experiences I've ever had are due to player mismatch.

I'm not going to mercilessly stomp a less technical/more casual/newer player into the ground, nor am I going to worry too much about small details or push myself as hard in that game, nor will I worry much about the outcome as long as he had fun.

I'm also not going to enjoy that game as much as a high level match against a cunning opponent that I have to scratch and claw for every bit of ground I take. THAT game is going to be held to the highest possible standards of rule adherence because we are both pushing the rules as far as we can. THAT game is the pinnacle of my play experience in any wargame, and the number of (local) players who can give it to me I can count on one hand. I won't be anywhere near as relaxed for that game, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun.

I totally agree.

What I disagree with is the notion that tournament games are somehow more important, and that because of that there is an implied permission to be more cut-throat. It really is just a game of toy soldiers. No one should ever take it more seriously than toy soldiers should be taken, even if you're on the last turn of the top table at Worlds.

If I only won a game because I didn't remind my opponent of a thing he could have done (like using an evade token in X Wing, as an example) then I'd feel cheap. Like I hadn't won a game where both me and my opponent were playing at 100%. I don't think it's fair to expect people to be 100% on the ball all the time, when you factor in normal fatigue, the excitement of being at an event, experience (or the lack thereof), nerves, etc. It doesn't cost a person anything to remind their opponent about an ability or rule, and it gives you a victory (or loss!) that you can feel better about since you know that your opponent was doing everything possible to win. I just like to assume the best about my opponent and give them the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. By turn two you usually have an understanding of where your opponent is at, mentally, and you can adjust accordingly. Like if they're being a **** or they respectfully decline your offer to maybe redo something (using X Wing as an example again, if they accidentally flew one of their ships off the map by dialling in a right turn instead of a left. Even in a tournament game I'm going to let my opponent take that left turn, since we can both see what they MEANT to do). If they say "Nah man, I stuffed that up, I have to wear it" then you can take a step back and say to yourself "Ok, this guy wants to play hardball. I won't bother reminding him of things he's missed now".

It's important to understand why you'd remind someone in a casual game, though. For me, it's because I want the player to feel like they've done everything they could, and so that I can feel like I won (or lost) the match on 'hard mode'. I don't want to win because not all the rules were applied, or because my opponent was unaware or simply forgot they could have applied a particular rule. I want to win because I made the better decisions (and the dice were kind!). I also want my opponent to walk away feeling like they won (or lost) after giving it everything they had. I take that mentality into all of my games, casual or competitive, and I think if everyone did the same the tournament scene would be more enjoyable for everyone.

33 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

If I only won a game because I didn't remind my opponent of a thing he could have done (like using an evade token in X Wing, as an example) then I'd feel cheap. Like I hadn't won a game where both me and my opponent were playing at 100%. I don't think it's fair to expect people to be 100% on the ball all the time, when you factor in normal fatigue, the excitement of being at an event, experience (or the lack thereof), nerves, etc. It doesn't cost a person anything to remind their opponent about an ability or rule, and it gives you a victory (or loss!) that you can feel better about since you know that your opponent was doing everything possible to win.

See, at a certain level of play I have to disagree, and this is where divergent personalities start to show. In a competitive event, I'm not just playing your list, I'm playing YOU, as a person.

Knowing how to play your list, keeping your mind sharp, remembering your triggers and pushing for every advantage are all skills that a high level competitive game is testing, and I absolutely will not advise my opponent on how to play anything.

Part of this is simple respect for my opponent, also. I assume a competitive player knows what he is doing, just as much as I hope I know what I'm doing. I don't want people questioning my plays, and I won't question theirs. Either of us might lose the game to what amounts to a major gaffe, but then in most fights the person who loses is the one who makes the first mistake.

This is all high level competitive stuff, though. If people aren't interested in this sort of play, nobody is going to force them to participate. Casual games are a whole different animal, thus the "approach each uniquely" concept.

I can understand that. I don't agree with it, and I think it lessens the win if it's only because your opponent forgot something you could have reminded them of, and I don't think it's an attitude that has any place in a toy soldiers game, but I can see where you're coming from.

1 hour ago, Darth Lupine said:

Good for you all. I've been playing and going to tourneys since 1988, and I've always approached it different. Different strokes for different folks! ?

1994 for me. Do I win a second prize peanut?

35 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

I can understand that. I don't agree with it, and I think it lessens the win if it's only because your opponent forgot something you could have reminded them of, and I don't think it's an attitude that has any place in a toy soldiers game, but I can see where you're coming from.

See, that strikes me as a bit of an "appeal to ridicule". You and I don't play this game for the same reasons.

Sure, it's a game. Sure, it uses little plastic soldiers to represent dudes from a galaxy far, far away. All that is just window dressing, though. I play a LOT of wargames, all with different coats of paint on them, but it's never the coat of paint that attracts me, it's the mechanical simulation underlying the shinies. Sure, the window dressings are nice. I love a good miniature as much as the next guy, and context certainly helps, but they aren't why I play. If all I wanted to do was play Star Wars I'd just be collecting models and positioning them while making "pew pew" noises. (Not that I don't pew during a match. I do.)

At their heart, wargames are tactical simulations. That simulation and my opponent's grasp of it, how well they are able to manipulate it against me and how well I can do the same, are all integral parts of my enjoyment. People may simply regard the game as "just toy soldiers" but that is precisely my point regarding opponent mismatch. If my opponent isn't taking the game seriously and I am, neither of us are going to have a good time.

The most important thing is to be sure that everyone has the same expectations going in to any given match, and I don't personally feel that belittling the position of competitive players by making normative statements about how a game "should" be played does much toward that end.

Just talk to your opponents. I suspect you do exactly this already, given your experience.

Obviously, there is a nebulous line one can cross at which point you become TFG or WAAC, which is I think universally a bad thing, but that almost always relates to how you treat your opponents, not why you play.

My point is that there's nothing at stake. When I say it's just toy soldiers, I don't mean it in the same way I would say it's just tennis, or just football.

Because while they're all just games, there's often millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars riding on the players performance And even then, with enormous sums of money on the line, players will go out of their way to help others.

This isn't true for wargames, even at the highest level of play.

Sure, play the man instead of the ball if you've got millions, even thousands of dollars of prize money on the line. If this is your bread-and-butter, then play for keeps. And I totally understand the attitude that a players ability to not make mistakes is a skill that should be tested, in addition to their ability to play the game. A like-minded opponent to yourself will make that clear to you in the opening rounds that that is how they'd like to play, but since there's practically nothing on the line and it costs you nothing, I think it's always better to start from a place of generous kindness. Your opponent will politely decline if they would prefer a cut-throat match, and others will gratefully accept, but everyone will appreciate the gesture.

The flipside of the argument is that you should never expect generosity from your opponent. You're not entitled to it, even if you've been generous in the past, and you shouldn't expect it.

I guess what I'm getting at is that nothing changes between a casual and a competitive match. There's no prize money, no prestige, no sponsorship deals, no fame. So what would justify a shift in attitude? If you're happy to 'play nice' in a casual environment, then continue to do so in a tournament. You're more likely to find others willing to share your cut-throat approach to the game at a tournament, so you're more likely to scratch that high level competitive play itch, but you shouldn't assume that just because someone is at a tournament that they want to play that way.

formal play sometimes brings out the worst in some players. I was playing in a Fantasy Warhammer league and three games in a row each different opponent got a rule wrong insisting that they were right. Ruins the experience when they don't know their own armies and have to argue about it (rules Nazi or condescending).

My school motto was "quae seminaveris metes", you reap what you sow. I like to have fun when I play and as the game involves two people I like to try my best to ensure that I hold my end of the social covenant with my opponent. I will always try to win, you don’t play games to lose after all, but there has to be a level of gracious competitiveness that while I am trying to win I do not do so at the cost or expense of my opponent.

I know that some days I managed, other days I didn’t. Hindsight is after all 20/20 and in the moment sometimes things go wrong. For the most part I am happy that for the most part the good days were far more frequent. I think too you have to learn that your opponent is also human and sometimes you just hit him on a bad day.

Now here is the big question if you win or lose a game, would you like to think it is because you played better, built the better army or just plain got lucky or would you rather win because your opponent misplayed a rule or forgot something?

I think as a community we should encourage gracious competitiveness, because win lose or draw I want my opponents to be at their best.

So this kind of ties into the "never surrender" mindset, but I'm personally fond of focusing on compartmentalized victories. The worst attitudes I've encountered come from players who are too invested on winning the tournament to focus on winning the game. I try to focus on winning one game at a time and moreover, I break the game itself down into little goals and focus on winning them one at a time. This turn, I'm going to take down that airspeeder, or this turn I'm going to prevent that unit from getting to shoot my commander. This turn I'm going to claim objective 1 and 3.

This keeps me in the moment, but it also gives me motivation to keep playing despite setbacks. If I lose a game in the tournament, I just play the next one until I get my final record. I don't dwell on whether or not I'm losing the game because winning the game isn't my immediate goal; killing your commander is. If I do that and still lose? I still got my victory and I accomplished more than I would have if I'd given up. The real secret is that these little goals tend to snowball. I kill your commander and you fail to press your advantage? Next turn I clear an objective and retreat a unit that was pinning down something of mine. These are the small victories that win games, which leads to the old joke that winning a tournament isn't hard; you just have to win all your games.

Win the activation, win the turn, win the game, win the tournament. If at some point you fail, go back to step one until you succeed. Keep that in mind, and its very possible to keep a casual attitude and still walk away with the trophy.

The best / most memorable games are where it's close; I'd be interested in playing a game where the winner is the one who just scratches a win over the other player. That way it's in the balance until the last turn.

Well I have been playing wargames since AD 978 and I actually cut the throat of every person I play against whether it is a casual game or tournament. My miniatures are carved from the bones of fallen tournament organizers and my dice are hand carved from the teeth of convention volunteers...

Seriously though, these are games. They are made for having fun. Yes there are high level competitions but you are competing for a trophy that is only prestigious among other gamers. If you make other gamers despise you by being a ******, then it really doesn't matter how many trophies you have does it?

These threads always seem go the same way.

It doesn't seem to matter that the "I like to play competitively" proponents almost always go way, WAY out of their way to state that being competitive =/= being rude/mean/WAAC. Inevitably, the response is derisive and a bit belittling as people remind us that games are meant to be fun, as if we had forgotten.

The whole point is that your idea of fun doesn't always mesh with your opponents, and neither of you is wrong.

Disappointing. Not unexpected, but disappointing.

At it's core, Legion is not a competitive game, and this is because of the dice.

The dice do not lend itself to strategic thinking. You can have all your units in the correct position, but miss all your attacks or defense rolls. Or you can play the correct command card on a round, and lose the roll off and watch your commander die to Son of Skywalker. Every game I've played has come down to that vital roll off. If I win, your commander is (hopefully) dead. But I've lost the roll off and had my Luke survive just because I rolled better.

Legion isn't a game about grand strategy, despite pretending to be one. Legion is a probability generator and to win you just need LOS and better rolls.

Contrast to Armada, where you're attacks have a very high chance of doing some damage. Defense tokens are about mitigating damage instead of reducing damage. Any damage I do roll is going to stick, and you also have to ration your defense tokens so I can eventually get around them by throwing enough dice. In Legion, it's possible to make several attacks and deal no damage because your rolling white attack dice against red defense dice (blue vs blue). This makes it difficult to actually do anything in a game. Or in red vs red, you end up killing troopers so fast you have nothing left by round 5 or 6.

Because of the dice, Legion is a better casual game and a more of a fun game than a serious game.

45 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

In Legion, it's possible to make several attacks and deal no damage because your rolling white attack dice against red defense dice (blue vs blue). This makes it difficult to actually do anything in a game. Or in red vs red, you end up killing troopers so fast you have nothing left by round 5 or 6.

This is only true if your only strategy is shooting to kill. If you're shooting Stormtroopers with a Z6... yeah, turns out 1/8 kill chance isn't very reliable. (45% chance of failing to kill even one isn't great) . It's only random if you're making those kind of choices expecting to wipe the unit out. If you're attacking expecting to maybe kill something but primarily put a suppression on them, you're making a better informed and more meaningful choice. Likewise, if you're making the attack and the unit is already suppressed, otherwise in cover, or holding a dodge token and expecting a kill? That's just not how the game works. Knowing when to split fire and when to focus fire is important as is understanding the levels of debilitation your attacks cause on your opponent. It's not a game where killing things dead always matters as much as doing enough to incapacitate them.

17 hours ago, LunarSol said:

This is only true if your only strategy is shooting to kill. If you're shooting Stormtroopers with a Z6... yeah, turns out 1/8 kill chance isn't very reliable. (45% chance of failing to kill even one isn't great) . It's only random if you're making those kind of choices expecting to wipe the unit out. If you're attacking expecting to maybe kill something but primarily put a suppression on them, you're making a better informed and more meaningful choice. Likewise, if you're making the attack and the unit is already suppressed, otherwise in cover, or holding a dodge token and expecting a kill? That's just not how the game works. Knowing when to split fire and when to focus fire is important as is understanding the levels of debilitation your attacks cause on your opponent. It's not a game where killing things dead always matters as much as doing enough to incapacitate them.

I'm not saying there isn't some strategic depth to the game, because there is, such as army building and prioritizing targets or splitting fire, but a lot of those decisions have little impact on the game because so much is left to RNGesus. I've split fire before and dealt no damage, hoping to get the suppression, and hen my opponent successfully rallies. The attack was a waste because rally is a "free" action. You just get the roll. Contrast to exhaust weapons and recover, where you will want to think about your action economy, which adds a layer of depth to the game.

Dice rolls are used too much in Legion to determine things. Initiative, attacks, defense, rally, disagreements. The reason Legion will not be a good competitive game is because you are always at the mercy of your dice. Granted, the same is true for Armada, but to a lesser extent because there are more facings that do something.

Armada
Red dice = 62.5% damage
Blue dice = 75% damage
Black dice = 75% damage

Legion
White dice = 25% damage
Black dice = 50% damage
Red dice = 75% damage
White defense = 16.6% block
Red defense = 50% block

In Armada, you have more control over the things you can do, which allows for more strategic depth. In Legion, you can try to do that, but a bad dice roll can ruin your plan. That's the point I'm trying to make. And I'm not talking about the times where you roll 15 blanks in a row. That happens in all games. I'm talking about the below average rolls that are built into the dice. 25% to hit on white dice means you can't do a whole lot with them. Even with a surge, it's only 37.5% to hit. Compound low chances to hit with a chance to reduce damage from cover, dodge, and defense rolls, and I not sure how you can execute a strategy that will allow you to win.

I like Legion. It's really fun and the crazy dice rolls makes for good stories, but they also make for frustrating games. You can do everything right and still lose the game because the dice rolled bad. Again, the same can happen in Armada but it's less likely because you have to roll absolutely horribly for your attacks to do nothing.

Because of this, I think Legion is a better casual game, and should be played for fun instead of WAAC, and this addresses the OP.

You can’t have a built in below average on a dice though. If the average number of hits per roll is 20% and you roll 20% then you’re rolling exactly average. That doesn’t mean strategy or tactical play is worthless, it just means you need to adjust your thinking. If you need to push through 1 damage, but your units each only have a 20% chance of doing damage, then you need to figure out a way to bring multiple units to bear on your target or a way of boosting that damage, or both.

Games where luck plays too much of a role are games where a single dice roll or coin flip becomes crucial, like in days gone by in 40K where the game might as well be over as soon as you’ve rolled to see who has the first turn. But I don’t think Legion has that problem.

It can be hard for players to understand each other's positions sometimes.

I've got a local player who finds it hard to get his head around my regular Armada fleet with no named characters or ships. My reasoning is that it makes no sense, thematically, to have a lot of the characters/ships together and I'm not going to break that just to get an advantage. Also, if I need certain elements to win I'm using them as a crutch which doesn't help me improve. I tend towards being a wargamer- if I win I want it to be because I beat my opponent tactically, not because I have better in-game synergy. I do OK in tournaments, but I do so on my own terms.

I think the important thing is that I don't expect others to be like me. Just because I don't eat meat doesn't mean I go around telling others not to.

On 5/3/2018 at 8:11 PM, Tvayumat said:

These threads always seem go the same way.

It doesn't seem to matter that the "I like to play competitively" proponents almost always go way, WAY out of their way to state that being competitive =/= being rude/mean/WAAC. Inevitably, the response is derisive and a bit belittling as people remind us that games are meant to be fun, as if we had forgotten.

The whole point is that your idea of fun doesn't always mesh with your opponents, and neither of you is wrong.

Disappointing. Not unexpected, but disappointing.

I suspect that's because outside of these threads where competition-focused players assure us deep down they're just big fluffy bunnies too and different strokes and etc etc, the experience of their behaviour is often very much different. I'm not even talking about the "WAAC" stereotype, which is I agree somewhat overblown, just the general attitude displayed by a lot of competition-focused players "in the wild" - not at competitive events, or even just events full-stop, just at your everyday store or club - that very much assumes their preferred style of play is the default standard, the "real" version of the game, and they are being gracious and generous to lower themselves to sitting at the kiddie-table with the rest of us.

You can already see it all over social media in relation to Legion - every person who posts a picture of their lovingly crafted scenic base is immediately dogpiled with "nyeeeh the lines aren't visible" and any replies noting it's entirely possible to just mark the rim or use a template are dismissed as "not the proper way" to play; people hesitant to convert their models because they've seen competition-focused players seriously arguing that any alteration to the default as-sold silhouettes of the models is going to seriously affect the game and shouldn't be allowed in tournaments; a constant assumption on the part of some players that whatever FFG's tournament guidelines end up being should and will be considered the default for any game not held at home between two buddies, and so on.

It's all very well to talk about nobody being wrong, but that's often not the impression competition-focused players give off, more like "well you're doing it wrong, but I'll permit it because I know you're not really on my level of play fnar fnar".

14 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

I suspect that's because outside of these threads where competition-focused players assure us deep down they're just big fluffy bunnies too and different strokes and etc etc, the experience of their behaviour is often very much different. I'm not even talking about the "WAAC" stereotype, which is I agree somewhat overblown, just the general attitude displayed by a lot of competition-focused players "in the wild" - not at competitive events, or even just events full-stop, just at your everyday store or club - that very much assumes their preferred style of play is the default standard, the "real" version of the game, and they are being gracious and generous to lower themselves to sitting at the kiddie-table with the rest of us.

You can already see it all over social media in relation to Legion - every person who posts a picture of their lovingly crafted scenic base is immediately dogpiled with "nyeeeh the lines aren't visible" and any replies noting it's entirely possible to just mark the rim or use a template are dismissed as "not the proper way" to play; people hesitant to convert their models because they've seen competition-focused players seriously arguing that any alteration to the default as-sold silhouettes of the models is going to seriously affect the game and shouldn't be allowed in tournaments; a constant assumption on the part of some players that whatever FFG's tournament guidelines end up being should and will be considered the default for any game not held at home between two buddies, and so on.

It's all very well to talk about nobody being wrong, but that's often not the impression competition-focused players give off, more like "well you're doing it wrong, but I'll permit it because I know you're not really on my level of play fnar fnar".

Are you saying it’s not ok to have firm limits on some kinds of creativity when that creativity might otherwise muck up important game mechanics? ?

If it didn’t affect gameplay, why would anyone mind? If it does, how can it be justified? ?

Competitive players care more about the fluff than people assume; they're just pragmatic about it. Play in tournaments for any length of time and you start to appreciate that if its legal and wins games, its what the game looks like regardless of what you might want it to be. A lot of the time when yous see people crack down or even just warn about things like modeling that doesn't follow the rules, its in an effort to keep the rules capable of enforcing fluff.

Tournament players tend to err on the side of worst case scenario. A big part of the reason people don't like true line of sight systems is simply because they've seen far too many awesome, dynamic sculpts modded to minimize the ability to target the giant impressive wings or something. Sure, YOU might want relaxed conversion rules so you can have Vader riding a levitating rock over a magma base, but someone out there is going to use that same rule to pull his arm in to where its not getting shot. Yeah, it might be silly to have all your Stormtroopers glued to their base on their backs, but if its legal... and it wins games...

Nothing destroys the fluff of a game like playing in a tournament where every AT-ST is on its tip toes to ignore as much cover and walk over as many buildings as possible. Fun example: I used to play Heroscape, which had a unit of zombies with a fun fluff rule that made them immune to ranged attacks unless you had LOS to their head. This was cute until players started rolling all their heads back until they were on the model's back, so they could advance forward with no way to see the head through their torso. So when someone is a little timid about conversions in a game that makes the model relevant to gameplay, be aware that they're probably more afraid of what its going to do to the fluff than caring how your models look.

I gotta admit though, in twenty years of war gaming all the converted armies I’ve seen at tournaments have always been done to look awesome, never to model for advantage.

Having said that though, FFG does run their tournaments very tightly. In the broader wargaming community, tournaments are generally run by the fans. Sometimes with the support of the developer, but just as often not. Part of the thing I dislike about FFG tournaments is how structured they are. There’s no variety when it comes to point sizes or special scenarios, and converted models are often frowned upon, and this attitude often bleeds into normal club-night games.