Tales from the Soapbox: I've had it!

I am sick and tired of dealing with the douches that have been coming in the shop to play for the last three weeks. First off there is not an official points value for games of 40k. If you enjoy gimping yourself playing 1500 point games by all means do so. But keep your darned opinion to yourself when I am playing a game against my buddy. Who the hell do you think you are to tell me how to have fun in my games? If you don't like my unit choices keep it to your darned self, I don't care that Possessed Marines are not considered good. They work for me, so STHU! Oh, yeah hows your ego since my sub-par footsloggin' Blood Claws and Sky Claws kicked your teeth in?

I don't understand what goes through the minds of these guys. How the hell do these misanthropes function in the real world? How the heck did these guys procreate, I don't get it they have zero social skills. By the way you are poor roll models for you sons guys, you behavior is reprehensible.

I really hope these guys crawl back under the rock from whence they came very soon. Because if they don't I will not be playing 40k at the shop or regularly any more. As the guys in the my normal group have real life issues that have been keeping us from gaming. Let me take this opportunity to send out a prayer for my two friends who are deployed in Afghanistan. Keep you heads down boyos and make it home safe and intact.

Back to the rant, I have been neglecting my Flames of War buddies because I have been having so much fun with 40k for the last 9 months. In fact it was douches like these guys that pushed me and the rest of the guys to FOW in the first place. There is 99% less douche-baggery with the ex-40k guys who play FOW because it is a much tighter game system.

Right now my schedule only gives me time to focus and game one system right now. So if these guys persist in ruining both nights I can make it down, 40K will go on the back burner for a while and FOW will take it's place.

Now this won't kill my 40K painting, but it will slow it down. The sad thing is I am in a painting mood, but if I do head back to FOW I need to update my army for 9 months of sporadic gaming and neglecting my purchases.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rant, I'll keep you guys updated.

To pod or not to pod?!?

The topic of adding drop pods to the Soul Reapers has been brought up many times. Most recently by Magilla Gurilla and Derina, while I agree with the sentiment, I have never really tackled the concept.

There are many things in 40k that baffle the mind when it comes to the differences in wargear between Chaos and Imperial Space Marines. Currently it seems that the second a Space Marine turns traitor he forgets how to maintain his wargear; so he discards drop pods, land speeders, storm bolters, landraider variants and the list goes on. Lets not forget he forgets basic doctrines like combat squads and tactics; plus he forgets that he knows no fear.

I understand that GW are trying to make both armies different, but there comes a time where the suspension of disbelief doesn't quite cut it any more. Especially with the current regurgitation that is the Chaos Space Marine codex, that swaps the focus to more recent renegades over the original traitor legions.

So my original choice was to forgo this issue in an effort to no be overly ambitious. I am now at a point where everything else in the mini-dex seems pretty well balanced and maybe trying something ambitious is needed.

There are a couple of ways I could add drop pods to the Soul Reapers; I could add a special Planetary Assault rule, that would force all units to deploy by drop pod or deep strike forgoing any sort of tanks in the army. Or I could just add them as a transport option just like in the codex SM.

Then I have to decide if I want to use the FW IA rules for the Dreadclaw or just use the SM rules for a drop pod. I am leaning toward the latter option as the FW IA rules seem a bit clunky in game terms.

So what do you guys think?

More thoughts on adding a few more options tomorrow.

Tales from the Soapbox episode III: Tourney Comp

The Internet and Bloggosphere is ablaze discussing Tournament Comp scores, I feel the need to weigh in on the topic. I am going to group all the so-called soft scores into the term Comp for simplicity sake. Comp is meant to balance the playing field in a tournament, but the reality of it is it penalizes the overly competitive player while at the same time rewarding the Total hobbyist.

The Overly competitive player is focused on the win and how to best achieve that goal while playing a game. He crunches the numbers for his units and knows what the average outcome of his dice roll will be. A lot of them are less focused on the hobby aspect of the game, they may have a few conversions but their painting is average because the miniatures are required to play.

The Total hobbyist on the other hand winning games is less important than the “Fluff” and painting of their army. He will be focused on elaborate conversions and detailed paint jobs for his miniatures. He’ll also have worked out the background of his force and can drone on about it for hours. He sees all games including the tournament that he is at as a way to have fun and meet new people.

The problem is that the two groups I mentioned above are the polar opposites, but they are the vocal minority of the gaming community. They are not a good representation of the gaming community as a whole, because most gamers fall in the gray area in-between the two.

The average player likes to participate fully in all aspects of the hobby. They like to win, but don’t let a loss ruin their fun. They like to convert and paint but aren’t going to agonize and seek perfection while doing it. They like the “Fluff” and it may or may not be thought about in list building.

Now that I’ve described the types of players as I see them, lets look at Comp and what could be done to solve the problem.

I’ve got to be honest I didn’t mind Comp when it was mostly standardized by the GW RT tourney guidelines. At least it was clear cut and you always knew what to expect from it. Now it is too subjective with far too many ways of doing it. There are just too many misconceptions about the power level of many units in 40k. Besides Comp is kinda out dated since 5th edition requires Troops to actually take objectives to win games.

While we are talking mostly about Comp, I must bring up sportsmanship scores. I detest them completely, first off a lot of gamers use them as revenge for a lost game; secondly why bother with it because if someone is a complete Jerk give them a warning them kick them out if they persist in jerk-wadish behavior. Organizers need to man up, stop hiding behind the scorecards and confront these types of players. Let's face facts, playing a game against other people requires some social skills and manors. It’s not that frakin’ hard to be relatively friendly while playing.

I think that if Comp is still going to be used that having two types of tournaments could solve the whole issue. The first type could be a Hobby tournament with comp and painting scores added to battle points; the second could be a non-Comp, judged solely on your battle points tourney.

Tales from the Soapbox episode II NETS edition

Ok guys, it’s time for another NETS (Not Enough Terrain Syndrome) post. The Wild West Shootout happened almost 2 weeks ago in Arizona sponsored by Battlefoam. I’d like to give props to Blackmoor for winning the event with footsloggin’ shooty Eldar (OMG!!!), and to the rest of the participants for enduring through a severe outbreak of NETS, plus surviving the worst mission in the history of 40k during which all terrain was removed from the table. Yes, you read that right round 4 of the event was played out on terrain-less tables; what the Hell?

Blackmoors battle reports and pics that speak volumes about the tables.
Wild West Shootout game #1
Wild West Shootout game #2
Wild West Shootout game #3
Wild West Shootout game #4
Wild West Shootout game #5

People paid money to participate in and travel to this event and they get this crap dropped on them. It’s just shameful, that the organizers thought that this was acceptable. The community at large really need to put tournament organizers to task, and stop laying down to be walked upon just to have someone run an event.

I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate all the effort that goes into running an event, because I have first hand knowledge from running my own. I’m saying that is someone is running an event, either do it right or don’t do it at all; especially if you are running an event that is geared for people to travel to it.

I know that sounds harsh and it’s meant to, but 40k has enough problems rules wise in a tournament environment that they should not be compounded by other factors. Never male a paying participant feel cheated by an issue the can be solved through proper planning.

As I said before, I know it’s not cheap to buy and time consuming to build terrain, but being silent about the issue is not going to make the problem better.

Organizers need to man up and ask for help if they need it. If you are light on terrain ask for people to bring some and offer prizes for best table or terrain piece.

It is time for the gamers to make a stand and speak up. Demand better terrain on your tables and make sure that it’s placed well, so every piece of terrain is not on the edges.

You can blame TastyTaste at Blood of Kittens for the proceeding post. He brings up this event in his post about when TO's should release the missions for an event.

Tales from the Soapbox episode I

Why can’t some people just play 40k? I am sick and tired of the my list is better than your list because I got it off the internet, and the by they way that unit you are using is crap conversations at the local shops. Hell, I’m so sick of it I have almost completely stopped visiting forums.

So I was at the LGS today and overheard another conversation about this list is better than that list, don’t use that unit because it is crap because they read it somewhere on an Internet forum. This was happening as a couple of guys were setting up to play, the twenty something guy was slamming the thirty something guys list. The young guy was using a tough as nails Internet IG list with all the bells and whistles, painted in that drybrush everything style, while the older guy was using a Chaos marine list that was painted nicely and contained Bikes, Lesser Daemons and Possessed marines.

On turn one the younger guy’s friend shows up and he announces loudly that they would still be able to get a game in because he would have the CSM list tabled by turn three. The older guy just grinned, knowing full well that he knew how to use his army.

The really funny thing is that the younger guy got hit tail handed to him in a bad way. He then ranted about how if only his dice had rolled well he would have won. Sure he had some bad luck, but the simple fact is that the other guy just out played him. I really wish that he had congratulated the guy for the victory. Oh and incase you were wondering the game lasted 6 full turns.

Now don’t get me wrong I have trolled the forum scene looking at lists and tacticas, but I would never tell someone there list was crap, let alone do it before any dice had been rolled. Heck I even post lists here on my blog, looking for feedback, but at least I normally state right off the bat that I’m not looking for a power list.

I play for recreation and don’t feel the need to consult the stars or mathhammer the crap outta my lists to see if they are efficient; that’s just too much work and I get paid to do that all week. I want to be casual and relax during a game; after all we are not really deciding the fate of the galaxy, right?