Proxy, and "Counts-as"

I am against proxies in anything but testing games. 

For a quick definition… a “proxy” is when you use a model as a placeholder for something else.  They are in no way what they look like, because they are being used to stand in for something else.  Frequently, they are part of a different project, or another unit that the user wants to test out, that they include because “why not?” 

If I’m wondering if I want to start a new army, or buy a new unit, I might proxy something to test them out.  The times I haven’t done this have been costly – buying a unit that I then never used or even painted because I put them together (the fun part of the hobby) and then used them to terrible results: 

--Will the Stalker/Hunter work as well against aircraft as my Mortis? 

-- Let’s throw one on the table using an old rhino chassis with a counter on it so everyone knows what it is, and see how it does. 

-- It couldn’t dent the enemy?  Glad I didn’t buy a new one… (or) wow, that’s just what I need!  I’ll pick one up next week!

With me, it was the Thousand Sons.  I put a lot of money and trades into getting a fully-formed force of at least 1500 points, and never won a game with them.  As cool as they were in 3^rd ed, they were just plain ineffective how I’d play them, and only got worse as a monobuild.  To this day, I have a whole unit as a potential painting project that I just let sit in storage.  Had I proxied my BT into TS models before buying, I’d have saved myself a whole lot of time and effort.

In terms of “counts-as” on the other hand…

I think that “counts-as” armies, if done properly, are the meat of the hobbyist end of the game.

I once saw someone using cold ones instead of Eldar Jetbikes for their exodite army.  They were some really neat pieces, and all their guardians were painted up in rough raggedy armor and holding glowing crystals instead of shuriken guns, almost like they were harnessing the power of the planet around them.  There was a mix of Wood Elf, High Elf, Daemonette (metal ones), and Eldar models to make the army fit the theme, and the paint job was amazing and unifying.  That’s not a proxy army – throwing down high elf archers unconverted and claiming they are guardians wouldn’t be acceptable. 

At the same time, my Dark Eldar Wych Cult was all about mixing in some dangerous-looking models.  My squad leaders were hags and assassins.  Half my models were witch elves from WHFB, most of whom were converted to be holding splinter pistols.  The paint job made it clear that they were all part of the same unit, that this was a deliberate choice.  I was told by one event ref that I couldn’t play the army, because “those aren’t wyches, they’re witches!”  and he didn’t understand the reason the main TO (tournament organizer) overruled him.

That’s really the issue, to me.  A proxy army happens out of laziness or budget.  A counts-as army is all about creativity.  A proxy army is what happens when you can’t play properly, whereas a counts-as army occurs when the individual puts more care and effort and time into their project, and makes it look more like a project.

If I wanted to play an army that has certain advantages, such as Ultramarines, I would be rather bored painting generic blue vanilla marines over and over.  I’ve seen this before.  And the primary red weapon casings look stupid on top of all that primary blue.  Why would I want that army?  What about doing a Sons of Orar army, then?  Should I be penalized because of my paintjob?  I want access to the special characters of the most common chapter ever, but I want my army to look distinct, so why can’t I play the character’s equivalent?  What about the master librarian of the White Consuls?  Why wouldn’t that person be as powerful and as skilled as Tigurius – they are, after all, the chief librarian of a significant chapter.

The main reason that WarmaHordes’ background interests me very little is the proliferation of special characters.  There are no squad commanders that aren’t these magical special snowflake individuals that seem to be everywhere at once.  Recreating skirmishes they might have been involved in is a moot point when according to how the game is played they’ve been involved in every war ever simultaneously.

If I bring a successor chapter that has, for all purposes, the exact same stats as the parent legion but a different paint job, it’s actually more believable that they would be including another Tigurius – after all, someone else that is bound to bring the boys in blue anyway, and there can’t be two Ultramarine legions with the same librarian named character.  It’s impossible for him to fight on two sides of the same fight.  So why not let my Aurora Chapter bring Chief Librarian Demetrian in his own legion’s colors?  I’ll even use the same base model and convert it so he looks more like he’s mine.

Why is the game dictated by those with little imagination or creativity?

Is it more realistic for two of us to fight and both use the same special character, with two nearly identical blue armies on the table? That’s not only lame, it’s impossible. That's one of the reasons that i mentally cannot get into Warmahordes -- every leader is a special character and is simultaneously everywhere, because there are no other options.

Nothing about the rules changes when you use the Praetors of Orpheus paintjob on Ultramarines models, other than dealing with the fussiness of your opponent... who might be fielding a Necron or Tyranid special character without having *their* army painted authentically either.  And Farsight Enclave tau better be in their colors too, or their characters can’t be used.  What’s good for one army’s rules is good for all of them.  Consider how ridiculous that is, and then tell me that I can’t play a Howling Griffons list including a well-converted SC HQ from their parent chapter – that I spent three times as long painting as you spent on your entire three-color-basic force.

The more complicated issue is dealing with cross-book representation.

In the tail end of 5^th ed, I got a hankering to paint again.  It didn’t last long – I got very frustrated with the tail end of that edition of the game, given that we’re still dealing with the imbalance issues coming out of that time period.  The project I was planning on working on was a conversion-heavy army with some interesting tweaks.  What I wanted to paint was that same Thousand Sons force.  But given the rules were not only mediocre at best, but poorly representative of the way their army used to play.

What worked better, though was the Grey Knights rules.  With psykers in every unit, it was much like playing a sorcerer-led unit of rubric marines.  The ridiculously cheap special and heavy weapons, and psybolt ammo, that GK models have access to were like psychic powers.  If any unit would have the “brotherhood of psyker” rules, teleport into combat via warprifts, engage in psychic body-modification, or be completely immune to intimidation like the GK army was then, it’d be the chosen of Tzeentch.  Had I continued, I’d have wanted to modify a Heldrake and a Maulerfiend into a Stormraven and some sort of larger combat Dreadnought, if only for the thematic approach. 

I know that the rules for Space Marines are so much more fleshed out than the rules for the Chaos forces – not the background, which was stellar in both books, but the capabilities on the table.  Still, choosing the models that best represent your concept should – if done properly and deliberately – be somewhat allowed.  It’s not perfect, though.  If I want to play Tyranids, but my models are all converted guardsmen (going for an old genestealer infiltration concept), I have to remember that I do not have access to allies, and I have to make clear exactly what my army is via conversions and paint.  If one’s ideas are better than one’s skill, it might not be clear, and thus might not be justifiable.  If one’s results are unclear, it can lead to issues when actually playing the game… and that’s the part that is completely within the domain of the tournament organizer.  My only advice on this to a player is to make sure that your end-result is clear, but that your goal is also clear – that you’re not just trying to take advantage of a new ruleset that has new toys in it, but that it looks like a deliberate project start-to-finish instead of merely a new way to use old models to your best advantage.

It seems like “counts-as” is a way of deliberately taking artistic license with your creation and its rules.  Often, they are better-painted, or better-converted projects if they are stranger than normal.  Whereas proxies are substitutions according to budget or laziness.  If you’ve decided that you want to put in the time and effort to make your army look neat, and you incorporate deliberate stylistic elements, but you army is wysiwyg and clear – why is this an issue? 

Black Templar inclusion part 2...

There are some key points to consider when looking at the reasons, effectiveness, and results of re-adding a Marine chapter that has had its own Codex.  Some of the biggest effects would be to the other divergent chapters -- the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Dark Angels -- that still have their own codexes.  Many non-divergent-chapter players have been calling for the reabsorbtion of these books into the greater whole.

Here are some points to consider about this being a trend instead of a single decision

Argument 1: BA/DA/SW aren't that much more divergent than BT, and thus should get absorbed as well.  Their new units should be open to everyone.

 

You want the special toys without playing the special army.  Marines already get special toys.  Thus, you want inclusion of special gameplay styles to make marines bigger.  To include all-terminator armies is foolish with grav-gun spam coming, but it has always been a specific DA privilege and style.  To take that away or to spread that out would be more of a loss than the BT getting access to MORE units than they had previously while still keeping their major unique play-style.

Argument 2: It was easy to fold BT into the new SM Codex, and it would be just as easy to fold other divergent groups in as well.

Notice that to justify the change, you had to add more in than the BT were given in the new book?  Their specific units clock in at two – the Champion and the Crusader squad – with maybe two pages of rules and specifics between both, including the rules for playing a straight BT.  BA would need 5-10.  DA before this codex would have needed fewer, but now with Black Knights and Deathwing Knights and landspeeder variants and mediocre flyers, they’d need just as many, including space to add in the stubborn/fearless armywide rules they’ve always had, as well as the points increase associated with those rules (because only the GK get things for free, the rest of us have to pay a surcharge).

More than that, look at the space that would be needed for the Space Wolves.  Long Fangs would need a section added to Devastators.  Blood Claws would be a unique unit.  Their specialized gear, their Wolf Guard, their HQ setup… each of these would take a page here or there to add and explain.  It would make the book needlessly complicated for everyone that wasn’t a Space Wolf player.

Adding one army took what? 4-5 pages total?  Adding three more – each with more needed material and more special characters and more special rules and more distinct units – would only add 6-12 pages each.  To the longest, most expensive codex ever published.  What’s 30 more pages?

Argument 3: The game fares better with more standardized army choices.

More standardization means more boring armies.  If you want to play DA, play DA instead of whining about how they special toys, especially since your army doesn’t have to deal with their limitations.  Or take them as allies.  If you want to play DA, but you also want stormbumblebees and stormgoldfish and thunderfire cannons and sternguard, then you don’t really want to play DA – so use some DA models with a different paint-scheme and play a later vanilla founding.  If you want a Crusading army, you could include fluff for your chapter of Space Sea Cucumbers to have crusading elements in it… which amounts to having one new special squad that doesn’t even (if you want the weapons options but not the neophytes) need to be different than an already-existing unit – a squad of Assault Marines sans jumppacks can go chainsword/bolter just as easily and do the same amount of damage in close combat. 

Argument 4: BT inclusion is the first of many steps that will ruin everything!  They really just want everyone to buy three $200 compendiums to be able to play!

I don’t like the BT inclusion in one regard, because I feel that it’s a step backward.  They were ignored, demoted, and finally absorbed.  If the same happens to the Sisters, you can be sure that the Sisters players will rejoice at having a better list that might be useable, even if it means having to buy the next edition of the GK codex. It’s better than getting Squatted, but it’s not as good as having created a book (even a supplement) that catered to Crusading Foundings. 

Write up the Black Templar as the flagship Crusading chapter, a guide to your own personal angry mob.  Then, include something interesting like new fluff for the Brazen Claws or the Howling Griffons where they needed to go on a crusade as penance for a failure to protect the Booger system from an Ork invasion.  Or resurrect the Black Dragons from the old Chapter Approved and give them some history leading to a penitent crusade thrust upon them by the Inquisition for having a corrupted geneseed.  More neat info for new undetailed chapters makes for more proud collectors.

It could even be a book that includes new rules for ship-to-ship combat, including how to set up a squad-game in the halls of a space cruiser (think Space Hulk for everyone).  Or it might be focused on a specific encounter where multiple crusades banded together in the Whingding System to purge the planet Noname of a chaos thingamajig that psykers were weak to, including the steps in a narrative campaign adaptable for other factions.  There are so many places of potential that a BT book or supplement could have had, and to reduce the number of balanced books only weakens the game as a whole.

Argument 5: but by including them in a new book, they wrecked my army!

“I miss the old rules” is a natural tendency.  When I started by BT army, I fielded two Crusaders in anything over 2000 points (because back then, BT were the only ones who could).  I included a command squad, then split the members up and had them join other groups – my Apothecary and Chaplain escorted my Assault team while the Techmarine rode a bike with the rest of the hard-hitting boys. 

I stopped playing them after they got their own codex, because I liked how I had them set up.  That, and I had already moved on to other armies and other play-styles, so it was hard for me to go back.  In reality, I would have had a ton of fun with them had I considered them the way I do now – I’d be playing them as my primary faction if I hadn’t given them to an old friend years ago. 

The same thing is true for the new codex – they will lose sword-brethren (which was apparently coming anyway, folding them into the Veterans category), but they functionally grew by being given access to new units.  Everything else is preserved.  As opposed to what will be lost by other more divergent chapters by inclusion – exclusivity. 

Had BT gotten their own splat, or their own full Codex, they would be a different army.  One way they would be different?  They’d be terrible in 6^th edition.  An army focused on assault that has few viable ranged options in an edition that buffed shooting will have a hard time winning… and that’s all that would have been heard from the BT online presence had they gotten a revamping of their old book.

Argument 6: But I want new toys!

Sometimes, I think the real reason people want a new codex is not for an update but on the off chance that their army of choice will become the new creep champion – that, like Necrons or GK or 5^th ed Marines or Tau (and how many are written by the same person?), they will jump to the head of the pack overnight.  That way, the player can have all the advantages of playing the newest shiniest cheesiest army while still keeping their self-respect (“I’ve been playing [insert army] since forever, so I’m better than the bandwagon-jumpers”).

You can’t have it both ways.  If you’re a cheez-monkey who switches armies monthly to min/max style, you’re not fun to play against in a casual game.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if you were playing that army back when they were mediocre, what you play now matters.

DA got new toys in the new edition.  Deathwing Knights are alright – better than fielding an entire squad of Stormshield/Thunderhammer Terminators.  But they are non-scoring units, have zero shooting capability, and aren’t all that special.  Black Knights got the same grenades that GK have had forever, plasma talons, and are one of the new new units worth using.  The two speeders have their uses, but are incredibly fragile (AV 10 and 2 HP), and get no jink vs tau shenanigans (ignore cover via markerlights).  The Nephilim and Dark Talon are perhaps the worst flyers in the game.

New toys aren’t always very good.

There you have it.  While there are some great arguments on either side of the mess, I have to say that there’s all too much indignation on the part of the people least affected by the changes. 

having let it sit for a few weeks...

Whatever is the Current Rage On The Internet is often more amusing than it is informative.

Gas attacks in Syria, the US potentially entering into a civil war where other major world powers would back the opposition (sounds familiar), high unemployment… and Black Templar players complaining that they got treated with massive disrespect.  Why?  Because they no longer get their own codex, despite being updated sooner than expected by being included in the new Space Marine 'dex.  Sisters of Battle players are playing them the violin.

Ah, the internet, the great equalizer – the place where everyone thinks they’re the smartest, but acts like children.

Black Templars were my first marine army.  I realized that the Dark Eldar that I was given for near-free was a highly aggressive fast play-style army that needed too much game knowledge and luck to play well, i had decided to go with another list... something that was a little less lightning-stroke and a little more inexorable rolling boulder.  I had it down to two choices, as much for easy paint jobs and neat aesthetics as for their play-style: the Black Templars and the Iron Hands.  Sometimes, I wish I'd gone with the Iron Hands, since their bionics are really neat looking, and since I'd now have a functioning chapter of augmented nasties... but i dove into the Armageddon Codex and started collecting the Templars pretty readily.

Had I not caught the project fever by the time they got their own codex, I’d have been playing them continuously after they expanded.  By then, though, I had Dark Eldar lightning strike, Word Bearer summoning spam, and Deathwing Terminator frustrations all taking precedence in my queue of projects.  Their codex was the first new-army codex since I had begun playing the game in earnest, expanded from the rules I used in the Armageddon supplement.  There was so much new stuff, and so much to do with it all. 

Then, they were left neglected.  Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t the only ones.  Fantasy Dwarves are using a book older than any other, and Sisters of Battle don’t even have a book anymore.  BT got their ‘dex before the Dark Angels got their first full-length one (the mini-splat came out in 3rd before i began playing, and the 2nd ed Angels of Death was out in 2nd), but were left to wait another six months after DA's new mediocrity to find out they weren’t even retaining their book.

Having your chapter/build/subset with its own codex is a benefit -- it means that you get new toys, have a distinct flavor of play, more options, and some strong (though some stronger than others) directions for excellence.  the Dark Angels' new codex added Black Knights, Deathwing Knights, two unique landspeeder variants, a host of new wargear, and new abilities for existing units.  I wonder if Black Templar players were hoping for the same treatment in their new book, instead of getting that treatment in a less unique manner by being part of the SM 'dex.

There is tons of fluff in various sources about the variant chapters – the Space Wolves and their tribal system, the Inner Circle of the Dark Angels, the Sanguinary priesthood of the Khorne… ah, I mean Blood Angels.  There are numerous units listed within that fluff, or tech detailed within the feel and flavor of each that give them their distinctness.  Whether that distinct flavor has come from being separated in an effort to be more distinct, or has caused them to be separated and that distinctness noticed, that's another issue.  

Still, there's fluff and text to back up the decisions, often coming out of the popularity of the chapters.  That fluff can have a strong effect on the perception of players -- one of the chief complaints about the semi-useless Nephilim Jetfighter is that it’s little like the air superiority fighter mentioned in other sources (of course, the price tag of the kit, and of the unit, are louder complaints, but you always get that with such hobbies).

Black Templar, as opposed to the larger divergent chapters, have little additional material to delve into for new units or expansion.  Given their limitations in the last codex, they were little more than a large book on a small topic.  I suppose it’s because as much got added to them as got added to the other mini-‘dexes: the DA/BA/SW pamphlets that passed off as specific chapter codexes were tiny, but they each were about the size of the entire Armageddon supplement – and that contained multiple army lists and a campaign.

If you expand five pages into an entire large book, it gets watered down.  That might be why BT have never fared as well as others.  As a concept, they are great.  but when it comes down to a pragmatic look at where they were before the new release, they were mini-splat material -- they have one special HQ, and one unique variance that applies to two units (the ability to take scouts within crusader squads and bike squads).  you don't need a hundred-page book to review that.

The Wargamer's army choice and selection dilemma

I refuse to use a cheez-army, and was excited when rumors proved to be false and Mat Ward was not writing the codex for Darkangels.  While it is one of the more underwhelming codices to have come out in 6^th ed, it is also a solid book with lots of flavor.  It allowed me to use both my Deathwing and my 4^th company, with some interesting (if slightly overpriced) options for unique units that offer distinct roles.  From the ghostly-quiet of an empty cathedral to the hands of a praying saint, there is a somber weight to the lore of the DA that is mirrored in their models – this same aesthetic is present in their unique units as well.  Robed sergeants, knightly terminators, reliquary-stylized vehicles all carry that same weight and silence.

It is good that I can play the army without cheez.  Sure, the Standard of Devastation (turns the standard-pattern or hurricane bolters of all units within 6” into salvo 2/4 weapons) allows for some disgusting shooting (I rolled 108 shots in one round once, half of which were twinlinked, 28 ignored cover), but it is no sure solution for some of the heavier hitters.  I would have liked the Nephilim to be worth its points – two lascannons instead of one twinlinked one, the actual Avenger Multibolter with its original 7-shot ap 3 stats, missiles that are able to take down enemy aircraft (maybe the ability to shoot overwatch with missiles against FMCs or vectorstrikes to make it a dogfight-threat against Heldrakes or Daemon Princes), or something else unique and capable.  The overall effect was… underwhelming.  Still, it’s better to have a balanced book than if the Nephilim was 100 points and spammable (people taking a librarian with 5 scouts just to take triple Nephilims and cheap massed battle-brother troops from elsewhere would have been lame).

I’m not a competitive person, at least with other people.  For me, I want to be able to do well by doing well, not by utilizing every advantage or exploiting unbalanced systems.  I grew out of using “god mode” codes back in idkfa days, and see no need to go back to stroking my own ego without merit.  To win by nature of having played the right army is a hollow victory, more reminiscent of an actual war than a game that has rules to balance play.  That being said, if I can win against someone who plays one of those armies, I’ve done better than them in two ways – I’ve beaten them, and I’ve beaten the imbalance inherent in their army.  In even a close game, if their list or their codex is weighted against me, even if I narrowly lose I’ve outplayed them.  And when not playing against the new flavor-of-the-month armies with the best exploits that ruin the game for everyone else, I rarely lose.

What’s more, I want an army that I enjoy aesthetically, not just that I like the play-style of – creating an army is more than just owning it.  Painting it yourself, constructing the models, sculpting and swapping and cutting are all measures that make this army yours.  I never understood the idea of buying a painted army, or paying someone to paint it.  It might be terrible, it might look like I used housepaint and a roller, but I did it and I own it.  And I’m not a terrible painter, certainly nothing to scoff at, but my mediocre skill with paint is balanced by my ineptitude with sculpting.  Still, it was painting that drove me away from the hobby originally, and painting that I struggled with the most in the early years, so perhaps if I had been able to afford a painted army when I was younger I’d have been more likely to start earlier.

I understand those who started their own divergent or Astartes codex chapters, because the ability to create background and fluff and even just the heraldry of a new chapter is a way of making that army particularly yours.  Sure, you don’t have that lore to draw from, and sure you get closer to what my wife refers to as “macho fanfic writing,” but you have more aesthetic leeway to use.

To me, it’s all about an aesthetic that I will enjoy painting, as well as something that you just don’t see every day.  I had considered assembling a Tau army a few years ago after I discovered – on sale – the worst-named box set that GW ever released.  My “Rapid Insertion Force” was going to be a mix of shiny black and doll-party pink, or baby blue, drawing from some silly anime like Bubblegum Crisis… because nobody else would have anything like it.  Or, I’d do a ramshackle rusty Tau steampunk scrapyard, with corroded copper and chipped paint.  Or… well, I’d do something fun.  But moving across the state and taking a break from wargames for a year distracted me from the project, and I ended up giving the models to a friend who wanted to start playing just as someone had done for me years ago.  Still, it’s less about effect and more about the urge to collect or personalize – my Deathwing are unique for a few reasons, including that all are named after writers or performers who share something in common with the “Dark Secret” of the Primarch’s namesake.

This brings me to the end of a thought: what makes an army ours?  It has to be something we can take pride in – those who are in it to jack up their victory numbers want to be proud of their army’s win ratio and placement in tournaments.  Those who are in it for the fun want something that lines up with their style – someone naturally defensive would not really have much fun playing Dark Eldar, for instance, while someone who is shaken by losses might not use the expendable bodies of guardsmen as meat shields for each other.  Those who take pride in their length of time in the hobby may want to seek out old metal beakies for an all-metal raven guard army, or scour eBay to bid on old bionics packs for Iron Warriors or Iron Hands, or design all their chaos units around sacred numbers and pure allegiances.  Those who have the skills will show off their custom-made shoulderpads for their unique chapter icon, or the blanchitsu-style extras they kitbashed or sculpted before painting with perfect NMM techniques.  There are so many aspects to the hobby itself that there’s no one way to enjoy it.  Those fellow Lore Boars may want to assemble an army that has a story behind it, implementing some aspect of fluff into their unit choices and modeling.  These are all great ways of feeling connected with the community, and getting the most out of your time and money by truly feeling like your product is yours.

Still, it does have a limit.  I haven’t played WHFB in over a year due to the sudden realization that my old Beastmen army just can’t keep up anymore.  To have a chance at winning, I have to play it in a way I don’t enjoy, and even then I’m two steps down before a single die is rolled.  Most times, blaming dice is a cheap way out, but when rules and options are so improperly balanced as to make you lose if you make all the right calls against an average opponent and only roll statistically average, the game loses its appeal.  No matter how great my rusty old Pestigors look on the field, or how much pride I can take in my wolf-Centigor customized kitbash, the frustration just isn’t worth it when improper pricing and semi-functional mechanics create a mess.  I can make my units in sevens and include all the old Nurgle iconography, corrode-paint all my weapons and make as many thematic links between the Gors and Ungors as possible, but I no longer have my combined herds nor my blessings of Chaos, and the army just isn’t the same with the new fluff.  It’s not just that one game, either – upon seeing the synergy some Malifaux warbands have with each other (Hamelin and Kirai, for instance), and that my Marcus-led models do not, I’ve decided to stick with painting only, as I probably will when my Wild West Exodus models come in (since the Northeast has less connection to the Wild West, I can hardly believe that there will be many more players in my area).  But I’m ok with this – I now have subjects to experiment with, free from mechanics making my choices for which models to buy.  I will look at these as good opportunities to improve my hobby skills.

Not to pick fights with the Warmachine people, but the limited choices and lack of comprehensive background depth has always been a major contributor in my avoidance of Privateer products – I could go on about how unfriendly their setup is to customizations and neat retooling of models, but it’s a moot point when the setup of the factions themselves are illogically constructed.  There are plenty of decent works based on someone’s old D&D game, but few stand the test of time – the Dragonlance novels are an amazing read for a middle-schooler, but are trite for an adult with a degree in English lit, and the hyperfocus such products place on a few named characters, instead of the option to create your own flavor, logically upsets dynamics when paired with the supposed scale of national militaries.  As opposed to the head-to-head conflicts between smaller organizations that makes the skirmish-style utilization of a few key people make sense, they should aim bigger and allow for unnamed generals/warcasters and unique or distinct units within the larger military.  Instead of the unfolding drama between their named plot devices pushing forward the action, rank and position (such as with Infinity), or fluff that demands warband-size conflict (such as Malifaux) would do the game well.  I’d love to field an alternate unit of Winter Guard from the 43^rd corps, or a different Sytaxis pirate group led by its own privateer-captain (instead of just assigning a different name to the same old characters that logically couldn’t be in all the places they’d need to be at once).  Still, it just isn’t conducive to the environment they have set up.

                The unfolding drama between people is different than the unfolding drama between nations, factions, or galactic empires.  Find a game that encompasses the scale you prefer, and run with it.  Last night, I had a conversation with my most curmudgeony friend.  My first game of 6^th was vs. his Imperial Fists, and I lost in part due to a few rules botches.  He showed up with a smallish tackle box to gaming night, and I mentioned that he owed me a rematch.  His response was essentially “I need to work up enough tolerance to actually play 40k again.”  He instead jumped into the Malifaux trend in the area, and found that he liked small skirmish games more than army-based ones.  Except Warmachine – for some reason, the best-selling skirmish game is verboten near him, with an explosion of wrath like unto a dying sun accompanying any mention of the game.  While not odd for someone who has 4000 points of painted Imperial Fists, it is odd for someone who has such an intolerance for 40k.  Currently, his infatuation is with X-Wing, and he finds people to play with every week.  He admitted that the last time he played 40k was the game where we tried to figure out the rules.  His old favorite, beside the yearly Blood Bowl summer league, is Mordheim… and even that for him has a tolerance limit. 

                Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way sometimes.  I lost my last game of 40K, particularly because I was expecting a fun pickup game and my opponent threw down a Shadowsun/crisis doom list that exploits most of the most broken cheez in the tau list (except he claims he’s too cheap to buy a Riptide).  Sure, by the end when I foiled his plans to sweep the board with me and proceeded to kill all his scoring troops (and his HQ, rendering the game a potential tie had we the time and patience to finish), he was arguing inapplicable rules minutiae and throwing a fit when he realized he wasn’t going to win.  It’s sad to see a grown man acting like a child, moreso when you see both aspects of childishness – the god-code gloat and the petulance from a possible denial.  I nearly backed out of the local tournament that night, knowing that I’d face many of that kind of list and that kind of person in an event specifically made to be competitive at a time where rules are not properly balanced.  I may still play, but it will be out of resignation and the seeking of experience rather than the hope of having fun.

                

Gaming is a complicated hobby with subdivisions and a great deal of personal taste.  From the people who want to powergame to the actors between shows, many types come to the table.  Wargames are no different – there are many types, and many who only experience part of the hobby, from those who paint armies that never see a game, to those who commission professional painters because they have no personal skills with a brush.  They all end up choosing aspects to tailor to their own desires, sometimes expanding into other areas in order to add depth or experience to their repertoire.  My issues with Warmachine might actually be no big deal to another person, or an appeal to a third.  The lore that I love in 40k might actually turn others away.  In the end, though, I choose where to spend my money, and as long as I keep getting what I desire from these games, I’m hooked.  I might not play in too many tournaments, but I’ll have fun when I do play.