We Don't Like The Way You Play With Your Toys

Again, a brief hiatus, apologies, but work is wiping me out.

I've been busy pinning warmachine and hordes models and reading up on their rules, slowly writing sections of rules for the ECP and working my ass off at a soil lab for minimum wage. It was all going so well until Monday evening.

On Monday, Kevin The Yank posted this rant entitled 'Resigning From the League (To save my own soul)' [Edited for clarity and relevance]:


The topic title says it all, really.

Of late, I've seen my 40K habits descending into worrying levels of WAACishness. Some of this is may be to blame on the league, some to blame on a "competitive trend" at the club. I dunno. I'm not a psychologist.

A lot of the (wider) 40K community have written off the Templars as "unwinnable". So rather than playing them to have fun, I was playing them to prove the WAACers and Netlisters wrong. Unfortunately, for this very reason, I started turning into the thing that I hated.

....I began filling literally pages of notebook paper with mathcraft scribble, trying to optimise them, because if I was going to play Templars, dammit I was going to do them RIGHT......

That was about the time that the league kicked in, and so this burgeoning will to "prove that I could when others couldn't" had a place to outlet itself. And so it just took hold harder and pushed me more into the WAAC category. And I could see it. And I couldn't see any way out of it.

Sitting painting last night gave me a real chance to look back on the last few months and understand how far gone into the "competitive mindset" I got. But the way that I hid it even from myself was to focus my vitriol on the Grey Knights... THEY became the symbol of all that was wrong with 40K. And I got downright abusive about it from time to time because I couldn't trust my FRIENDS not to abuse the GK the way all the WAAC netlisters were.

But, in reality, I was no better than the WAAC Netlisters, because the reason I hated the GK was because I was afraid I couldn't beat them. 


It goes on to talk about his new found love for the Necrons.....

Shortly afterwards, I got a PM from the committee spokesperson, asking me to withdraw my involvement in the local league for the 'good of those still involved'. Among the reasons they mentioned for the request: me tabling four veteran players in a row (a feat even the resident Space Wolf player hasn't managed), my very fast play speed being too hard to keep up with and my list being 'too hard' apparently I was causing some people some serious upset. I replied asking why I would have to do it and received a more fervent message to resign in return. Apparently, my competitive attitude had received complaints to the committee and they had unanimously voted to send me the message, something that I was very surprised to read as I had thought that the people at the group were more accepting than that.

As an aside, almost everyone I play says I'm a great guy, gracious even in victory, apologetic even if the game badly for them. I was very shocked. Ultimately, if I didn't quit the league, I'd be 'No longer welcome' - something that I wasn't willing to be given the rare chances that I have to play outside of BWG.

So, I mailed one of the guys who also plays at BWG yet in a fashion a bit more akin to me (with a competitive nature), and showed him the situation. He said on the phone to me, that in protest, he'd drop out of the league along with me, causing it to be an overwhelmingly fluffybunny fest.

Then, on monday, the League Collapsed due to 'lack of player support'.

Needless to say, I laughed. I'll probably go back next week and be lauded as the destroyer of the league, but nevermind.

Its odd, I wanted a place to play so badly when I wasn't able to, but now that I have one, I don't know whether I genuinely want to continue playing 40k in a place that judges me so much by the merit I play competitively. Its one of the main reasons I've picked up another wargame - by playing with a different kind of toy, maybe they'll leave me alone and be willing to play me in a system that I'm a total newbie.

Oh well, back to Warmachine and Hordes where I don't stand a chance of being a netlisting douche as I barely know how to play the game. Eldar battle tanks by friday... I promise!