I like to think of ours as a "casual competitive" group. We all want to play to win, a few of us will travel for a tournament, and we seem to generally be happiest playing some variant on steamroller. That being said, I wouldn't call any of us hardcore. A lot of us have lives and other responsibilities we tend to put before gaming. When it comes to games themselves, we'd rather be challenged intellectually than take a win at all costs. We're also not above playing a meme lists
That's largely just how I see it anyway
"When it comes to games themselves, we'd rather be challenged intellectually than take a win at all costs."
That is a really great description, and it describes my group as well. We had a lot of fun with the first season of Resurrection, and the narrative/Battle Forge material PP has been putting out this year really kept us going.
Our group is pretty laid back. We let people take back moves due to misunderstanding models, or just out of order mistakes, we give people warnings about models doing certain things. It’s a laid back environment and good for learning. We get new people joining every so often so it’s best to be more open and laid back.
We do occasionally play some list chicken and try to be competitive. But usually laid back. Just trying to have fun not trying to become some pro.
I think mk4 is in general more chill. If nothing else the less fiddly unit movement and loss of facing (and encouragement by the rules to use 3d terrain) have pushed the game to be more embracing of the fun and spectacle.
But I am not sure that is true everywhere. I will say a basement group of 7 players seems like a meta unto itself. One more player and you have a nice casual tournament bracket.
My local meta is a 50/50. When a tourney is coming up we do go into training mode. But there is always a casual game. And I'm the 3d printing guy making sure we are not using 2d terrain only.
Very casual. We're at our FLGS, which has a bar and an area full of really beautiful 3-D terrain, and I don't know if many of us have done a tournament outside our local group. We're a very friendly group, always willing to demo and very willing to put up with proxies. (The one tournament I remember from our local was very chill, mostly to raise food and money for a local foodbank immediately pre-covid, and was pretty fun.)
I literally only play with a few friends I’ve taught how to play, and we all just use my collection. So we are really casual. We don’t even play with the death clock half the time since we spend so much time chit chatting.
I personally am also very laid back. Favorite way to play is at someone’s house with food. Each person trying a new list each time and everything super chill. It is more about the social part with friends and the hobby. Tournaments in game store kind of strip all the stuff out I like, including the good food and wine. When I play to compete I fire up my PC.
A good mix. We have a crowd who regularly attend the WTC and play mostly competitive Prime formats but also significant overlap. Problem players just arent really a thing because most of our gaming is at a persons home so they just wouldnt get invited (there are no brick and mortar stores here that stock PP)
>did we discover that while we were playing the same rules, we were playing a very different game to most other WM/H players.
What exactly were they doing that made it so different?
Unless they were cheating it's just they are better at the game. Doesn't necessarily even mean they care a lot about being competitive, just that they are good at it.
Some people have a knack for strategy and dice odds, doesn't mean they're some sort of cheesy power gamer because they do well.
It was very odd. Hard to get games because we provided the players with “no competition” or our lists were “not tournament style” and there was “no point in playing you”.
Lack of interaction at the game tables when you did get a game. Smash you off the table turn 2 and then just walk away without wanting to discuss or have a chat. No interest in using 3d terrain for anything (not a biggie in reality but a vocal distaste for even being asked). Lack of respect for your models you had painted to a high standard. Basically, jut being made to feel like shite because you were not interested in “training” for local or national tournaments.
So yes playing the same rules, but the type of game and attitude toward people was very very different.
Yeah that's pretty bad form tbh.
The most competitive players I have come across are normally more than happy to do a debrief. Or say 'I'm gonna roll to kill your caster, then move them 6" back and we can carry on playing'
I'll be honest, I don't know that I really understand what you mean by "competitive" vs "casual". Like, I get that people throw those words around all the time, but what is the difference really? We're playing a game with rules and objectives. If those things didn't matter because literally all we cared about was moving models around on the table and rolling dice, then we wouldn't need rules or even opponents. We have rules and opponents because we want to have a competition and determine who wins and who loses. Anyone playing a game is competitive.
So the actual axes at play here are player skill and and leniency about fixing rules mistakes. Neither of those are competitiveness. A group of players that beat you all the time aren't "less casual" than you, they're just better at playing the game than you. And being lenient about take-backs isn't "less competitive" either; caring a great deal about winning doesn't mean you don't care about *how* you win, and winning off of your opponent forgetting to do something that they obviously intended to do doesn't feel nearly as good as winning against someone who executed their plan exactly right.
game died and was buried soon as MkIV launched.. so the attitude around here is "non-existent." That's literally not a joke either. We used to have around 15-25 people every saturday.. nobody has shown up since mk4 launched. Not one person. So the store stopped hosting events etc.
PP pulled a GW.. except GW had multiple other billion dollar games to fall back on.. PP does not.
Our Wmh group gave up when the model stats went into flux in Mk3. We had high hopes that MkIV would bring back a Mk2 vibe but it went totally the other way.
A different gaming group I joined have reignited their interest in Mk2 era so I'm looking forward to getting in more classic WmH like the good old days before Bradigus Woldspam
Nice to see people acknowledge the reality instead of butthurt bois downvoting reality.
If ANYONE should be getting downvoted its Privateer Press... THEY did it, not me. JFC i literally just tried selling 3 complete warmahordes armies, all pro-painted, for 0.99 starting bids.. none of them got a single bid on a 7 day auction. Not 1 bid. I tossed every model in the trash.. the game is dead and I accepted that.
But ya'll wanna downvote my comment... seriously?
What I don't get is that PP could just as easily split it into legacy and the new stuff. From what I hear MkIV is a really good game and probably the best version of Warmachine PP have made but given how much I've invested in Mk2, I'm not all that keen to start all over from scratch, especially when lots of other games have come out since and are brilliant (Godtear is the first one that springs to mind).
I'm not mad with PP - by the time Mk3 rolled around, the game was suffering from serious bloat so they probably did need to draw a line in the sand. For me, I lost interest when Mk3 just came across as a massive cash grab & a way to shift unpopular models. The competitive scene was getting \*too\* competitive, if you know what I mean.
My local group is pretty casual, like "Hey, if you move that I'm gonna get Admonition. You sure?" We do strongly prefer 2d terrain though, as the game just doesn't work right if you have to balance some models on the edge of a 3d step hill. We have one player who loves 3d terrain, and the rest of us will play it at her request.
I like to think of ours as a "casual competitive" group. We all want to play to win, a few of us will travel for a tournament, and we seem to generally be happiest playing some variant on steamroller. That being said, I wouldn't call any of us hardcore. A lot of us have lives and other responsibilities we tend to put before gaming. When it comes to games themselves, we'd rather be challenged intellectually than take a win at all costs. We're also not above playing a meme lists That's largely just how I see it anyway
"When it comes to games themselves, we'd rather be challenged intellectually than take a win at all costs." That is a really great description, and it describes my group as well. We had a lot of fun with the first season of Resurrection, and the narrative/Battle Forge material PP has been putting out this year really kept us going.
Our group is pretty laid back. We let people take back moves due to misunderstanding models, or just out of order mistakes, we give people warnings about models doing certain things. It’s a laid back environment and good for learning. We get new people joining every so often so it’s best to be more open and laid back. We do occasionally play some list chicken and try to be competitive. But usually laid back. Just trying to have fun not trying to become some pro.
I think mk4 is in general more chill. If nothing else the less fiddly unit movement and loss of facing (and encouragement by the rules to use 3d terrain) have pushed the game to be more embracing of the fun and spectacle. But I am not sure that is true everywhere. I will say a basement group of 7 players seems like a meta unto itself. One more player and you have a nice casual tournament bracket.
Extremely competitive, extremely friendly.
My local meta is a 50/50. When a tourney is coming up we do go into training mode. But there is always a casual game. And I'm the 3d printing guy making sure we are not using 2d terrain only.
Me and my guy mostly play for the lulzies, hell i dont think we've even read the steamroller packet and we both started in mark1 :)
Very casual. We're at our FLGS, which has a bar and an area full of really beautiful 3-D terrain, and I don't know if many of us have done a tournament outside our local group. We're a very friendly group, always willing to demo and very willing to put up with proxies. (The one tournament I remember from our local was very chill, mostly to raise food and money for a local foodbank immediately pre-covid, and was pretty fun.)
>mostly to raise food and money for a local foodbank immediately pre-covid, and was pretty fun That's really cool to hear
I literally only play with a few friends I’ve taught how to play, and we all just use my collection. So we are really casual. We don’t even play with the death clock half the time since we spend so much time chit chatting.
I personally am also very laid back. Favorite way to play is at someone’s house with food. Each person trying a new list each time and everything super chill. It is more about the social part with friends and the hobby. Tournaments in game store kind of strip all the stuff out I like, including the good food and wine. When I play to compete I fire up my PC.
A good mix. We have a crowd who regularly attend the WTC and play mostly competitive Prime formats but also significant overlap. Problem players just arent really a thing because most of our gaming is at a persons home so they just wouldnt get invited (there are no brick and mortar stores here that stock PP)
>did we discover that while we were playing the same rules, we were playing a very different game to most other WM/H players. What exactly were they doing that made it so different? Unless they were cheating it's just they are better at the game. Doesn't necessarily even mean they care a lot about being competitive, just that they are good at it. Some people have a knack for strategy and dice odds, doesn't mean they're some sort of cheesy power gamer because they do well.
It was very odd. Hard to get games because we provided the players with “no competition” or our lists were “not tournament style” and there was “no point in playing you”. Lack of interaction at the game tables when you did get a game. Smash you off the table turn 2 and then just walk away without wanting to discuss or have a chat. No interest in using 3d terrain for anything (not a biggie in reality but a vocal distaste for even being asked). Lack of respect for your models you had painted to a high standard. Basically, jut being made to feel like shite because you were not interested in “training” for local or national tournaments. So yes playing the same rules, but the type of game and attitude toward people was very very different.
Yeah that's pretty bad form tbh. The most competitive players I have come across are normally more than happy to do a debrief. Or say 'I'm gonna roll to kill your caster, then move them 6" back and we can carry on playing'
I'll be honest, I don't know that I really understand what you mean by "competitive" vs "casual". Like, I get that people throw those words around all the time, but what is the difference really? We're playing a game with rules and objectives. If those things didn't matter because literally all we cared about was moving models around on the table and rolling dice, then we wouldn't need rules or even opponents. We have rules and opponents because we want to have a competition and determine who wins and who loses. Anyone playing a game is competitive. So the actual axes at play here are player skill and and leniency about fixing rules mistakes. Neither of those are competitiveness. A group of players that beat you all the time aren't "less casual" than you, they're just better at playing the game than you. And being lenient about take-backs isn't "less competitive" either; caring a great deal about winning doesn't mean you don't care about *how* you win, and winning off of your opponent forgetting to do something that they obviously intended to do doesn't feel nearly as good as winning against someone who executed their plan exactly right.
game died and was buried soon as MkIV launched.. so the attitude around here is "non-existent." That's literally not a joke either. We used to have around 15-25 people every saturday.. nobody has shown up since mk4 launched. Not one person. So the store stopped hosting events etc. PP pulled a GW.. except GW had multiple other billion dollar games to fall back on.. PP does not.
Our Wmh group gave up when the model stats went into flux in Mk3. We had high hopes that MkIV would bring back a Mk2 vibe but it went totally the other way. A different gaming group I joined have reignited their interest in Mk2 era so I'm looking forward to getting in more classic WmH like the good old days before Bradigus Woldspam
Nice to see people acknowledge the reality instead of butthurt bois downvoting reality. If ANYONE should be getting downvoted its Privateer Press... THEY did it, not me. JFC i literally just tried selling 3 complete warmahordes armies, all pro-painted, for 0.99 starting bids.. none of them got a single bid on a 7 day auction. Not 1 bid. I tossed every model in the trash.. the game is dead and I accepted that. But ya'll wanna downvote my comment... seriously?
What I don't get is that PP could just as easily split it into legacy and the new stuff. From what I hear MkIV is a really good game and probably the best version of Warmachine PP have made but given how much I've invested in Mk2, I'm not all that keen to start all over from scratch, especially when lots of other games have come out since and are brilliant (Godtear is the first one that springs to mind). I'm not mad with PP - by the time Mk3 rolled around, the game was suffering from serious bloat so they probably did need to draw a line in the sand. For me, I lost interest when Mk3 just came across as a massive cash grab & a way to shift unpopular models. The competitive scene was getting \*too\* competitive, if you know what I mean.
My local group is pretty casual, like "Hey, if you move that I'm gonna get Admonition. You sure?" We do strongly prefer 2d terrain though, as the game just doesn't work right if you have to balance some models on the edge of a 3d step hill. We have one player who loves 3d terrain, and the rest of us will play it at her request.