Been on the fence about playing Warhammer competitively? We have 3 Reasons Why Tournaments are better now. Come see why everything you think you know about tournaments is outdated.
Recently I had the pleasure of attending Kingdom Con in San Diego. There, I played in my first Warhammer 40k 1v1 GT in just over 6 years, Broadside Bash. This was a fairly new experience for me as until this year I haven’t been interested in competing in the tournament format for 40k. This is what I learned, almost every negative mentality I have been hearing and nausea for the past 6 years, is completely outdated. The tournament bogeyman is dead and buried, and we need to stop propagating the negative image of 40k competition. Let me explain why.
So, you might be thinking, “Well this is one tournament, isolated incident.” To that, I say that this has been a subject on my mind for a few years now, and I have been going to as many tournaments as possible since the beginning of 2017. Not only to get into the tournament scene but to find out if these big scary tournaments are the real reason why so many people get the feel-bads when playing 40k. Ranging from small local events, all the way up to the big tournaments like Adepticon, I have noticed many things that dispell the nasty rumors about tournaments.
I’m going to touch on just a few, but if you have other tournament myths you want to bust, let me know.
First, WAAC, or Win At All Costs. Probably the most used pejorative term used when discussing tournaments. This needs to be redefined. And I mean redefined because it is almost never true about the people it’s directed at. WAAC players, in a tournament setting, is not a negative thing. Why? Because the point of competition is to win! There is nothing wrong with attending a tournament knowing you probably won’t get 1st place. I do this all the time, purely as a learning tool, to get better at the game. Winning at all costs is not a negative thing. The people who win tournaments play to win, and the reason people come out on top is that they do everything they can to do so. Research, preparation, playtesting, brainstorming, discussing, learning, the list goes on and on. You win because you pay the costs.
The main reason this term needs to be redefined is because people use it as a synonym for cheating. Cheating is not winning at all costs, it is cheating. You want to call someone out for cheating, then call a spade a spade, and call them a cheater.
Don’t align the people who put in the mental and physical time and energy to better their tactics and strategy, with people who cheat. There is an old saying that applies to this from the athletic side of competition. “There is a huge difference between, playing to win, and playing not to lose.” This is what separates the top tables at a tournament from the rest of the competition.
Another thing that people seem to get wrong, is list meta, or tournament meta. This seems to be one of the bigger reasons I have seen and been told for not attending tournaments, or maligning them. Here’s the thing, those scary tournament lists everyone talks about? Not actually that scary. Most of them are downright tame. This is because competent tournament players, build their list to the format, and mission types. For example, I’ll tell you about the strongest list I played against at Broadside Bash. Sisters of Battle, with nothing but infantry, and dedicated transports.
What?! Yeah, below standard Sisters of Battle with dedicated transports. Lists are tailored for the tournament format and mission types. Players at a local game shop can make lists way scarier, built to table you turn one and just break your soul. But in a tournament where destroying units is only a third of the way to get points, they don’t do well. So it’s with strong confidence that I can tell you that tournaments really aren’t scary, and you could probably do well with pretty simple stuff. Don’t knock it till you try it.
Last, I’ll touch on the overall mentality of the average tournament goer. To have a good time. Yep, that’s it. Everyone there is attending and competing to have a good time. Of course, we all want to win, anyone who plays a game or sport or whatever against another player wants to win. Some people care more, or less, about winning or losing. But everyone wants to win. The only difference between casual players and tournament players is that we like competition in our games because competition is fun.
So yeah, if you don’t want competition, don’t play in tournaments.
But being negative against tournament goers because they like something you don’t is a pretty bad mentality to have. In any aspect of life, this is true. This is also a point I would say, don’t knock it till you try it. I speak from personal experience with this.
I didn’t want to get into tournaments until this last year, because I wasn’t seeking that competition in 40k. But when I started going to tournaments, I realized that it was a blast, and I wished I had started going ages ago. Before you get hot under the collar about tournaments, give it a try, or try going back if you haven’t been in a few years. This is really a big point I want to make because I remember the state of the game years ago when tournament play was a bit of a slog.
Think of it like this, if you have never tasted an apple, and you tell someone apples are disgusting, then you are telling a lie. Because you don’t know how apples taste, you can’t say whether or not they taste good or bad. So, if you have never been to a tournament, you don’t know with any certainty other than rumor, if you would enjoy it or not. Or if any of those rumors have any validity.
Maybe this has helped dispel some myths or changed your mind. If not, then I probably can’t say anything that will, so I’ll wish you the best. Maybe you have some other tournaments misnomers that I didn’t discuss, feel free to say so. Either way, it’s a great time to be a 40k player, I think we can all agree on that.
About the Author: Wyatt Turk
