Let’s face it, most Gaming groups are odd. Men (usually) of sexual maturity (technically) choosing to spend time pushing plastic soldiers around with a ruler should telegraph that truism if it hasn’t occurred to you before.
Well mine’s ‘odder,’ than most. I’m really lucky in that a couple of the members are God tier painters (multi Best Army award winners, featured in Whit Dwarf etc) several are very generous with their time and resources when it comes to different systems (so there’s always a game available) and some are just cool dudes. There’s also another theme that runs through my gaming group and here’s a story to put it into context;
We used to meet at our local GW store (we now have a more formal independent club). Every Wednesday I would trek down there from work with my 2,000 points of Beastmen to play one of four of five friends. Every Wednesday (force majeure notwithstanding). Every Wednesday. For five years. Must have been great, right? Competitive, back and forth, some great game stories over those five years surely? No. In five years, I won four games. Yes, you read that right, four. I just got used to it. Every week I’d turn up and get face stomped – whatever the system, whoever the opponent.
But there was something that put it all into perspective. Three times a year I’d go to WHW for the fantasy ToS singles or doubles events. 5 games over two days. Despite winning four games in five years at the club, I would be really disappointed not to win three games at a WHW event. I was the last player awarded best Beastmen (so all time champ in my eyes) and at the doubles a very good friend of mine (that I’ve lost touch with actually, I must sort that out) and I would regular place top five (we came within spitting distance of winning it twice).
I used to find this disparity weird (I’m not very bright) before it dawned on me; I was training at an uber tough dojo. You can apply all the sporting cliches to it that you want: Summer races are won in winter training. Easy training hard battles, hard training easy battles. The more I practice the luckier I get. All of those apply.
As well as the painters, the cool dudes and the multi system guys my club has a hardcore, balls to the wall, competitive faction (they’re also cool dudes, that’s not mutually exclusive). The razor’s edge of this faction is a good friend of mine and serial winner called Tom. He’s won more games of 40K and 30K than anyone I know, I’m willing to bet he’s won more games than anyone you know. He was third at the GT with a non-Custodes army. He’s played every ToS event for the last two years and not lost a single game. His whipping boy at our club regularly wins tournaments.
I’ll be honest, I don’t play him often; I feel like I’m wasting his time and I try and get my turns done quick so he can keep stomping me. But I do like listening to him and what he thinks about the game.
As he’s got older (he’s many years younger than me) Tom has mellowed a bit and if you asked him now he’d tell you he plays for the narrative (it’s bullshit but as long as he believes it that’s what counts)! He’s now a much more thoughtful gamer (I still wouldn’t beat him in a thousand games) so someone I’d really like to get the thoughts of.
How you play the game itself is very subjective but my view is that winning starts with the list (that also feels like the easiest thing to write about). So here, for your reading pleasure, is Tom’s Unabomber manifesto on writing lists for 30K. The first part is here.