Competitive Game Night 101: Saturdays During the Summer @ EGC

So with the weather breaking and travel not being such a pain in the ass, its time to throw together a game night some of us have talked about, but never really put into play. That's right 'Competitive Game Night', the brow beaten, worn out, red headed step twin of 'Casual Game Night'. Now I don't want to get together and us just piddle around acting like we are going to be competitive, I want lay down a game plan with structure to help us move down an actual path of competitiveness. Each week I will not only have the night planned based on the format below, but I will also try to drum up four or five discussion questions that will hopefully spur some deeper conversations between you and your opponent about competitive play and tournaments in general.

Where: Eastside Games
When: Saturdays starting 04/05/14 @ ~6:30ish till whenever.

**I will try to keep the forum here updated each week with a date and game time like we had on the Prime Gen boards. It seemed to work out there pretty well.

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The Format for 'Competitive Game Night 101:

• All games will be played with either 'Death Clock' or 'Timer' rules. (This will be based on upcoming local or national events)(These will be available during the designated game times)
  
• Every game played that day will use the same S2014 scenario. (This will change week to week)
  
  
  
  • The reason for this is three fold. One, it will help people familiarize themselves with each scenario. Second, it will allow some discussion among us all about what we like or don't like about the scenario, and things one player notices that maybe some others don't. (types of casters who benefit or suffer from the scenario, pitfalls, hard to score on objectives or zones and ways around them, etc.) Third, you should try to win each game differently. Over the course of the evening try to win the same scenario with both a assassination and on control points, either with the same list or your second. 
    
  
  
  
• 50 point games will be the standard; Unless there is an upcoming event everyone wants to practice for.
  
• 2 Caster, Character Restricted, No Specialist; Please bring two printed lists (from a printer or handwritten, just as if you were going to a tournament). You can play the same list all night, but bring two so your opponent has to make a decision.
  
• Newer tournament players need to understand the process of picking a caster without all the pressure of event day.
  
• This will allow people to learn and discuss how to choose what list is right for them base on opponent and scenario.
  
• Be prepared with your lists before you get there. Try to make them competitive. If you bring a list full of garbage models that you threw together in five minutes you really aren't helping your opponent learn how to deal with a tough army like they normally would during an event.
  

What this night is for:

• Its for the newer competitive players to get more comfortable with the format of typical event day.
  
• Its for the newer players to learn from the veteran players about game tempo, clock management, prioritizing, etc.
  
• Its for the veteran players to improve or streamline their game tempo, army movements, orders of activation.
  
• Its for the veteran players to help build into the community so we can not only grow in that regard, but also so we grow as players and tacticians. We have some awesome players here with a lot of knowledge locked in their heads, now all we need now is to find a way to pry it out.
  
• For everyone to learn. If you choose the wrong list play the game to win. It is inevitable that you will have a bad match-up, but play the game out and then discuss with your opponent afterwards how to change up your play style or that of your caster to help you get a foot hold when things aren't going your way.
  

What this night is not for:

• It is not for the veteran players to curb-stomp noobs.
  
• It is not for you to pad your win/loss record (that garbage stat is only for 40K players and is always inflated by about ~50%, at least in the win column)
  
• It is not for you to just play a game and leave. (If your short on time and can only play one game, that is fine, but take at least ten minutes to discuss the in's and out's of the game you just played with your opponent)(Things they did right, things they did wrong, better ways to deploy or positioning, what worried you about their army, or what worried them about yours, etc.)
  
• Its not for you to disrespect peoples time. We are all busy and have limited amounts of time please be courteous of others. (see below for the details)
  
• Its not for you to try out brand new lists. Do this during a casual game night or at a friends house. Tweak it, streamline it, and then bring it to a Saturday night and give your opponent a rough way to go. It will help both of you learn more than if you just fucked around and wasted their time.
  
• It is not for the newer players to avoid. Warmachine is a competitive game by nature, that is the way it was built and is currently structured. If you ever wanted to learn, here is your opportunity. Some of the "veteran" players may not know much, but at this point they probably know more than you, and even that little bit of knowledge can help ease the adrenalin when you are going for that caster kill. (let me tell you from experience, it sucks forgetting one little activation or detail and now your dicks in the wind and you can't finish the job because you got carried away)
  
• This is not for players who are brand new to the game of Warmachine and Hordes. Now I am not basing this on a certain frame of time, but a level of knowledge. You should have a decent grasp of about 90% of the rules. If you don't know exactly the steps of a certain power attack that is fine, but at least know when you can or can not use one. If all you have read is the quick start rules and have never owned or even read the rule book all the way through then please do yourself a favor and hit up one of the wonderful casual nights around the area.
  

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This is long enough as it is so I wont go on much more. I want to end saying, this style of play is not for everyone and that is perfectly OK. Hell I may only get one or two other people and that is OK also, but from what I have seen is it is the style for most of us and I think there are people out there who want to learn and get better in an environment where they can absorb the information given and do so without anxiety.

THE NOT SO SMALL PRINT:
 If you are not a competitive player or don't plan on being one, do us all a favor and stay the fuck home. If you plan on being cantankerous, are not wanting to help others or want to argue over petty things, again stay the fuck home. If all you want to do is complain about how a faction, army, caster, or person is broken (/eyes Lou and Dan   ), well you know the rest, please stay at the house and let us enjoy our evening with out you.

While this night is geared towards the competitive, please try to be a good ambassador to the game. We really need to work towards building our community and attracting more people. Come down to enjoy yourself, learn to play more consistently, and also help with community building when the 40K players stop by to ask question, because they all deep down hate 6th edition and are looking for a way out, but wont admit it. Also you can use the tears they cry to wet your towel to wipe your cards off after a game.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer them.

Jesus. I'll be there, but I refuse to yell at people for not being sufficiently analytical in the post-game chat ;p

I'll be there to beat the pants off Affliction in an effort to get him to violate his own rules.

The the first rule of "competitive game night" is, never ta.......nevermind. 
I will be there as often as possible. Is there any possibility of this sometimes occurring in "THE CAVE"?  I mean, you know, the pedal is always to the metal in THE CAVE!!!!

Are we all going to get tattoos of hairy triangles, with a big red X thru them, with caption on top reading "competitive game night", and caption on bottom reading, "no pussies allowed!!!!"?  I think that would be awesome, but I am probably alone

Jealous of this idea! I want competitive gamers down here!

Very unlikely I make it. This Saturday I'll be there as it is tabletop day though

Crawling Chaos wrote:I'll be there to beat the pants off Affliction in an effort to get him to violate his own rules.

Look Nancy, please stop embarrassing yourself...

Slowerlitespeed wrote:Is there any possibility of this sometimes occurring in "THE CAVE"?

While we will still be frequenting "THE CAVE", that place is more a mix of Fight Club and gladiatorial combat. I think we can get a vibe of competitive play there, but Saturdays are going to be more of work on your tempo and efficiency during games. Cave dwelling I see as more a hardcore list analysis session. We have way to much fun there and Warmachine is srz biznes.

Slowerlitespeed wrote:Are we all going to get tattoos of hairy triangles, with a big red X thru them, with caption on top reading "competitive game night", and caption on bottom reading, "no pussies allowed!!!!"?

I am down, never knew what to get for my first tattoo. That sounds much better than the dolphin or unicorn I was contemplating. I have a buddy at work named Dirty Larry who can probably hook us up.

I am glad someone else is down with the tattoo idea.  I was beginning to think I was alone on an island.

This sounds like fun! I'm going to proxy up a bunch of stuff!

Also, can I count on borrowing someone's dice?

Well, as it turns out, I will be attending this Saturday. YAAAAAYY!!  Got a pass from the wife. Now someone else better be there for this

I know Brian said he will be there, myself, and now you.

Think the crowd for this is going to be limited to a small percentage of our gaming group.

I will have handouts to help with dialog between players before, during, and after play. This is a test run, I will get feedback from this one and then tweak the next one to make it better.

Thanks to the guys that came out for this.

I know for me it was successful and allowed me to work through some minor issues that I had. Mostly minor mistakes, but after noting them down I can now go back before my next game and focus on not making those same mistakes again.

Any feedback from the guys that were there would be appreciated. I know there are a couple things that I can improve and change. I will try to have them implemented for the next one.

Next 'Competitive Game Night': 04/19/14

As soon as I get more than two minutes to sit down and type, I will give some feedback. Overall, this was very successful

So, let me start by thanking Chad for putting this idea together.  This felt like a little mini tournament.  We treated every game like a tournament game, from start to finish.  Presenting our lists to our opponents at the start of the game, and playing on the deathclock, were great practices.  Playing games in this manner allowed me to get in three games in four hours, which is awesome.  

I think the questionnaires are appropriately written for competitive play.  The only thing that may need to be removed is the question that asks if you had a plan going into the game.  I would hope, as a competitive player, you would have some sort of game plan before the game started.  I would leave the bit about weather or not the game plan was followed, however.  

I would add something more to the sheet about list building.  As you guys probably already know, I like to be very progressive in list building.  I feel this is a very important aspect of competitive play.  Things about your lists NEED to be different than the norm.  This way of thinking can separate you from the rest of the competition.  I am not talking about playing your shittiest caster because no one will see it coming, although it could work, but rather maximizing spot potential for every one of your points.  I would like to see a section about this in the game analysis section of the handout.  
I am very excited to see competitive game nights continue.  Let's do this as a team.  We have a REALLY good play group, and I am not even joking.  There is no such thing as a perfect player, we all miss things from time to time, and can be helped by listening to the opinions of others.  Two brains working on something are better than one.  Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect!!

I promise that I will be up for one of these, holiday weekend this week though.

Please let me know if there are particular match-ups that people want to play against as well.

Also, three games in four hours sounds GREAT.