The Anti-Tournament?

Hello everybody!

Quick note, this post will be very picture heavy, I will be putting the majority of them after my write up, so scroll down to that if you just want to look at pictures.

Sooooo, this weekend I was at Warhammer World participating the first Horus Heresy Throne of Skulls "tournament". Now the quotation marks are there as in my eyes it wasn't really a tournament but I will get onto that later, suffice to say it was a weekend of gaming with all the other usual tropes associated with wargaming tournaments such as painting comps and sitting in Bugman's talking about how well/bad games went.

So here is where my confusion sets in, tournaments in my mind are something competitive, involving people playing with armies that are as powerful as possible in order to try and win the most games. My esteemed colleague at work argued this point with me, so let's look at the good ol' fashioned dictionary to shed light on the subject:

tournament

ˈtʊənəm(ə)nt/

noun

1.

(in a sport or game) a series of contests between a number of competitors, competing for an overall prize.

synonyms: competition, contest, championship, series, meeting, meet, event,match, trial, bout, fixture;

clash

"a golf tournament"

Damnit, ok so "technically" this definition doesn't help me too much in my argument, though it does mention competition and competing which certainly does!

competition

kɒmpɪˈtɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

- an event or contest in which people take part in order to establish superiority or supremacy in a particular area.
  
  plural noun: competitions
  
  "a beauty competition"
  
  synonyms: contest, tournament, match, game, round, heat, fixture, event, meet,encounter; More

Aha! I knew it was, competitions involve being better at something than someone else. For 99% of people reading this part, it won't make sense....let me elaborate.

Previously in tournaments the winner would be declared by whomever won the most games that weekend, with VPs (victory points) being the tie breaker if multiple people won the same number of games, simples. However there were many people who didn't like this method of tournaments as it encouraged WAAC gaming (Win At All Costs) and people weren't having fun anymore. Games Workshop's solution to this was to introduce a new method of determining a winner, which was to count the number of "favourite gamer" nominations a player got throughout the weekend with VPs again being used as a tie breaker.

What this means is that you don't have to win games to win the tournament, in fact, you can suck completely and actually do better than anyone else. For example, say little Timmy was going to his first tournament, hardly played Warhammer before and got annihilated every game and scored no points whatsoever. But Timmy was a good sport and had a laugh in every game, so each of his opponents decided that Timmy was their favourite game. In this instance, Timmy would win the whole tournament without actually winning anything. Apparently I am one of very few people who are finding a flaw in this logic.

I mean forgive me if I'm wrong here, but winning something should involve you doing well at something, where is the sense of achievement in that setup? Now people who know me are fully aware of how competitive I am, it's a problem, I understand this, I live my life regardless of this debilitating character flaw. But please don't take away from me one of the things I used to be pretty damn good at! Tournaments were the rare occasions that I could cut loose, take an army that people didn't like for the specific reason to show off how good I could make lists and run them. If people didn't like playing competitive people, they didn't have to attend the tournament! It was common sense (at least I thought it was) but apparently that isn't the case anymore.

Now don't mistake me for someone who had a miserable time at the weekend, grumbling to myself as I wallowed in self pity. I enjoyed myself and had a good time, got to play other gamers and share some funny and exciting moments with friends and fellow hobbyists. But it was NOT why I go to tournaments. I have for the past 15-16 years of gaming been taught to build armies that are designed to do well, you know, since that is the objective of playing any game (not to be confused with the point of a game, which is to have fun, but the objective of any game is to try and win, else it isn't a game anymore) now that is almost completely irrelevant at this stage and I have lost track of what it is I am supposed to do anymore. Am I supposed to make armies that deliberately lose? Smile and buy my opponent a drink so they vote for me? When did wargaming become a popularity contest over talent? I suck at this part as I am not popular, people don't like me when I play games I have a proper resting bitch face when I am thinking about a game.

Perhaps I am overthinking this (I often do) but it is something that will make me reconsider attending these events in the future as I am somewhat reluctant to participate in an event when I know there is literally no chance in winning anything. I don't mind slim chances, it gives me something to aspire to, but I know that I will almost never get over the hill of wanting to win. I haven't in 27 years of my life and I can't see myself changing that habit anytime soon. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong dictionary, Urban has the right idea:

asshole

someone being arrogant, rude, obnoxious, or just a total dickhead....

Sean is the biggest fucking asshole I've ever met in my life!

Anyway, I think I am done ranting now. If you read through all of that, what is wrong with you? Are you some kind of sadist who enjoys putting yourself through the words of a rambling madman? Go ahead and enjoy these pictures I took from the event. By the way I came 21st out of a little over 50 and got 1 favourite gamer vote, which I believe along with my friends in attendance was probably given to me as a sympathy vote.

Until next time, take care everybody!