A thought on what it means to Play to Win

 What is Playing to Win?

This is a curious concept to me. I was informed that I was at an event more to win than anything else. 

What is the point of playing a game but to win? Think on it, if you went to an event that cost you money, wanted to play as many games as possible, and are currently 4 wins and 1 loss out of 6 games? Would you not try to play game 6 to win?

Now, this is important to me. Vitally important to how I play the game I love. I can not STAND Gotcha's. 

What is a Gotcha you ask? Well, it is informing a player after they have pretty much finished their movement you have a 6" Heroic Intervention. It is not informing your opponent you have a way to give a model a +9" move and it can still charge first turn. 

These are things that happened to me over that weekend. They were situations that changed how I felt about the game immensely. 

What about me? Do I do things like that? Maybe but I honestly do not think I do things. I let my opponent know about what abilities I have, I let them know I am a HEAVY shooting army, one they are likely not expecting. I explain my Flamers have a 12" move can Advance d6" and still flame 12" at d6+3 shots per model. 

Chaos Knights even with Abaddon the Despoiler and Psychic Powers do not really have gotcha's.

Now, can you have a Gotcha not related to your codex? Absolutely. Let us take an example of my last game. Todd has his The Silent King model. This thing is MASSIVE (see below picture). At the event we had to employ our Imagination in some regards. One of these was a 5" tall invisible wall. Well my War Dogs as my biggest models are 4" to 4.5" tall from base to Diabolus Stubber.

The Silent King is... more than 5". So if he is IN the terrain, I would be able to draw Line of Sight to him on most angles. This is obviously NOT what Todd wants. He does not want me being able to see and shoot his most expensive model and I do not blame him. However, if I wanted to, I could of said nothing and just surprised him with a question like "How tall is The Silent King?" when I started my turn. 

That is however not how I want to win or play the game. It feels dirty to play that way and I refuse to play that way if I see it.

The Silent King is that imposing model in the Top Right

I may not have great social skills but I do my best to not use my understanding of the rules to out play my opponent. 

Let us look at my game 4. It was against Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines. We had an argument about how Fight First vs Fight First works. His Obliterator made his charge into my War Dog and made his attacks. He dropped it to 5 wounds remaining and then we each had Abaddon the Despoiler in Combat with each other. Mine had 4 wounds remaining his had 6 wounds remaining. 

Now, in the Fight Phase Defender has Priority of who fights first with only a few exceptions. One is when there are Charging units. The Attacker will get to fight with his Charging units. If there is a Fight First in the Defender's engaged units the Charging Player will get one charging unit to fight before the Defender's Fight First kicks in. 

Well the opponent argued that was incorrect and we were unable to get a judge in a timely manner and we were burning close to the end of time so I allowed it. On my following turn with his Abaddon down to 3 and mine down to 1 we kept that understanding though my opponent tried to tell me that we did it my way. At which point I recounted the argument, how I made the attempt to get a judge, and then when unable played it his way. 

Do I feel bad about that? Not really. The opponent put the situation in place, whether from his understanding of the rules, or even in the slim possibility a way to gain an advantage we played it the way he said it should be played. I feel no remorse for gaining an advantage when I tried to give him the advantage. 

Do these things mean that I am just there to win events? There to stomp every single person down and rule as victor on the piles of their scattered armies? HAHAHAHAHAHA, no. 

I play an army that is under 50% win rate. It is still in that SWEET spot of a within 5% of that 50% mark but it is by FAR not the top army. To add to that, I play a sub-faction that is used almost a 3rd less than the most used sub-faction. 

Courtesy of https://www.stat-check.com/the-meta

What does this mean though? This means my army is a skill based army. One that takes an understanding of how it operates, how it deals with threats, and how it can respond in a situation in order to pull out a victory. It is smart, cagey plays where I limit my opponents ability to either get into close combat (which is where I do not want to be) or limit how I can be shot at while baiting my opponent in so I can retaliate. 

My army is one where my skill with it, my understanding of the rules, and my understanding of my opponent factors heavily in my success and downfall. This is also true on who I play. Certain armies will just RUIN me. Tau for instance will decimate me if I am not EXCEEDINGLY careful.

So, what does it mean then to "Play to Win"? I honestly have no idea. To me this is a game where we pit our knowledge, understanding, skill, and our little painted models against each other. There can only be one victor in a game but that does not mean we have to play in a way to create Gotcha's. 

That is all for my ramble today. I am still waiting on the list of what I need to focus on so I will think of a new topic to ramble on tomorrow! 

Have a great day and remember, the war against the Grey is winnable!