The Horror: Obnoxious Opponents

Last week I wanted to quit this hobby whole hog because I played Fantasy with an obnoxious opponent* on a Friday evening. I soon regretted it.

Here's a few examples of my opponent's sins:

1. Bragging loudly to other gamers in the store about how I had not caused "one single wound" to his army.

2. Saying things like "So that's 11 more dead Gnoblars!" with a gleeful, taunting voice instead of just saying "11 wounds -- do you get a save?" with some sportsmanlike concern.

3. Forcing us to count out combat resolution when I was clearly down to double-ones. I kept saying, "Dude -- you won combat. I'm down to double ones. We don't have to do the dice counting thing." He replied: "But there's still Overkill to count!!!"

4. Not allowing me to concede the game at the end of turn 4 when I had only one unit left on the table. "It goes to turn 6," he said. He really really wanted to keep wailing on me (I think he was looking for a tabled game and bragging rights).

I should have known. I had heard this person say "I won my first game of Fantasy in 30 minutes!" and "I've only been playing Fantasy for three weeks. I've played six games and not lost a single one!" He has a great record? Terrific. But truly great gamers don't brag.

Look people -- if you are going to play any type of tabletop wargame, you have an obligation to your opponent: Provide entertainment for him/her for the entire game. She or he spent a lot of time and money on their models. They are spending a big chunk of their day with you (three hours for a 2250 Fantasy game). Be nice. Don't brag. Let your opponent concede. Offer advice. Be sympathetic.

Gil and I played against great opponents in our first game during the Doubles Tournament. I rolled horribly. Our Ogres ran and died and burned and cried. The whole time our opponents were gracious and kind and seemed to honestly feel bad. Later they said "Sure -- we wanted to win -- but not like that." The important thing is they were respectful and allowed us to laugh at ourselves. We had fun playing them even though they absolutely immolated us.

Anyway -- the moral of the story: Be nice and people will play with you. Be a jerk and you'll find yourself with fewer people to play.

'Nuff said.

*By the way, said this particular opponent is a fictional amalgam of the last few super-obnoxious people I have played against in the last month or two.

Fantasy

I miss Fantasy. I do I do.

And while I like War of the Ring, my gut tells me that the ASB crew is not going to be too stoked for it after the 1k tourney.

So um hmmmm.

Will you guys play Fantasy with me? I can't play on Tuesday night and really want to play. ALSO: I'm still trying to decide what army to start or how to engineer my orcs to be more reliable.

BUT MAINLY I WANT TO PLAY. So play with me.

Quandry

Quandry:

Jeff wants my Rohan stuff. I already promised it to Gil. But Jeff gave me at least half of it in the first place.

So what's the ethical thing to do?

Time for some boy stuff

Despite the fact that I love all this haircutting stuff at Gene Juarez Academy, about halfway through cropping a mannequin's hair the other day, I turned to my classmate and said: "Okay. I'm ready for some boy stuff now."

Don't get me wrong. I loves me some beauty school. Like Jeff (AKA Conan), I spend my days surrounded by beautiful women. There's even one I have my eye on. And I'm also feeling confident about my cutting skillz. But dang it all if I don't want to do some guy stuff.

A Wednesday evening of shenanigans at Conan's parents' Bond Villain-esque swimming pool helped (aided by the sexiness of a party store Bond girl in bikini). But I gotta find time to get to the Bunker, B.S. with the crew, roll some dice and eat some junk food. Then I can get back to cutting hair and flirting with the hot chick who likes Dragonforce and military history.

Enjoying the hobby all alone...

It's nearly noon and I have just rolled out of bed after reading the adventures of Ciaphas Cain for the last few hours.

Had a down day at beauty school yesterday. It would seem as though my Catachan-sized fists are too big for haircutting shears. Of course most of them are made for women. But after meeting with a shear specialist, it appears as though none will fit my massive thumbs. So I'm using razor-sharp professional shears (larger, but not by much). The result? My hands are nipped up (lost the top of a couple of knuckles). It feels as though I will never be able to d oit right. So yesterday and this morning I felt despondent. At least until I returned to the 41st Millenium.

After a few hours of disappearing into the universe of the Imperial Guard and a shallow, self-centered Commissar, I am cured of my depression. Over the last two weeks, I have rarely traveled to my Oasis of Perpetual Childhood, the Seattle Battle Bunker. But I realized there are many ways to escape into the Games Workshop hobby while nary breathing a word to my long-lost fellow hobbyists. Even with hands too traumatized to hobby, a fat, meaty, funny 40k novel can lift my spirits and help me see my way to another 11-hour day of cutting mannequin hair tomorrow.

And, though I seem miserable with this haircutting thing, I'm not. It's super creative and artistic. I'm having a ton of fun. And my fellow beauty schoolers are pleasant (and attractive) companions. Nonetheless, I am thankful to Games Workshop and it's kooky collection of childish distractions for lifting my spirits YET AGAIN.

Games Workshop, in the name of the Emperor, I salute you.

Ogre League

This is an idea I've had for a little while. Mini Ogre battles.

As you all know, I have a zillion Ogres. And I have never failed to have fun playing with them, even though they like to run away from things like skeletons, zombies and night goblins. But they are always fun. And when I (or we, in the case of Gil and I) win, it feels so good.

Anyhoo, I gots a lot of them. Most of them are even painted! So I thought about having a night every so often where we throw down with Ogres. Split 'em up into little 500-pt teams and duke it out. Have a ladder. Etc. Blah blah blah.

The metagame would be interesting. What combo of Ogres would do best? How fast would the games go? What if we threw in some other creatures against Ogres?

I know that there are already rules for Pit Fighter, which feature an Ogre character. But that game is a little different from what I'm envisioning here. I'm envisioning pure Ogres with a little more Warhammer Fantasy rules. Heck, we could even boost it up to a few more points over time.

Mostly, I think it would be fun to see how other players field and play with Ogre armies. And while there are people who don't like to see similar armies play against each other, in this case it makes sense. Ogres like to fight almost as much as Greenskins. So it would make perfect sense for them to battle each other.

Anyways, it all goes back to my idea of having fun fast games in short evenings (like between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.). Maybe it would start as simple as one Ogre versus another. Maybe Pit Fighter rules are the best?

Anyways, that's my idea of the day. Maybe it's too big? Maybe we should just stick to Pit Fighter?

Stop. Baby time.

As most of you know, I'm the father of a nine-month old baby, Kaliq.

His mother and I split up due to super unfortunate circumstances which I won't delve into here. She's been caring for him for the last nine months. However, she has just started nursing school. Full on nursing school. She's in school 40 hours a week and still finds a way to work 24 hours a week. Add homework on top of all that and she has very little time for baby Kaliq.

Enter Daddy Reynor. Up until now I've been spending two days a week with baby. Now he is over at my house almost every other night. His mom is so busy she can't even pick him up from his grandmother's house after she is done studying.

Personally, I love it. I love being able to spend quality time with my son. I also hope I am alleviating some of his mommy separation anxiety. Meanwhile, I'm my bit for the allure of all womanity by studying at Gene Juarez Academy. Unfortunately, all this good stuff means less time at the Battle Bunker and less time at Adult Swim.

So I'm narrowing down my projects (hence Sir Gil's inheritance of my Rohan WoTR army). And I'm doing a lot of hobbying at home during nap time. I'm also thinking about focusing on my Specialist Games projects a little more. Instead of lusting after a 200-man Empire army, maybe I'll make a colorful Marienberg Mordheim Warband? Instead of starting a super duper Imperial Guard army, maybe I'll get a command box of Catachans and make a core force for Necromunda. Heck, maybe I'll even focus on some of the nifty Warhammer Skirmish scenarios that the big GW unleashed a few years back (ancient history to some of you kiddies out there)

Oh yeah. And I may just go against the Aydult Suhwim grain and do some small force painting for the dreaded iHate (TM) Warhammer 40,000.

And then there are my ever-luvin' blue-eyed Ogres. (They never shoulda signed up for that trip inta space with Reed). I've got a few and could get a few more :D. They are minimum painting time to be sure. Read more later on.

In any case, time is tighter than ever. Yet my passion for the hobby is no less than it has been. It just means smaller doses and maybe less time chilling with all youse guys.

So I'll continue posting my brilliant ideas on my bloggy and hope that some of you kids out there would welcome the chance to play with me (Pit Fighter anyone?) I'll also try to seduce my GW virgin friends into said games.

A few guidelines I'm looking for in GW game funness:

- Games you can play in an hour or so. Blood Bowl definitely doesn't fit this category unless we go to the Chess clock style of play (Jason has one).
- Inquisitor. I think this game is actually designed to be played in one-hour chunks. The narrative, non-competitive aspect of it also gives me braingrins.
- Mordheim. This is the queen of quick-play games. And my dwarf warband is ready for some serious warpstone delving. True, one-off games of this fabulous mini-Fantasy game are not that exciting (campaigns are its heart).
- Lord of the Rings. Remember that Tabletop Strategy Game that everyone used to play before WoTR came out? You know the one you can play with a couple dozen models real fast-like? That could be fun, too.

Good thing we're all waaay into Blood Bowl at the moment. There's also talk of Necromunda. Brian is busting out some super duper Inquisitor terrain (and I'm recruiting RPG lovers to join the fray -- guys who never play GW games). So there are promises of smaller games ahead -- stuff I can squeeze into a short evening after school. Hopefully you guys will be willing to throw down for some of these games.