This could be a long post...

First a little background. I'm not new to the Realms, though I don't post that often, I know all of you by your witty commentary, so I was hoping to get some feedback, or just a good ear.
Back in the heyday of 1.0, I was a Warlord. Working with kommododrac, he and I had a fairly consistent time of it with a good base of players. Through a venue screw up and football season, I have not been a Warlord (Envoy) for some time, and this includes the advent of 2.0
Now, I'm back into the tornament scene, loving it, and playing some great games. But, here is where the problem comes in.
For casual play, I battle the same 2 people. One is my best friend and the other is a good friend from a while back as well.
The problem is not with the best bud, but the other guy. Here is a laundry list of issues I have with him.

1) He has a BILLION pieces and has no slowing of disposable income, but would rather buy a case of Lancers to get 2-3 figs than buy individually. Keep in mind that he owns the rest of Lancers already.
2) When we play, no matter how long in advance I tell him about the match, and I am specific as possible about proposed points, domains, etc... he is NEVER ready to play when I get there. AND it takes him FOREVER to build an army.
3) The guy has spent all the money in the world on figures from sets, LEs, promos, etc... but he can't build a decent army! And here is why: HE DOES NOT READ THE RULES!!! I have a lot of sympathy for people without an internet connection and cannot see the FAQs, so I can accept that. But he has a fast connection, but does not view the FAQs, the forums, or anything. Not only that, but this segways into my BIG problem:
4) He relies on ME to know EVERYTHING about the game. Not just the 2.0 stuff either. Real basics, like tokens, and damage and stuff. To top it off, I am still trying to learn everything, so when I remember a ruling, he arches his eyebrow and accuses me of keeping rules to myself. He also "disagrees" with the effect of some abilities. Dodge (too powerful and unrealistic for a rear arc, hehe) Life Drain (Makes no sense) So to him, a world of magically enfused Golems makes perfect sense, but he "disagrees" with a ranged vampirism! Grrrr. A perfect example of this is last night: The reckless ability: He is 100% deadlock sure that once YOUR apponent's fig is demoralized, you cannot continue the reckless (i.e. You can't kill a fig while using it.) Even though he relies on MY ruling soley, he argues with it tooth and nail. So when the Thunder Blow question came up about damage, I caved in and let him deliver 14 points of damage with Harrowblade in one turn. Too tired to argue.
5) This, more than anything, makes me want to never play with this guy again: Before a match starts, he proclaims "I don't know why I am playing, I'm going to lose anyway." or "I don't even know what I'm doing." Keep in mind, such comment are coming from a 36 yr old. And then, heaven forbit you get the first big hit in. Then he throws up his hands and says "It's over"

If you invest this much money into a game, know how to play it. Get better by understanding the rules and creating strategies by using those rules. I like the guy a lot as a friend, but we may have to put Mage Knight behind us because it's huring my enjoyment of a fine game.

Thanks for the open ears guys and girls. I needed to do that.

PS. kommododrac, YOU know this guy. He's the one who accused you (The Warlord) of cheating at the Dungeons marquee, despite the fact that you were not even competing. And you wonder WHY I haven't brought him to a tournament in a long time...

Boy and I thought the guys I played with were bad at times. I also play with 2 people casually, 1 I've known forever and a guy I've known for about 5 years. The one I 've known forever never shows up with an army either. The other one has the most smallest collection I've ever seen.

But on the good side, the unprepared one, usually can put something together relevately fast. And I'm trying to get the small collection guy to get some more figures. I even offer pieces reletavely cheap. Hopefully when Dark Riders comes out, I can help the small collection guy.

We usually do not have heated discussions about rules or SAs. We try to figure them out reasonably and if we cannot, we just put it to a vote.

My advice is to be grateful that you have people to play against. In my case, it's gotten to the point where there aren't enough people with similar schedules for me to even play MK. On the other hand, venting is very therapeutic.

:D

I feel sympathy for you McTreble. I have been at it almost as long as you, and have also done my time as a Warlord. Just like you, I've had to deal with friends who are all to ready to let me be the Warlord, but question almost every decision or tell me that rules are dumb so we shouldn't use them. You and I are about the same age (I read your profile) so this sort of thing SHOULDN'T be happening. People should be mature enough to deal with the game in the manner it is set up. I have found that if you bring the matter up casually in conversation, for example, when the person is actually behaving like this, and explain the problem in a logical, reasonable manner, it tends to make a difference. It doesn't ALWAYS make a difference, but more often than not. I find that people with that attitude problem only do it when they are allowed to delude themselves into thinking it ISN'T really a problem. Frequently, when an individual that is normally mature and easy going has these facts laid out before them, they are somewhat ashamed of their behaviour...as long as you don't get accusatory. It's a fine line, between having the discussion take a confrontational direction and staying neutral, but when I was in your position, I was willing to take the chance and it paid off.

Hope things get better.

Ned

A good friend of mine had a personal motto, "People Suck."

The first corillary to that concept was his other personal motto, "If you can't get along with me, you can't get along."

The only thing you can do is tell the guy the issues you have with him as a gaming buddy. Do you like the guy outside of gaming? If so, try to say how you like him but he has some annoying habits. That you want to play, but it is not as much fun as it should be.

At the same time, try to find some new play partners. We are working at getting some real time games going over AIM. We are trying to convert MK to a hex based system. Check out the MK on AIM thread on GD.

you have my sympathies
you should probly confront him or sumthing
man,to hear what you just said actually makes me mad at ur friend for wasting his cash

does he atleast lend u some figs for tourny play?

I know exactly what you are talking about. All the Mechwarrior players at my store, including the battlemaster have sometimes no idea of what is going on. Last week they were arguing with me, that decoy (aka. dodge in MK) cannot be ignored by armor piercing and that the ruling makes no sense at all. The ruling says, that armor piercing ignores all defense special abilities/equipment and decoy IS a defense special ability. Nobody wanted to believe me, not even the battlemaster. Then later in the same tourney, I played against someone who plays MW for over two years. He has no strategy at all, has never read the FAQ and acts like he knows everything better. You can argue with him every week about the same #### and hes not getting smarter at all. I couldnt trust my eyes when he moved his infantry in base contact with my Mech that was covered by my vehicles and infantry and all of his figures bases were overlapping. That is something you should know after playing your first game. The battlemaster even said one time, that when a mechs line of movement goes through infantry they all would take 1 click of damage. How broken would that be???????? Thank you for listening, that are only a FEW things.

Hehe. Reminds me of this pair of warlords who used to play where I did. This was near the start of the game, and I was new to the tournament scene. I wasn't winning a lot, but a bunch of for-fun-battles with another warlord taught me the ins and outs of the rules, and the little strategems that proved valueable experience. I started build strong armies, posting on this forum, and winning.

Anyway, these two people come in with their armies and join our 300pt tournament. One plays some swarm thing, and the other plays this jumbled mass of plastic pieces. I played a Krech/Snurga orc army with a formation of Launchers with Snurga, and a formation of Berserkers with Krech. I trounced both of them. They got really angry and left then, spatting how I moved my pieces during the game, or had loaded dice or whatever. Mind you I was 15.

A few weeks latter, this group of three other warlords come in to play a 200pt tournament. The first thing they do is ask the warlord in charge who Sam is, and he points over at me and I wave. They look at me perplexed, and then take seats at the tables to start the tournament. The first guy played a Amazon Drac with a formation of Shaman. I was playing Zombie Baron with 3 Stalking Skeletons and Marrow. we go at it, my Baron constantly threatening the Drac, and my Skeletons swooping foreward. In the end my opponent admitted he hadn't played aggressive enough, and that I was pretty dang good at covering my own tail with my pieces, and using the ruler almost compulsively.

After the tournament (which I did not win) I started talking to the three guys. Apparently, those other two warlords I trounced had been smearing my name in the dirt, I was the "Old guy picking on all the little kids at the venue" and what have you. When they came to the tournament, they expected some fat, old, greasy white guy, not some other kid who new the rules, and new what he was doing. We shoock hands and went our seperate ways after that.

Quite frankly, I think this is a pretty funny turn of events and all, and I'm glad I had a place to share the experience:D.

I feel your pain Treble. This one guy that I had to play against always would remeasure EVERY single range and whatnot. I almost gave up range, just because he'd measure every single range of my khasmin snipers, as if they were somehow going to reveal their true nature and turn into storm golems and hammer his pieces. He'd also obsess over dice rolls, and played cheese a lot. Every time I played him, I'd either have to deal with the Amazon Draconum, or Magus Annendu butted up against the EGM. thankfully he didn't know ranged combat formation rules, so I would usually use the Red Duchess and two khasmin snipers.

Also, he'd usually be late in starting, to the point that the warlord would sometimes set a seperate timer on our game because he would dissappear for a few minutes. And his turns were so slow that he'd monopolize about 60% of the game time until the warlord told us time was running out, then he tries to rush the other player through their turn even though his turns remain the same length.

Hey McTreble sounds like someone I play games with.

He doesn't take the time to learn the rules. This guy doesn't have the money or the Internet access. He did buy a case of Minions once, but hasn't bought anything since. The best thing is half the time he can't remember what abilities his figures have. With this in mind you can imagine all the problems I've had explaining his abilities plus all the newer figures abilities, sub factions, Relics.

I forgot to mention this guy has never bought a starter set. So he doesn't have any rules, which I have extra rules and FAQ.

I don't really play any Venues, so these are all friendly games.

[ag] :golem: [ag] :golem: [ag]

I'd start making up rules, if he won't take the time to read the rules make some stuff up so he looses a few times. Then maybe he'll start thinking about hey maybe that isn't right and start reading the rules.

I can see the big problem is that he is basically a big Timmy, relying on big pieces to cover his lack of forethought and strategy. If you can cheerfully explain to him how to build an army and build his confidence up, then maybe he'll start to come around. His big problem is he has too many choices. Too many figs all at once. Maybe some of the posted articles about army building would help.

It seems your friend is a bit lazy and you can probably give him some grief on he speed and quality of army building. Coming relatively prepared is one thing our group is never been big on, building armies is part of the fun. Get him to see that part and you both will have more fun in the long run.


As the one my friends defer to to clear up misunderstanding in the rules I understand, yet I rather appreciate my friends accepting my interpretation ( based on mutual reading, understanding including the realms, faq's and even wk forum) for any rule in dispute. Share this info with him, but give him copies.

Good luck and have fun,

Bob

Thanks guys. It's nice to hear some advice, but its even nicer to know that I am not alone in this. Its people like my friend that make it embarassing to admit to playing these games to non gamers. They fuel the stigma that is so hard to shake

Dude, your'e not alone. We had one guy at our venue whom I had to explain the new FAQ to every time he showed up, then got all pissed off about it. Or, I'd state something from the most current FAQ and I was accused of not having the most up to date FAQ and that his FAQ from months previous was correct. That, and any change to the game he'd coplain about to the point of quitting. It's a shame too, 'cause he was a good player.

What you can do is run off the FAQs and the SAC. Yeah, it sucks having to worry about if people who don't have all the rules and updates. If it is a tournament situation you don't need to let them in. If they don't know the rules then they should't be able to play. But, if it is casual play then everyone should be able to play. Maybe a few demos are in order. Go over the basics and FAQ, that is if the guy will show up. As far as the guy having deep pockets, nothing you can do about that. The new rules help address it by leveling the playing field with the domain cards. Hope people here can encourage you a little to rough it out.

Hmmm...I agree with most of what has been said here, you need to talk to your friend and get him to read those rules!

Currently, I only play in tourneys, my circle of friends does not share my addiction for gaming (closest any of them come to gaming is a few of them play Diablo). So sundays at Legends are about it for me as far as MK goes. If your looking for a game outside of tourneys, I'm always up for some MK as long as my schedule permits it.