# So I have this friend...



## Sigmatus (Nov 22, 2009)

...and a problem that goes along with him. I love 40k. I love every part of it, from painting to playing, I'm just a total junkie. He's part of my circle of friends who plays, and he's pretty damn good with his Eldar.

Here's the problem. He states all the time that he plays first to win, then to have fun. To me, that seems a little stupid. "Well, if I can't win with my little plastic space-mans then I can't just have fun hanging out!" is what it sounds like to me. Anyhow, this BS attitude of his finally came to a head tonight.

We had never played Apocalypse before and decided to play a 5k point on each side game. I was really excited, and ran my chaos army against his eldar. The game started, and I had alot of my stuff in strategic reserve. Through a cruel twist of fate and bad dice rolling, his first two turns of shooting annihilated most everything I had on the table, and everything was fine. Then my stuff came out of strategic reserve, and several of my scary deepstriking units got lucky scatter rolls and got right in his face, turning the game around. Instantly he quits.

He claims its no big deal because he concedes the victory, but he was acting all pissed off. To me its not about winning. We spent an hour setting up, and three hours letting him ream me with his long ranged weapons, and then he just quits when I finally get to do something other than roll for my armor saves. I literally got to do nothing but remove models the whole game.

Do any of you guys have a friend like this? None of my other friends in my gaming circle want to confront him about it, but I think I've had it. Thoughts?


----------



## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Nicely tell him you think he is being a dick.

Give him a chance to not be a dick.

If dickery continues then refuse to play him.


----------



## Blind (Jan 24, 2010)

Varakir said:


> Nicely tell him you think he is being a dick.
> 
> Give him a chance to not be a dick.
> 
> If dickery continues then refuse to play him.


The man speaks the truth, or if you still want to be friends, bring a knife and after swift action ensues he won't even be able to be a dick or at least use one.


----------



## johnnymajic (Jan 2, 2009)

just like my wrestling coach used to say, " I don't cut bad wrestlers as long as they have a good attitude, I cut dicks"


----------



## HOBO (Dec 7, 2007)

Varakir said:


> Nicely tell him you think he is being a dick.
> 
> Give him a chance to not be a dick.
> 
> If dickery continues then refuse to play him.


Yea, this pretty much nails it...sit him down (all of you if necesary), get to the crux of the matter, get it sorted and go from there...saying nothing will only make it worse.


----------



## Blind (Jan 24, 2010)

That and or get him to bet on a match so he can't quit or automatically lose whatever it is, and so you both can hate each other, but you can hate him with your pile of winnings. lol 
No but seriously try to work it out with this guy and if he doesn't want to meet half way then adios amigo.


----------



## Cannoness Katelyn (Dec 30, 2009)

sounds like you need to sort him out a little =/ I had a person I used to game with who was exactly the same we sat him down talked to him and he stopped playing with us no loss if you ask me but hell I hope things work out a little better for you


----------



## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Break his models, that's what I would do. He can't quit the game if he never had an army to start playing with to begin with.

At the risk of starting a flame war, consensus is that eldar players have this sort of attitude. All the eldar players at my club do the same thing, when they lose they stop playing, one got his army, played 10 games and lost most, then sold his army, it's an eldar player thing man, bad sports across all, eldar are the worst, not to say all are bad though.


----------



## Khorothis (May 12, 2009)

Varakir said:


> Nicely tell him you think he is being a dick.
> 
> Give him a chance to not be a dick.
> 
> If dickery continues then refuse to play him.


Yup, this is what I'd do. 

The guys I play with tend to have balls and brains, so there isn't a problem.  And if someone does behave like a wuss I'll just quote Richard: "Walk it off, you pussy."


----------



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

TBH I can be a little like that at times, but no where near the level of assholery as that guy- several times playing in the last month I have conceded the game but asked for an immediate rematch... this wasnt to avoid getting my arse kicked (in both cases every dice I rolled was pretty much the worse case scenario) and it was obvious it was game well and truly over. The real reason for the reset was time- we could have finished off the games and then had about an hour left (not enough time to do much), or reset a whole new game.

Getting annoyed with losing is a bit OTT when its a game of plastic soldiers... I dislike losing, but thats the whole point- you want to avoid losing so when you do it just pushes yourself to improve tactics/army lists so losing is a good thing. I was on about a 6 month winnins streak at one point and there is certainly nothing more dull then walking over yet another opponent without being challenged and having to actually think.
The one thing that does wind my up is my own bad luck (but not my opponent's good luck, though they may sound the same). For example, playing WFB I have just lured my opponent into making a charge they shouldnt have done... I flee with my unit, triggering my trap, allowing several other units to counter charge the enemy in my next turn, then manage to totally fluff all my attacks, flee and get charged down (playing ogres you set yourself up for this sort of thing a lot- no SCR means 1 round of bad luck can crush you).


----------



## Arkanor (Jan 1, 2010)

I can maybe understand quitting after the turning point has passed and you're definitely going to lose, but it's all about the attitude, which is pretty easy to figure out. I've had some friends do it to me who were obviously a little annoyed they were losing. In a tourney it's completely fair game; your loss but I digress (I don't play tourneys.)

That said I'm pretty sure I've never quit a game, it takes a bunch of time to set up and once said turning point is passed it usually goes a lot faster anyway, it doesn't take much time to just finish a game.


----------



## piemaster (Oct 9, 2009)

Its a tough one. I think you all should confront him. If he is your friend he'll be ok about it. If it turns out that he's just a dick it might be better off if he goes away. No fun to be had playing against a dick all the time is there? Hope you manage to sort it out.


----------



## bakoren (Nov 16, 2009)

I had a friend who constantly tried to give up the second his HQ (some SM unique) dies. But over time we started to show him why he is constantly losing, and why when he does win, he is a gigantic dick. So then we helped him make his list a little more damaging, and now he loves playing, even when he is down to nothing but his DreadNaught.


----------



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

There is something cathartic about being able to just throw away the rest of your army in a brave last stand- once you know you've lost there isnt much else you can do all the thought/worry/stress goes and it can actually be more fun the winning, especially if something goes screwy and the dice gods have a laugh and somehow your last grot manages to take out 3 TH/SS terminators


----------



## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

truth is you are always going to come accross those who only play to win, those who play to have fun and those who play because they want to belong to something. It makes no difference what we think of his attitude or what the OP thinks of his friends attitude because its unlikely he will change just because it pisses you off, Its quite likely your friend thinks your been stupid for not taking the game and winning more seriously,he may think because you dont your not mature enough?

At the end of the day you won, even if he conceded you still won, if i were you i would keep reminding of the time you trashed him so bad he gave in like a big girl.


----------



## DarKKKKK (Feb 22, 2008)

I have a friend that is pretty close to what yours is. When some major twist of fate happens in the game, mainly based upon the dice rolls and something goes majorly wrong for him, he quits. Most of the time he does physically quit the game, he mentally does and has a pissy attitude the rest of the game. 

Just gotta let him know how he actually is from your POV, so he knows how much of a dick he is. If he doesnt change his ways, lessen the amount of playing time you have with him and check in with your circle of friends if anything has changed.


----------



## Sytus (Aug 27, 2009)

NagashKhemmler said:


> Break his models, that's what I would do. He can't quit the game if he never had an army to start playing with to begin with.
> 
> At the risk of starting a flame war, consensus is that eldar players have this sort of attitude. All the eldar players at my club do the same thing, when they lose they stop playing, one got his army, played 10 games and lost most, then sold his army, it's an eldar player thing man, bad sports across all, eldar are the worst, not to say all are bad though.


My friend(who is an eldar player) is an unwitting powergamer. I don't now how, I've only ever seen his army beaten once, and never by me.


----------



## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

That was total Dickery on his part. That's from a purely devoted Eldar player. We can play cheese, but death is like our 2nd favorite hobby... ish...

In Apoc there is a moral obligation to continue though the entire game, even if you are losing. It is a waste of both of your times to set up for hours and then just throw it all away like that. At 5k there was bound to still be a way to turn things back around anyway. If not then I would blame bad generaling, something to be punished by actually experiencing the loss.

That "no chance, last charge" technique can be fun too. Even if there is no reasonable way, sometimes things just work out.

Remember, Dicks love to get played with. Just don't play with them or don't let him be a cocky dick anymore, just put him down with some talk. Dicks hate talk. Don't slap or hit a dick though, that's going too far and he just might like it.


----------



## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Really at the end of the day, you just have to refuse to play him if he's going to behave in such a way. The reality is, many games that seem set to be a certain defeat end up a victory, if a person quits easily they'll miss out on many potential victories. Some armies will always be 'losing' in the early game and win in the later turns due to how they function, I've seen many people who were winning, end up losing because they quit like little girls.


----------



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah, the funniest thing I saw were 2 people playing nids vs IG... the game only lasted 2 turns before they had to go, then the IG player claimed he had won because he had killed more models. So what, an IG player can outshoot a purely combat force... odd that 
Personally I thought it was funniest because in my opinion the nids were almost guarenteed to win- they hadnt taken that many casualities and were almost in a position to crash into the enemy lines.


----------



## Sigmatus (Nov 22, 2009)

Thanks for all the posts guys.

I guess I just don't understand why this game pisses so many people off. I look forward to it all week, even if I get kicked in the janglers. My win/loss is about 50/50 anyway, so I look at game time as a chance to get away from law school for a few hours, have a couple, maybe three, maybe eleven beers and just relax. But getting hacked off seems to be a recurring thing with alot of people.

I'm genuinely curious. Is it because of the time/money commitment? It's not like my friend is an asshole in the rest of his life, and he's not overly competitive otherwise.

As a side note, I do plan on kicking the shit out of him in the next game for wasting four hours of my life with the last Apoc game. But that's a thirst for vengeance, not overly-competitive asshattery.


----------



## bishop5 (Jan 28, 2008)

Sigmatus said:


> As a side note, I do plan on kicking the shit out of him in the next game for wasting four hours of my life with the last Apoc game. But that's a thirst for vengeance, not overly-competitive asshattery.


The giant spider that lives in my brain says this is a good idea.

Just be honest and tell him you don't want to play against him if he's going to pull the same shit again; it's not fair on you and 40K should be fun for everyone playing.


----------



## Argitist (Apr 29, 2008)

Is it not funny you find it insulting that he conceded? The majority of the game is preparation, even while playing your preparing to destroy... however weird that sounds, and if he didn't have much on the table to destroy things he has nothing to prepare, what fun is that for him. I'm not sure how far your fist was up his ass when he conceded, but when you were getting shafted you had reserves to hope on, he didn't have anything else to hope on. Did you really expect for the initial smaller portion of your army to not get annihilated when it was so out numbered? 

Honestly, I play for fun, but it's not fun to play half ass'd, especially with Eldar. Because all of their units are so specialized you have to be precise with your tactics, when you'r playing half ass'd you'r likely to miss your targets and have your units face of against what their weak against rather then strong, and then they utterly fail, and failing isn't fun. Walking into failure isn't fun, which is why Eldar always seem to play competitive.

I'd complain about a friend who was dragging me through failure, so he can have his fun.


----------



## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

I play for fun. The truth is that i ave very few opportunities to play although with the move back to aus that is going to change. In the few games i have played while i was in png i had one opponent. I would actively help him with tactics and handicap myself so that we would have good close fought battles. Some of the best ones were the ones i lost. I showed him where to ds his oblits to take out my stormsword and things like that. It was about the fun and not who was going to win. Varakir has it right, he is acting like a dick. You play for fun and if it is not going to be fun then look for your fun somewhere else. Best of luck with it.


----------



## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

Tim/Steve said:


> then the IG player claimed he had won because he had killed more models. So what, an IG player can outshoot a purely combat force... odd that


isn't that basically the whole principle behind kill points anyway.

and your friend sounds like every gamer I have ever bumped into in a GW, so I know far too well how it feels


----------



## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Argitist said:


> Is it not funny you find it insulting that he conceded? The majority of the game is preparation, even while playing your preparing to destroy... however weird that sounds, and if he didn't have much on the table to destroy things he has nothing to prepare, what fun is that for him. I'm not sure how far your fist was up his ass when he conceded, but when you were getting shafted you had reserves to hope on, he didn't have anything else to hope on. Did you really expect for the initial smaller portion of your army to not get annihilated when it was so out numbered?
> 
> Honestly, I play for fun, but it's not fun to play half ass'd, especially with Eldar. Because all of their units are so specialized you have to be precise with your tactics, when you'r playing half ass'd you'r likely to miss your targets and have your units face of against what their weak against rather then strong, and then they utterly fail, and failing isn't fun. Walking into failure isn't fun, which is why Eldar always seem to play competitive.
> 
> I'd complain about a friend who was dragging me through failure, so he can have his fun.


It seems I was right in regard to the behaviour of many eldar players. They can't handle losing and seem to have no concept of sportsmanship. You don't just give up as soon as you are losing, just because you start losing doesn't mean you just concede and quit, what about the fun of your opponent? What if the opponent quits when they're getting hammered, where is the fun in the game then when everyone just quits when they're losing? This is why people hate playing against Eldar players, they quit when they're losing, they're horrible sports and to them the game seems to be all about winning or losing.

You succeeded in proving a point about the majority of eldar players, by yourself admitting that you would quit were you getting hammered.


----------



## Blind (Jan 24, 2010)

Yeah I can see where you are coming from Argitist about the bad match ups and pointlessness of fighting once your plan has gone down the drain but I think there should be a common courtesy when playing, I realize the game can drag on but at least let your opponent have some kicks in winning as long as hes not a dick about it. Everyone knows what its like to win and obviously they love it so try and let the other guy have some fun and they will most likely return the favor later on. When you go to play you commit the time as is so the extra couple turns or however long it may be won't kill you, if you look at it in a fun way its all just for the fun of the game so its all good. 
Play for the fun and you might win on the way, play for the win and no fun comes your way.


----------



## Sigmatus (Nov 22, 2009)

Argitist said:


> Is it not funny you find it insulting that he conceded? The majority of the game is preparation, even while playing your preparing to destroy... however weird that sounds, and if he didn't have much on the table to destroy things he has nothing to prepare, what fun is that for him. I'm not sure how far your fist was up his ass when he conceded, but when you were getting shafted you had reserves to hope on, he didn't have anything else to hope on. Did you really expect for the initial smaller portion of your army to not get annihilated when it was so out numbered?
> 
> Honestly, I play for fun, but it's not fun to play half ass'd, especially with Eldar. Because all of their units are so specialized you have to be precise with your tactics, when you'r playing half ass'd you'r likely to miss your targets and have your units face of against what their weak against rather then strong, and then they utterly fail, and failing isn't fun. Walking into failure isn't fun, which is why Eldar always seem to play competitive.
> 
> I'd complain about a friend who was dragging me through failure, so he can have his fun.


That's just it though, he hadn't actually lost anything yet. My reserves opened up, and my deepstriking went well. It was at the very start of my movement phase that he quit. And it wasn't one of those "Wow, guess you beat me. Good game dude." I think his actual quote was "Dammit. I'm not gonna watch my dark reapers get hit by a f*cking bloodthirster. Whatever, I quit."

He still had two phoenix lords and eldrad in reserve. :shok:


----------



## Blind (Jan 24, 2010)

Strange, well not sure why he was such a dick about it if he could at least do some serious damage before losing or just turn it around. Maybe hes not very good at switching up his strategy or something without what ever he had last or was about to lose. Either way I don't think we should dwell on how much of a dick he was rather than how it can potentially be corrected, otherwise your just going to boil in your anger and not want to solve the problem, just get revenge.


----------



## Kale Hellas (Aug 26, 2009)

gamers like that really suck, when i verse my cousins in wfb i always let them have twice as many points as me because its fun to try and win back ground in games so that guys just being a dick


----------



## Argitist (Apr 29, 2008)

Sigmatus said:


> That's just it though, he hadn't actually lost anything yet. My reserves opened up, and my deepstriking went well. It was at the very start of my movement phase that he quit. And it wasn't one of those "Wow, guess you beat me. Good game dude." I think his actual quote was "Dammit. I'm not gonna watch my dark reapers get hit by a f*cking bloodthirster. Whatever, I quit."
> 
> He still had two phoenix lords and eldrad in reserve. :shok:


Yeah, in that case I definitely understand your point. I think I understand your friends point too though. Sometimes with Eldar you want to play a game and just kinda take it easy and relax, but then as you play you realize how hard that screws your army; that you can't really accomplish much of anything unless you put forth 100% of your focus, and it's a downer. 

I'm starting a CSM army now  I guess I agree with what you guys say about Eldar. I mean, I love'em, but they take so much dedication in order to function at all it gets stressful.


----------



## XxDreMisterxX (Dec 23, 2009)

Eldar are fun no matter how they function!  they may be weak yes, but guile and cunning wins the game.


----------



## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Hey, yet another thread where people take an isolated example at start ragging on Eldar players! Hurrah! Because we all know that Eldar players are whiney childish and unsportsman-like!

Well here's an idea, how about you stop taking your 1-2 examples and claiming for the whole world to hear that it represents all players of a certain army? How would you like it if I said "All 40k players are excessively neurotic about measurements and template placements, because I know this one guy..."? I'd get a million and one people flaming me for making a sweeping generalisation with no basis in fact.

But apparently it's ok to make the same generalisations about Eldar players, because... well actually I don't know. Why is it ok to make the same generalisations about Eldar players? Why is it ok to assume that we're all bad sports and can't take losing?

As for your specific example; Your friend is being an immature idiot. I would (at the time) have started arguing with him about how totally inconsiderate he was being and if he didn't acknowledge that he was out of line then I just wouldn't play him again until he swore to behave properly.

Regarding Eldar in general: You cannot win if you make mistakes. With a lot of other armies (Nids, Marines, IG) you have a bit of flexibility, and shooting your lascannons before your bolters or something doesn't matter too much. If you guess wrongly about being in assault range then sometimes you can deal with it through luck, or change your plans to accommodate it. You can't do that with Eldar. You have to be precise in the order you move, shoot, and assault. You slip up or forget something just once and it can turn a solid win into a direct loss. You don't have the manpower or the armour to deal with bad situations.

This is why, if you want to win (and most people do) you have to be very precise and controlled in your playstyle. Some people are unable to think clearly while maintaining their normal level of banter/table-talk and so become more "competitive". Once you've had a bit of practice at this though, it gets easier. This is just how the army plays, and has nothing to do with the personality of the person playing. Plenty of people change significantly when they are playing a game with the intention of winning, you see it all the time at clubs and tourneys.

That said, there is of course a basic level of civility that everyone should adhere to, such as not conceding on turn 1. If you don't follow basic gaming etiquette, you're a bell-end regardless of what army you play. :laugh:

I believe in playing to win, because if you don't care about the outcome, why are you playing the game? It's disrespectful to your opponent and a waste of both of your time. However I also firmly believe that you can have fun while losing, and strive to make the game enjoyable and social for everyone concerned.


----------



## Sir Whittaker (Jun 25, 2009)

Your friend is a cock, tell him not to be.


----------



## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

Bell-end? Wow! I learn a new word every day!


----------



## Phrazer (Oct 14, 2008)

I just hope you are not dwelling to much on the negatives here mate, you said yourself that this guy is sh*t-hot with his Eldar, and you utterly defeated him not only on the battlefield but mentally as well, to the point he couldnt even offer up any resistance at all. Thats a total victory in my book. It is a shame you didnt get to do to him what he had done to you earlier however. Im interested to know were you playing 1v1 or were there any others there, in other words did anyone else see this and comment on it at all? It would be interesting to gauge the general consensus in your friendship group when things like this happen.



Sethis said:


> That said, there is of course a basic level of civility that everyone should adhere to, such as not conceding on turn 1. If you don't follow basic gaming etiquette, you're a bell-end regardless of what army you play. :laugh:


LOL, wonderful use of the under-used term "bell-end". Gold Star!! :good:


----------



## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

NagashKhemmler said:


> Break his models, that's what I would do. He can't quit the game if he never had an army to start playing with to begin with.
> 
> At the risk of starting a flame war, consensus is that eldar players have this sort of attitude. All the eldar players at my club do the same thing, when they lose they stop playing, one got his army, played 10 games and lost most, then sold his army, it's an eldar player thing man, bad sports across all, eldar are the worst, not to say all are bad though.


You seem to have made a typo on your profile, you've accidentally put a 2 in front of the 5. Just FYI.

Aramoro


----------



## Classs (Jan 18, 2009)

As an Eldar player I have to say I was looking forward to pitting Eldrad (that was all that was left of my army) against about 1800pts of IG that was surounding him.

Your friend needs to learn that losing is part of the game. Prehaps have a strong word with him next time he tries to unreasonbly concede.


----------



## bakoren (Nov 16, 2009)

The best part of losing is watching that one gaunt, I mean unit, survive 4 turns of barrage fire. And on the final turn have him attack a squad of oblits and actually damage them.


----------



## Inquisitor Varrius (Jul 3, 2008)

I'm a big fan of 'Last Stand' type scenarios. If you can convince your friend to play defense for one, it'll take the pressure off him to win, since he's going to die anyway. Just a thought.

Bakoren: Or the single grot who manages to kill a commisar after a full 5 rounds of cc. :biggrin: Those 'lucky grunt' moments are always priceless.


----------



## flankman (Jan 26, 2009)

one time vs orks with my nids(4th ed) on turn 4 i was down to 5 genestealers and 1 melee warrior vs 4 lootas and 15 boys.....i somehow won (cover saves ftw)


----------

